I wasn’t too impressed at first.  The first thing I popped in was Stargate Continuum.  Overall, not too shabby looking, a definite improvement over DVD.  But I wasn’t wowed at all.  In particular, the all CGI shots of the Goa’uld motherships in space had enormous amounts of noise in them.  Didn’t really make any sense to me.  The live action shots looked fine and, occasionally, really good.

Then I watched Gattaca.  I had only ever seen it on cable before, so the added resolution brought out new details I couldn’t see before.  But they only put so much effort into restoration effort.

Batman Begins was next, and it looked shockingly good.  Of course, it has the luxury of having been filmed fairly recently and of being a big-name title.  So of course it looks great.  And then I noticed they included the opening bank robbery scene from The Dark Knight as a bonus.

…

Absolutely gorgeous.  Unbelievably gorgeous.  Not a hint of noise, not a hint of film grain.  Stunning.  Insert more adjectives here.  If the full release of the Dark Knight can hold up to that image quality… wow.

The menu systems Bluray uses are also a lot more fluid than DVD.  I don’t really care if I can access it while the movie continues to play, but not having to put up with transitions and loading times every time you want to use the menu is definitely a bonus…

Now if the movie companies could release some more worthwhile content.  And no, Jumper and Under Siege 2 do not count.