As far as really seeing why Blu Ray is great it helps if you A) have a TV bigger then 42 inches and even more so B) have a 1080p TV. When I got the PS3 at release there were very few 1080p sets so I bought it originally with a 720p set thinking it would be good enough. After a few days I returned the set and got a 1080p that was actually a few inches smaller and it looks WAY better. If you watch something like Casino Royale with a 1080p bigscreen TV and a decent set of speakers its quite amazing (the sound is even more of an improvement then the picture, you get big movie theater quality sound that is uncompressed in most cases.)

The earlier movies are not as good as the later ones in many cases, the later ones have tons of extra features and deleted scenes. I got enter the dragon on blu ray, it had documentaries about bruce lee, the entire unfinished version of Game of Death and TONS of other good stuff, it had at least 30 special features of which 10 or more were quite compelling and worth watching. There were entire songs (with hillarious music videos) and tons of extra scenes on the Walk Hard Blu Ray as another good example.

Either way though, its the TV that makes the big difference, without a newer 1080p TV you might as well just use an upscaling DVD player or something.

Maybe you just have really bad eyesight.

And batman begins wasnt a good choice. Transformers, Beowulf, Die Hard 4, Fantastic Four 2 all look supreme

Whoa there, cowboy. Completely untrue. If the OP has a 1080i set that displays a full 1080 horizontal lines, it will display the same quality picture as a 1080p 120hz set when viewing movies.

It's not until you get into games do you see the advantages of 1080p and progressive sets.

I hate to break it to you but that's either the quality of the television or your imagination working against you.

A properly set up 1080i set will display as good a picture as a 1080p set. Movies are only filmed at 24fps so interlacing isn't noticable. As long as the TV can display 1080 lines, you're going to get the same quality.

I challenge anyone to find a better picture than an old 1080i CRT HDTV that's properly set up. Other than brightness, they're still the best thing going for watching movies.

The amount of misinformation that circulates around HD resolutions is enormous. If you don't believe me, just google some of this stuff. There are loads of tests done that show how 1080i and 1080p are visually identical when watching movies.

Oh, and all of this applies to television in HD as well. The only time 1080p is advantageous is for gaming and using your set as a computer monitor. That's it.

I hope you know 720p is really downscaled images right. It's a fake resolution. It really should be 756p.

Ugh, seriously google some of this stuff Akuma. When watching movies, 1080i is visually identical to 1080p.

Your imagination may be telling you that you're looking at a better picture but reality has a different take on the situation.

I would say get a movie with alot of explosions and/or cgi effects.

I've watched Spiderman on blu-ray and it is quite amazing, Non-widescreen DVD's (i.e early seasons of scrubs and entourage) look like sh!t on my tv (Bravia 40X) but ones that do support widescreen look about as good as blu-ray, certainly good enough for me to not buy blu-ray ($20 for a dvd VS $50 for a blu-ray of the same newly released movie).

I thought that too with Ratatouille but I got it for the quality of the disc and as something to show off what BR is capable of doing and I must say it is a really freaking good movie.

well, I have a low-tier 32 in. 720p LCD and I notice a HUGE difference in picture quality, even when watching a non-explosions/action movie like The Chronicles of Narnia (the first one). Hell, even a 70 year-old lady who's a friend of mine noticed a difference....

I agree that Pixars stuff is about the finest example of HD you can find. The animations and color are extraordinary.