End of days v6 You fire the

End of days v6

You fire the BD-P1000 up and the first thing you notice is a sexy blue glow from the various openings on the player. except I have yet to find a dimmer. And its just a little too bright, you know? the player fires up very quickly. You get a welcome screen within about 5 seconds of power-on. BIG improvement over the Tosh HD-DVD player. You can load a disc after less then 30 seconds, also an improvement over the Tosh. I also like that when its loading or thinking, you get a little onscreen icon to let you know, rather than just nothing. At least you feel like the thing is doing something. For whatever reason, the player defaults to 720p output via you have to go into the setup menu to select 1080i. Okay, so thats what I did. Now its time to look at my first Blu-ray Disc. Naturally, my hand swerved towards The Fifth Element. The title was an amazing bit of reference work on standard DVD, and that Superbit version was awesome. Obvious choice, right? Should look amazing in HD. it should. But it doesnt. In Im not going to come out and say it looks like crap, but it is easily the worst looking high-definition title Ive seen yet, and Ive seen 30 titles now. The image is muddy looking, lacking in crisp, clean detail. The colors dont quite pop off the screen like they should. Just a mess. I will say it. It looks like crap. Sony should never have released this title like this. In fact, they should be embarrassed about this disc. Seriously, if you compare the upscaled Superbit standard-definition DVD to this, the Blu-ray Disc looks only marginally better. This should have been a reference title in high-def and its not even in the ball park. My brow furrowed in troubled surprise at this point. and not the good kind.