BluRay? more like… AwesomeRay

i wrote this last night, set to publish this morning. just an FYI.

confession: until tonight, we did not own a BluRay player. not out of any sort of “whatever, new tech!” mindset; it was more out of, “well, maybe I’ll get my hands on a PS3″ sort of thing.

so happens, that my fam-in-law upgraded their theater system recently. included was a new BR 3D player, so they had no use for their old BR player. ta-da! we now have one. and of course, I’ve been trying to pick it apart all night. and I can’t. this… wow. i had an idea, but i had no idea.

first off: i am in love with our AppleTV. i love iTunes. i love renting and watching HD stuff from iTunes via our AppleTV. but i’m not dumb enough to think there’s not some loss in the compression that occurs to make it a deliverable, consumable format & size. par for the course. but it looks great. tonight, after i got the new player hooked up, i popped in a BR copy of The Dark Knight I had laying around (don’t ask). lots of dark (ha) and shadows and action, a perfect place to push this thing to its limits.

BLOWN. AWAY. seriously. mainly because of this one small scene…

yes, that’s a terrible photo, but it’s more for illustrative purpose so you know what i’m talking about. Alfred has just entered the closed off Wayne Enterprises secret hiding space for Bruce/Batman and is coming down the elevator. there’s a great reveal, as he moves from compete darkness into light. on a regular DVD, you’d start to see blockiness as he transitions from that dark into the light-filled room. same thing (but maybe less so) if I were watching an HD digital version. here? it just looks like film grain. beautiful, amazing, lovely film grain. am i looking through Blu-colored glasses right now? possibly. maybe a few months in i’ll start to pick at things a bit more (no, i can’t help it), but for now, i am just astonished at the image quality.

if there’s one caveat at this point, it is our TV. we purchased it back in… 2007? maximum output is 720p, and it’s a Westinghouse. it’s older. it can’t do 1080p (though it’ll do 1080i [read: useless]). it’s… smallish (37″, i think?). but it has served us incredibly well and at this point, unless Apple releases something mind-blowing as the rumor mills have been indicating, we’ll have it a while longer. there are some issues with image quality (slight smearing in high-action [mostly when watching sports on TV], blacks not as black as possible, etc.) that i know relate directly to the TV that i’m fine with. but whatever.

so anyway. i’m a convert now, i knew i would be. it’s just kinda’ funny how long it took me to get here. so i’m curious: i have some films/TV shows in mind i’m curious about renting or purchasing, but what movies do you think i should check out/rent/must-own in BluRay?