Avatar 3D Blu-ray Disc Review

Avatar 3D Blu-ray disc

Panasonic’s involvement in Avatar 3D, the 3D cinema event of 2009, did not end with the film’s release. As part of their ongoing involvement, the company – controversially – has secured the exclusive home release rights to the Avatar 3D Blu-ray disc. If you’ve bought a certain combination of Panasonic 3D equipment within a certain time period, you can receive four free complimentary 3D Bluray discs, one of which is the 3D blockbuster from James Cameron and co.

Panasonic kindly lent us a copy of the Avatar 3D Blu-ray disc (which is currently changing hands for unreasonably high amounts of money on eBay) on the condition that it was only reviewed on Panasonic 3D hardware. Given that Panasonic’s 3D TV displays have so far been the best of a mixed bunch, we wouldn’t explicitly recommend watching 3D movies on anything other than a Panasonic TX-P50VT20 3D plasma television anyway – so this is fine by us!

Note: the screen grabs featured in this Avatar Blu-ray 3D movie review are obviously taken from the 2D (Left Eye) view only. They should only be used to get an idea of the compression quality of the 3D BD disc, since computer monitors rarely have accurate Greyscale or Colour reproduction, and are obviously much smaller, and 2D only. The screen grabs have been JPEG encoded, although at a high enough quality setting so as not to add compression artefacts.

This brief Avatar 3D Blu-ray review is going to serve as a technical analysis of the release’s video presentation quality. As for movie itself, everyone already has their own opinion, and for the most part, I’ll leave film criticism to the film critics. If you’re curious though, I personally enjoyed Avatar 3D. In some circles, it’s become fashionable to point out that yes, the borrowed plot is not especially substantial (Disney’s Pocahontas seems to be the common “outsider falls in love with the natives and learns to love nature” comparison). And yes, unfortunately they seriously did name the precious mineral plot device “unobtanium”. Regardless, I think the film does exactly what you’d expect a James Cameron blockbusting crowd-pleaser to, and I certainly enjoyed it more than his earlier Aliens (which has recently had a wonderful looking BD release).

But what about the quality of the Blu-ray 3D disc itself? Contrary to popular belief, films with mammoth budgets and red carpet treatment do not instantly look top-notch on disc, and certainly, there have been a few slight disappointments on Blu-ray in this regard (although there have been more wonderful BD discs in the few years it’s been around than there ever were with DVD-Video). Fortunately, Avatar 3D has been handled by Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory, a facility with a track record of excellence. Visually, this presentation looks as good as the (admittedly sometimes variable) source material possibly could on Blu-ray Disc. It’s supplied on a dual-layer BD50 disc with an MPEG-4 MVC video encode, meaning that it’s a 3D-enhanced disc which is backwards compatible with older 2D-only players (which simply ignore the extra 3D information). There are no extras to occupy precious space on the BD disc, although there are three foreign language audio dubs on the version we received, which accompany the losslessly-packed English audio track.

AVATAR screen grab 1
The source material for some scenes isn’t up there with the best titles…

Putting technicalities (largely) aside for a second, how does Avatar look from an aesthetic standpoint? That depends on whether you’re watching in 2D or 3D. There are some shots which are blatantly designed for viewing in 3D, and due to the fact that they don’t “degrade” to 2D gracefully at all, are a useful example of how tastefully done 3D can enhance the experience: for example, the “waking up” scene at the very start of the film. In 3D, it has a sprawling sense of vastness thanks to the extra image depth, and thanks to the fact that the entire image is in focus. Flattened into 2D, the scene becomes difficult for the eye to read and “lock on” to, and ends up simply looking chaotic instead of vast. To a lesser extent, the same can be said for many of the scenes which take place in the human world. These portions are also somewhat less detailed and have a more video-like appearance to them, and do appear to have been sharpened in post-production to avoid looking blurred when intercut with the essentially flawless CG portions.

AVATAR screen grab 2
…but the CG segments are considerably crisper.

