I got everything hooked up and set properly and slid in my first purchase... Iron Man. I have this on DVD too, so i thought I'd be able to do some good comparisons. It was nice to see the Dolby TrueHD display on the 94... I got chills.
Here are some my impressions and thoughts which might help others who haven't made the jump.
I put the DVD version in my Oppo and thought I play a bit. I have to say there were some surprises. One the picture looked fantastic, but I didn't have that "holy crap" moment I thought would. I thought about it and came to two conclusions: 1) I just think I'm getting used to hi-def. I've seen other bd setups and watch HD at home, so I don't think the improvement is leaps and bounds anymore. I'm just more used to and expecting the quality level. 2) I think my TV is partly to blame. I love my TV and it has a great picture, but I think it lacks the in your face punch of a good plasma or LCD. I've seen Iron Man on last year's model Elite Kuro and it's certainly looked much better... then again, his tv was $6K mine was $2K. Don't get me wrong though, the picture was absolutely stunning... I guess you're just always hoping for more.
I tried to sync the two players with the Oppo a bit behind. I switched back and forth to watch the same scenes. It took a few seconds to lock in each input, but it was close enough where you could really do some nice comparisons. I was for sure that I would not notice any difference betweeen the surround formats, but that's were I was wrong. I thought dialogue sounded just a tad bit better on the DVD, but I think there's been some other complaints about the bd version so I didn't put too much into that. The opening scene where they first get attacked was really impressive. The there was definately something different about the surrounds, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I didn't really hear more, nor was it louder, it was just different. I liked it more. Then it sorda came to me. There seemed to be a lot more "movement" in the sound. I know that sounds silly, but bullets had more of a defined localized effect on the DVD where they sound seemed to travel or pan much more realistically on the BD. I played several other scenes where I thought I might notice that and it seemed accurate each time.
For $200, I think the BD350 was easily one of the best value additions I've ever made to any system. To the dismay of family, I watched the disc until about 10:30 am replaying scenes and explosions and what not. Oh and that's the other thing... bass was much different on the BD version. Explosions had more THUMP and ThUNK to them. It was very noticable.
Anyway, if you're on the fence about blu-ray, I'd definately take the leap.
