Industry professionals chime in with preferred demo material

by Darren Murph, posted Jul 22nd 2008 at 8:55AM

Okay, so there are a few titles out there on Blu-ray, DVD and / or CD that simply shine. Those are undoubtedly the ones you bring out when looking to wow onlookers who are checking out your setup for the first time. But wouldn't you like to know which titles industry professionals use to seal deals and land clients? Thanks to a feature over at CE Pro, now you can. Bigwigs from SpeakerCraft, Richard Gray's Power Company and the Imaging Science Foundation were questioned about their favorite source material, and just to name a few, Cars, Casino Royale, The Fifth Element (the remastered version, obviously), Vertical Limit and Contact (DVD) made the cut. Hit up the read link for the full list.

Filed under: Industry, Misc, Blu-ray, Other formats

Tags: blu-ray, calibration, cd, demo, demonstration, dvd, industry

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Elliott @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:08AM

I find it odd that Planet Earth isn't on the list. It's my personal choice for demo'ing blu-ray.

Neutral

DrXym @ Jul 22nd 2008 11:41AM

Some of the aerial shots of hundreds of thousands of birds in flight would blow your mind if you didn't know what HD could do.

Neutral

James @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:32AM

It's on most normal peoples list for both BD and HD DVD.

Neutral

Jyncus @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:34AM

Indeed.
Planet Earth and 300 are a couple of my favorites for showing on BR. It's nice to see Cars receive that recognition as well though; first time I saw Cars and Ratatouille.. Wow!

Neutral

aplen22 @ Jul 22nd 2008 9:56AM

"...Contact (DVD)..."

Come on Warner, when are we gonna get this in Blu? This should have been out already in high def! Contact is screaming for the high def treatment, can we have DTS master too, pretty please?

Neutral

squiggleslash @ Jul 22nd 2008 10:30AM

Assuming the quality is identical between Blu-ray and HD DVD, I'd choose (and do choose, 'cos I demo my HD DVD set up regularly):

- Planet Earth - particularly the opening scene of the first episode.
- 2001. Absolutely unbelievable, made for HD in many ways.
- Blade Runner. I was given the Bourne Ultimatum as my first HD DVD, which honestly isn't a great demonstration of HD (too much movement.) My second HD DVD set, ordered a couple of days later was BR. Everyone's jaw dropped when they saw it opening. The Dolby TrueHD sound, even converted to DTS, is also jaw-dropping.

Those three wow everyone I show them to.

Neutral

kcmurphy88 @ Jul 22nd 2008 11:06AM

There's always the Laura Croft vs robot scene in Tomb Raider. Pretty much certain to keep male buyers appreciating the fine points of HD.

Neutral

Eric @ Jul 22nd 2008 11:12AM

Bottom of the list?

My vote would go for Total Recall!

Neutral

kcmurphy88 @ Jul 22nd 2008 11:16AM

Yeah, the DVD looked better.

Neutral

skim @ Jul 22nd 2008 11:34AM

My favorite demo pieces are:

Live Free or Die Hard
Batman Begins
Ratatouille
Meet the Robinsons
I, Robot
Apocalypto
Cast Away
Celine Dion Live at Las Vegas
Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds Live at Radio City Music Hall
Cars
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

I can almost guarantee that any of these titles kick butt for demo material! :)

Neutral

squiggleslash @ Jul 23rd 2008 9:09AM

Live Free and Die Hard looks pretty awesome on DVD too, surprisingly enough. When I showed 2001, Planet Earth, and Blade Runner to my family, they could very obviously see how HD helped. When I showed them LFaDH they thought it /was/ in HD, until I bemoaned the fact it would never come out as an HD DVD. We could "see" the HD in, for example, The Bourne Ultimatum, but only for the "ariel view of a city" type shots. The HD DVD's advantages had to do with the HDi extras and the sound, not the 1080p picture.