Due to the fact that the source material is of slightly variable quality (but still largely excellent), I would disagree with accounts proclaiming Avatar to be the most visually impressive Blu-ray Disc yet. With this said, it has two things clearly going for it. First of all, it is an outstanding achievement in video compression and is probably the most impressive example of what can be done with the AVC/MVC codec that I can think of on the format. By this, I mean that the Avatar 3D Blu-ray disc is almost entirely free of compression artefacts even in scenes where you would expect to see some. Especially during the later “war” scenes, the world of Pandora is visually complex, and at times poses a great challenge for a system that relies on both spatial (single-frame) and temporal (motion) compression. A good number of scenes feature smoke, light synthetic grain, and chaotically moving leaves, dirt particles, and water. All of this would produce visibly distorted results with poorer video encoding systems, but judging from output like this, Panasonic’s is certainly delivering the goods. If you’re this way inclined, you can literally put the disc into slow motion and try to “spot the compression artefacts” – there is just about nothing to be seen, beyond some tiny, tiny visible block edges which are inevitable in a temporally redundant format such as Blu-ray. And, while I hate to fall into the trap of reducing video compression analysis to a simple numbers game (the design of the encoder is hugely important), the fact that all of this is achieved with an average bit-rate of around 20mbps is noteworthy.

AVATAR screen grab 3
The AVC/MVC encode holds up wonderfully even under stress.
AVATAR screen grab 4
Even chaotic shots have no obvious compression artefacts.

The BD version of Avatar is practically an advertisement, if any was actually needed, for disc-based movies versus poor quality download systems. I’ve not seen the iTunes download version of the movie, and given how poor Apple’s AVC/H.264 encoder is, I’m not sure I want to.

Moving on, the Blu-ray 3D version of Avatar is certainly the best showcase for 3D at home to date – provided it’s watched on one of the better 3DTV displays, obviously. Having sampled some other 3D movies already on the market, I was pleasantly surprised at the level of immersion. Viewed on one of Panasonic’s 3D plasma TVs, there is practically no distracting, 3D-harming crosstalk – in fact, there is less of it than there was in the RealD cinema presentation I saw last year, which is some feat given the inherent motion limitation issues in flat panel displays (Plasmas included). It’s just a shame that not all Panasonic’s 3D HDTV sets can reproduce the film in 3D without introducing jaggies into the image – so far we’ve only confirmed the TX-P50VT20B as being able to do so – but at least all of the Panasonic 3D TVs give a convincing 3D effect.

If you’re a die-hard fan of Avatar 3D and haven’t made the qualifying Panasonic purchases in order to get your copy, then your next best option in the UK (short of paying over the odds on eBay) is to watch the Sky 3D channel’s presentation over the Christmas/New Year period. This will give a lower quality experience than the 3D Bluray version for several reasons: half horizontal resolution due to the “Side by Side” 3D process; lower video bit-rate produced by real-time encoding (rather than the human-assisted, hand-tuned job on disc) which will inevitably result in compression artefacts for the reasons mentioned above; and probably also the wrong audio pitch (due to Europe’s horrible decision to use 25fps for HD). Yes, if you want to hear James Horner’s powerful musical score at its correct pitch and speed, your only option (in Europe) is to buy either the 2D or 3D Blu-ray version – madness!

I would end this short report by complaining about Panasonic’s exclusivity deal, but watching Avatar in 3D on anything other than Panasonic Plasmas would be a degraded viewing experience, anyway. The first-generation 3DTV models certainly have image quality issues, but Panasonic’s have gotten off the hook lightly compared to some of the other crosstalk-hampered efforts on the market. Hopefully by the time the Avatar 3D Blu-ray movie is available to all, we’ve moved past the (inevitable) early teething issues associated with most 3D displays. For now, there’s no denying that watching this brilliantly mastered 3D Blu-ray release on a 3D TV such as the Panasonic TX-P50VT20 is the best way to see Avatar in a home environment – at least on a television-sized screen.

Highly Recommended

37 comments

  1. Do you really think that using NTSC’s 59.94005994 frames per second would be better? Surely, we Europeans could have agreed on 60 fps provided that Americans would accepted the move from 59.94 to 60 and provided that no interlaced scan would be used (because it is a nightmare to convert 50i to 59.94i). They accepted neither, and so did we.

  2. Perfect? Certainly not. Better than movies that run at the wrong speed? Yes.
    The situation you mentioned would make me very happy.

  3. You say that only the tx-p50vt20 offers full resolution 3d performance. Does this mean that the tx-p46vt20 doesn’t? I was very interested in purchasing this display as I simply can’t fit the 50 in my room.

    Does the 46 use the same tech as the 42 rather than the 50?

    Would you reccomend the 46?

