Chronicles of Narnia on Blu-Ray...

I got Narnia on DVD when it came out a while back. It looks and sounds great... but of course now that Prince Caspian is coming out Buena Vista Home Video wants to remind us that while DVD is great, blu-ray is GREATER... or is it?

It depends on who you ask. The problem with hi-def in general is that its beauty is in "the eye of the beholder". How do I know? Well, I was all set to buy Narnia on blu-ray until I read this rather cutting review from IGN:

"The problem here is threefold: color, clarity and grain. With the exception of the CG-heavy battle scenes toward the film's conclusion, the image never really pops. The colors appear muted – never quite as sharp and contrasted as one might prefer – and the noticeable grain/digitization in the more fast-moving moments prevents the film from ever being as crisp and clear as one might prefer. Overall, one might argue that Narnia looks no better in Blu-ray than it might in an upscaled standard-definition presentation. "

Their take on it pretty much destroyed my interest in buying the blu-ray... which is not necessarily a bad thing! In reality, I haven't watched The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe since I unwrapped it on Christmas day and popped it in the DVD player. Now I NEED to own it on blu-ray so I can do the exact same thing except now I have TWO copies that I'm ignoring? Thanks for saving me money, IGN!

Not so fast, Obadiah. There is another! Here's what Peter Bracke over at High-Def Digest had to say:

"The sense of depth is simply fantastic -- the "picture window" effect is on full display. The color palette is very pretty, with wonderful pastoral greens and oranges (a rarity, it seems, with most transfers today, which look all hi-tech and "edgy"). Saturation is excellent, with a super-clean look and no chroma noise or fuzziness.

Blacks are rock solid throughout, and contrast is strong enough to deliver the required detail while never sacrificing realism. Even the widest shots are alive with detail and sharpness, and the source print is spotless. Disney has also produced a clean encode, so compression artifacts are not a problem. 'Narnia' looks smashing."

So who do I believe?

In the end, I think I already made my decision based mostly on my wallet and less on what the interwebs had to say, but I did think this was a great example of how arbitrary "reviews" can be even if they are based on something as concrete as picture quality.