Worth pointing out that anything with a lot of movement tends to be a poor showcase for HD formats. If you can't see the detail, you don't get the HD. People will ooh and aah anyway, but largely because you're demoing the entire set-up, not just the HD player. This is why HDTV displays at stores tend to have still pictures of Southern European cities playing all the time. Lots of colour, contrast, and very little movement so the detail can stand out.

Show them Planet Earth. Show them 2001.

Neutral

Truth Teller @ Jul 22nd 2008 12:10PM

I saw Cars yesterday in a shop picking up some new kit, I have to admit it looked really great, very impressive
(especially on the new 60" Kuro I saw it demo'd on).

The problem is tho that far too much high def isn't
(especially on the 32" - 50" sets most will ever view it on).

That's not to say it's completely wasted or irrelevant just that far too many films either underwhelm due to a poor transfer or the lighting and/or director's intent mute the potential 'effect'.

There's no point going out to evangelise to people about how amazing high def is when they will quickly learn for themselves that the actual truth of the matter is that more than a few movies in high def aren't.

People don't like being lied to.

I expect the high def 'effect' is always going to be greater & more obvious in the USA (with a laughable 480 line standard def TV that's not so difficult)
but in Europe and the rest of the non-NTSC world (where we have 576 lines, a full 20% more) it's not hard to see why SD upscaled is, for many, 'good enough'......

......which is, of course, why they'll continue to have a hard time convincing the mass-market the Blu-ray premium is 'worth it'.

Highly Ranked

DEEZNUTZ @ Jul 22nd 2008 2:31PM

QUOTE: "That's not to say it's completely wasted or irrelevant just that far too many films either underwhelm due to a poor transfer or the lighting and/or director's intent mute the potential 'effect'.

There's no point going out to evangelise to people about how amazing high def is when they will quickly learn for themselves that the actual truth of the matter is that more than a few movies in high def aren't.

People don't like being lied to."

THIS is a post I completely agree with you on TT. Your POV, sans "kiddie console" references makes that much more of an impact.

Neutral

Hoi @ Jul 22nd 2008 12:56PM

Planet Earth would be an awesome demo if it wasn't for that annoying flickering!

Neutral

Joe T. @ Jul 22nd 2008 2:41PM

My favorite HD demo material in order of best first--
• The Host-- the scene where the creature comes out of the water for the first time-- it looks really cool and the pounding footsteps are awesome with my transducers.
• 300-- the charging rhino and marching Persian army scenes.
• Transformers-- the initial desert battle.
• Blade Runner-- the opening shot.
• Children of Men-- the uprising battle.
• Ratatouille-- all of it.

Neutral

Mark M @ Jul 22nd 2008 4:04PM

xXx!!!

Neutral

Ernesto @ Jul 22nd 2008 6:37PM

That list was a bit lame, 90% of it was for music, I love music myself but ur gonna play what u like when it comes to music unlike movies where you'll play crap that you don't like but has great visuals.

I'll throw in a hidden underappreciated gem and one of my fav movies of all time, Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World. Honestly, great movie that gets better every time, unfortunately due to its technical jargon, I know a lot of ppl who don't get it and get bored but it truly is a great movie AND has cannonballs whizzing by your head, what more can you ask for !?!!/

Aside from whats already been listed by others, I also use Collateral, The Matrix, Serenity, LOTR, and if you have a realy quiet environment, No Country For Old Men is great. Lastly, if you wanna bring the house down, theres War of Worlds (recent version), simply insane if you have an able subwoofer. I didn't like the movie but its a great showcase. Reminds me Minority Report (another Speilberg/Cruise collaboration) is good as well as Saving Private Ryan but a just a teeny bit graphic.

Now I just can't wait for Wall-E !!

Neutral

Charles @ Jul 24th 2008 3:59AM

I think Contact may be on its way.

You can watch it on demand with Starz HD.

It looks fabulous and the source is in great shape. They should have no problems getting a Blu-ray version out the door.

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