  4. The TX-P46VT20 features the same 3D resolution limitation as the 42″. That results in jaggies in fine detailed areas during 3D display. It’s still one of the better 3D displays, but I would definitely recommend stepping up to the 50″.

  5. Stephanie Handler

    Are you serious?? How much more of a pro Panasonic 3D advert can this be? Did you get a free Panasonic 3D TV courtesy Panasonic Hollywood Labs (Susie Ogihara)? This is a bullshit review.

  6. Stephanie – how so?

  7. Stephanie Handler

    Hi David
    Just thought your Samsung review (http://hdtvtest.co.uk/news/samsung-ps50c6900-plasma-3d-tv-20101130940.htm) was more technical, which I loved!!

  8. Thank you. Well, it isn’t possible to do the same level of technical analysis on a video encode when compared to TV. Unless you have the uncompressed master to compare it to (that’d never happen!)
    So, the best that can be done is to look at the video with a knowledge of what COULD have gone wrong.
    Just for clarification, there are no freebies. The two freebies I’ve been given in my capacity of a hardware reviewer are a T-shirt and in 2007, a DVD player which I helped develop firmware fixes for :)

  9. Thanks David, real shame about the jaggies, this seems like something they’d have to put right for the next generation of 3d sets, but not sure I can wait that long, does the panasonic road Map tend follow a pattern like apple’s does eg whe. Can we expect the next sets to appear – Jan? March? Summer?

    If I cant wait are the p46vt20 and the p42vt20still the best bets at their respective screen sizes, or would you recommend the philips 46pfl9705, the samsung ue46c8000 or one of the sonys?

    Sorry for so many questions, just seems you’re the only reviewer to know his onions.

    Cheers

  10. @Steve: Panasonic tend to announce new products at their conventions in February/March, with the mid-range sets shipping in the weeks after and the higher end models around April/May.

    The 42 and 46VT20 both have the 3D jaggies, but yes, they’re still the best 3D TVs at their screen sizes that I have seen.

  11. Good news for all who bought their panasonic 3dtv before the promo time! They will give u a copy of avatar 3d if u phone and moan as a good will gesture. I got my 50inch vt20 in April and they agreed to give me a copy :-) happy days for the early adopters!

  12. Exactly how would the viewing experience be degraded if I’d watch Avatar 3D on LG 60PX990, compared to P50VT20?

    In my personal opinion, the 2D picture in VT20 series is pretty much unwatchable due to flashing green/yellow outlines everywhere as well as the rainbow-coloured posterization effect, and it sounds a bit harsh to be required to buy two separate TVs, one for 2D and one for 3D viewing.

  13. It’s fine and dandy that Panasonic are at the cutting edge of 3D movie mastering production.
    However, they severely hamper the replay of cinema and broadcast drama on many of their 2010 plasma TV models and my own Z1 flagship plasma TV.
    Why is this so? because they will insist on dynamically altering black and contrast levels within their picture processing software in quite an unsubtle way!!

    This can result in characters face’s or backgrounds flashing in its worst form.

    When Cinema and THX modes are unusable, and only Normal and Dynamic modes seem to be behave there is something definitely amiss with the rationale behind the current form of Panasonic’s VReal software.

    To date this issue isn’t resolved on even their old flagship the Z1.
    Strange that this issue wasnt there when originally launched and that firmware revisions seem to have introduced these anomalies!! And with each update e.g. 2.503 to 2.506, things seem to be getting worse not better! :-O (acute contrast ramping with some material and overt false colour contours : green/purple striping!!)

    While it is commendable that Panasonic are at the forefront of new technology, it is a rather basic requirement that we can see films as the director intended with NO processing cock-ups to destroy the illusion we see on screen!!

  14. @JJ
    LG haven’t sent us any 3D Plasmas to review yet, so I can’t say with certainty. I’m advised that there is more crosstalk (Panasonic do use a slightly ruthless method of avoiding crosstalk at all costs so I can believe that) but I can’t say myself.

    @Darren:
    can you give an example of faces or backgrounds flashing from a Blu-ray Disc? I’d like to check this out because I’ve never seen it.

  15. Thanks for the great review of this 3D movie disc David.

    If you have time could you please clarify this statement?

    “your next best option in the UK (short of paying over the odds on eBay) is to watch the Sky 3D channel’s presentation over the Christmas/New Year period. This will give a lower quality experience than the 3D Bluray version for several reasons: half horizontal resolution due to the “Side by Side” 3D process; ”

    Does this mean that all those sample 3D clips that I grabbed from a couple of sites like http://www.3dtvworld.com.au which are side-by-side format are in fact inferior to the original blu-ray disc version?

  16. @BubbleBoy:
    Yes. Blu-ray 3D has 1920×1080 pixels for each eye thanks to the new MVC (Multiview Video Coding) codec.

    Side-by-Side 3D is a “retro fit”. It crams the Left and Right eye data into a system that was originally designed only for 2D. For that reason, you are not getting Full HD, but instead a picture which has only Half the resolution of Full HD in the Horizontal direction, but all of the same Vertical detail.

  17. @David Mackenzie,

    Wow, it’s incredible to now know that because I have played those clips from a usb stick connected to our PS63C7000 (UK version) and they look really nice in 3D.

    I’m just going to have to get hold of some 3D blu-ray discs to see the improvement in picture quality now.
    Avatar was going to be the first 3D blu-ray I bought but that’s not possible thanks to Panasonic.

    cheers.

  18. I have to challenge the statement that viewing 3D on any display other than Panasonic Plasma would be a degraded experience.

    I have an 82″ 3D DLP rear projection set. The DLP chip is much faster than LCD or Plasma, and the image quality is notably better than the Panny plasma, which I sampled in 3D at a local retailer.

    Not that the Panny was bad, but the DLP sets are just way better for 3D than any flat panel. It absolutely looks like film, and the realism is astonishing. And, an excellent set of DLP-Link glasses is only $85 and requires no emitter.

    Also, I find the IMAX Under The Sea Blu Ray 3D to be the definitive demo disc. Better than Avatar 3d in realism, depth, and color gamut. I wouldn’t have believed this until I saw for myself. It’s like being there.

  19. @DiamondPilot:
    good to hear. I was really limiting the comparison to the current flat panel models. Unless I’m mistaken, there are no 3D DLP rear projection sets available in Europe?

  20. I just received a BD 3d Avatar from Canada off Ebay (for US$125). It plays OK, but is quite clearly a Bootleg Copy. The Disc Artwork is very low quality, and you can see TDK BD-R thru the Disc printing. Back Cover Artwork is pretty murky as well. It was sealed in Cellaphane, so deceptive till you look closer. Described on Ebay as “AVATAR BLU-RAY 3D AUTHENTIC PANASONIC EXCLUSIVE”. So this Exclusivity BS has opened the door for Pirates to effectively “print $100 Bills”. If I had “wanted to buy Bootleg” I could have got one for a lot less.
    “Beware of Canadians bearing gifts”!

  21. Sorry to hear that you got ripped off on eBay, Bill. Assuming you paid with PayPal, you are covered and can get your money back.
    Like you say, it was only a matter of time before pirates cashed in on this situation.

  22. Beware: Private showings of Avatar 3D on the Panasonic 65 inch plasma will get you laided….the glasses will come off…and she wants to see it again really soon! ;-)

  23. Other than the indepth tech review, I think it’s such B.S. that they would force u to buy the Tv to get the movie. I love Avatar but I refuse to be coerced to buy their frigging Products. I got a Samsung 50 Plasma 3d and it works fine. Panasonic is pond scum. To hell with Them,

  24. I would have thought that you would mention a comparison between the 3D and 2D Blu-ray versions if you were gonna talk about video quality. Obviously, the 3D version has to fit twice as many images onto a disc the same size so is the quality loss noticeable at all?

  25. There is 1 thing that puzzles me.

    Can a Panasonic TX-P50VT20 also play IMAX blu-rays?

  26. David Mackenzie

    Yes. IMAX is just a brand name.

  27. I was under the impression that IMAX was a different resolution (like really high).

  28. David Mackenzie

    IMAX film presentations use 65mm film, which has better definition than 35mm. But, in a best case scenario (great camera lenses, etc), both 35mm and 65mm film have a higher resolution than 1080p HD is capable of.

    Regardless of the source format, the highest resolution possible on a Blu-ray video disc is 1920x1080p. A 1080p Blu-ray Disc that’s been made from a super-crisp 65mm film source CAN look better than one made from a 35mm source, but there are many factors which affect how the disc looks.

  29. Will the (eventual) 3D version of Avatar be the full 3 hour (collector) version or one of the two earlier, shorter releases.

  30. I’m with DiamondPilot on this one! The DLP CAN’T be beat right now. (sorry Europe) It is really a shame Panasonic is holding such an AWESOME movie hostage just to pad their own pockets. I’ve been looking forward to seeing Avatar in 3D since I missed it in theaters…I’ve always been a Panasonic fan, but they just couldn’t beat the DLP experience. Looks like they have found a way to change my mind!!! Greed kills the fun!

  31. Are u serious, what a bs review. Dude, how much is Panasonic paying you? “viewing 3D on any display other than Panasonic Plasma would be a degraded experience.”….lmfao…You have to be a retard to believe that!!

  32. In my experience since pioneer stopped production of plasma screens, panasonic have stepped it up big time. I test all the major manufacturers and opted for the 65VT20 in 2010 – nothing so far (except the new 65vt30) has managed to beat it in every single observable way (talking visuals here obviously). I think David is stating not just his opinion but a fact too – other manufacturers have a way to go yet to reach the Panasonic level of product perfection.

  33. Odd tech question gathered from a friend and thought to post here. A samsung led 3d 55″ was purchased and the question was can she only view panasonics avatar 3d blu ray dvd with only panasonic products? I said no but let me get tech info to confirm. Any thoughts?

  34. My freind has a new Panasonic 60″ 3d plasma and got the avatar 3d movie, we watched it on his and watched it on my Samsung un55d7000 55″ led 3d, he took his tv back and bought the same one i have, way clearer pix

  35. Stop bashing the man for speaking the truth, Panasonic plasmas are some of the best TV’s on the market, contrast, dynamic or otherwise =superior when referancing a panny. since the stopped production of pioneer kuro displays”known for the best blacks ever” panasonic has since adopted such tech and for a while was one of the only companies still pushing plasma technology and therefore stand above the rest in the plasma department. Most consumers and I cannot recount how many times I have argued with them believed LCD was the better tech and were dumping thousands on a crappy Sony TV.

    Samsung is the only other reputable brand I have purchased a plasma from but that was simply for their bargain priced 3d tech. I have enjoyed the 3d technology thoroughly and have a new Optoma HD33 dlp projector coming to my door shortly.

    One thing about rear projection televisions is yes they are big and nice and convert the new 3d standard to a checkboard pattern nicely with the kit you must purchase from mitsubishi to do so. Unfortunately DLP rear projection TV’s lack the contrast and brightness of a plasma, in 3d mode the brightness becomes further reduced as well, add the tinted glasses and now the image light output is drastically reduced.

    Even with these pitfalls the Dlp rear projection TV’s only really excell because of a few reasons, The first of which is the sheer screensize, lets face it…A 50″ plasma screen can only be immersive for so long and can be compared to looking through a window ,As to where when larger images come into Play it becomes more and more immersive and the effects much much deeper and noticable.The other factor which actually manages to help the DLP TV’S in their lack of contrast is the glasses and loss of brightness it makes the Blacks much darker giving the illusion of better contrast.

    Unfortunately The brightness loss is the biggest problem for 3d no matter how good the setup is , especially on larger TV’s, not all models offer up full 1080p 3d either which could further reduce image quality. Even though a 50″ plasma is not as immersive as a larger screen it is still the best way to go to achive the best image quality and birghtness while retaining a respectable amount of contrast and and overall pop.

    If you wanna go big or go home and save some money doing so. I recommend a 3d projector, their are two highly affordable options on the market so far.. one is the Optoma hd33, The other is the Epson 3010. both can be found for under $1,500 and from the reviews that are out both seem to do really well aginst projectors at twice their price.

    What can I say, As much as I have enjoyed the panasonic and samsung 3D tech on their 50″ offering I got to see the HD33 projector in action as well as the Epson 3010 and both have me excited. Especially the HD33 the thing has great color and detail and the images look as though they are going to leap off screen without 3d on alot of pop factor . it has less light output then the epson which will be my ideal choice because I have a light controlled environment from my previous 2d projector which now lies in the garbage… For someone wanting a livingroom theatre where ambient light might be an issue the Epson 3010 might be the best choice.

  36. Really watching it on anything besides a pannasonic will be a degraded experience? I watched it on my 65 inch sony hx929 and its pretty dam awesome. How is sony crap my tv is better than a panny panasonics are good tvs im not sayin that the vt30 is a very good tv but the xbr is better

  37. Finally! This 3D Bluray is being released Worldwide on the 15th October 2012!