The Bourne Trilogy (The Bourne Identity / The Bourne Supremacy / The Bourne Ultimatum) [Blu-ray]
Get ready for non-stop action, edge-of-your-seat suspense and spectacular chase sequences with everyone’s favorite assassin in The Bourne Trilogy! Matt Damon is Jason Bourne, an elite government agent determined to outwit and outmaneuver anyone who stands in the way of his finding out the secrets of his mysterious past. Follow his explosive, action-packed adventures in three blockbuster films from one of the most popular series of all time: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and
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Panasonic DMP-BD75 Ultra-Fast Booting Blu-ray Disc Player
- Netflix, CinemaNow, Vudu compatible
- Ultra-Fast 0.5 sec booting
- New stylish GUI
Panasonic DMP-BD75 Ultra-Fast Booting Blu-Ray Disc PlayerInternet-Ready Television Internet-ready TVs use your broadband connection to deliver dynamic content, whether it’s streaming video from Netflix, new music from Pandora, or a quick glance at today’s weather forecast. Although there is overlap, each manufacturer offers a unique bundle of free or paid services, including streaming video and music, social networking apps, online photo galleries, news and financial updates, weather info, spor
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6 Comments
Tony Khamvongsouk on January 29, 2012 at 12:37 am.
The Bourne Trilogy (Blu-ray),
Note: Since combining all 3 movies into one review will take me over the character limit, there are two options you can take. 1) you can read this shorter overview of the box set as a whole. Or 2) you can read the reviews for the individual flipper releases that are much more detailed in terms of movie, video, audio, and extras ratings.
Movie – 4.5
The Bourne franchise is a very entertaining and gritty entry that re-infuses a lot of what was missing in the spy/thriller genre. It has just the right mix of conspiracy, politics, action, drama, romance, and a personal enough narrative to keep audiences empathizing for one Jason Bourne. In Identity, we’re introduced to Bourne and given a mystery to solve; who is he, how did he come to end up where he is, and where will he go from there to find out the rest? In Supremacy, he’s established something of an Identity, but still has a long way to go. In the process of finding himself he loses something very dear to him and seeks vengeance as a result. However, in his pursuit he discovers more of his past and realizes that it’s a very dark one. And through this discovery he decides to redeem himself as well as go after the persons he feels are responsible for this constant cycle of killing. And finally, Ultimatum is the culmination of it all where the pieces come together: Bourne finds out who he really is, discovers the system of conditioning behind this government conspiracy, tracks it down to the origin, and comes to terms with himself for who he is and what he’s become at that point. This series of films is successful thanks in huge part to the acting talents of Matt Damon, whom I’ve personally doubted, but have since been a fan of after seeing The Departed. Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass also do excellent jobs in directing their respective films. As an overarching storyline, the narrative has a very good flow of progression and is recommended that when you watch these films you try to do so within a short or consecutive amount of time to get the full effect of the plot.
Video – 4.5
As with the films themselves from a writing standpoint, the video also has a certain level of progression. Identity, while still very good, is probably the worst of the three. Colors, black levels, and contrast all look excellent, but the overall image tends to suffer from various amounts of noise and occasional instances of artifacting and debris. The little specks aren’t as prevalent as some older catalog titles, but for a BD presentation on such a great film, it can be distracting at times. Subsequently, Supremacy gets better and looks much richer in terms of everything else, minus the debris. Image detail is notably much sharper and tends to reveal some of the finer qualities within the picture. The only slight inconsistencies one might point out as detractors, though, are some noisier scenes in the dark and possibly some excessive bits of color saturation during the shots in India. But on the flip side, Ultimatum looks as pristine as can be. All of the aforementioned video elements are stunning, and much of the photography is preserved to perfection resulting in a reference level picture. A nice theatrical layer of film grain is present through all three films, but in my opinion, really accentuates the gritty nature of the franchise best via Ultimatum’s video transfer. Just know that what you’re getting is a good representation of progression, not just in story, but also video-wise.
Audio – 5.0
While the video has to improve throughout each movie, the audio, on the other hand, is excellent from the start. Again, Identity appears as the weakest of the bunch, but only so slightly. And it’s not even a question of the transfer, but a result of the overall sound design in general. Each film has a particularly great sense of musical immersion thanks to John Powell’s enthralling score. The whirring effect in Identity and the pounding drums throughout Supremacy and Ultimatum are sure to get viewers into the films’ plots and make for some adventurous movie-watching. Sound effects are also very well-handled. Background chatter, city noise, car engines, feet shuffling, water drops, flying paper, and all sorts of commotion fill the sound scape enveloping the viewer within the world of Jason Bourne. And that’s just without all the action sequences. Punches, kicks, whacks, thuds, crunches, gunshots, crashing vehicles, shattering glass, and heavy breathing dominate when they should, but never overwhelm. Dialogue, a more integral piece to the films, is also spot-on and suffers no dropout or distortion from the center channel. But in terms of directionality and separation, all three films exert these elements extremely well through the front and side speakers, and even more so in the second and third installments. LFEs aren’t a very big part of the overall sound design, but really make their mark when the occasional…
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|Thunderhead22 on January 29, 2012 at 1:00 am.
A note on the packaging,
I couldn’t figure out how to open this set. I was tugging on the sides. Then I tried to slip the case off vertically. I was on the verge of forcing open the box when I decided to google the set, hoping to see something about the packaging scheme since there is no clear indication as to how to open it. Before you force this thing open, take note: The cover image of Matt Damon is a magnet. It flips open to the left, allowing access to the discs. Enjoy.
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|biogeek on January 29, 2012 at 1:32 am.
Lots of extras,
Perhaps the people who said this disc set has no extras haven’t actually looked at the back of the DVD cases. Each movie has a lot of bonus material that is quite interesting. There is feature commentary with the director, interviews with cast members, deleted scenes, fight sequence planning, driving school, going on location, and lots of other really cool stuff (too much for me to write it all down here). If you are interested in how these movies were made you will really enjoy all of the bonus features.
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|Dr. Woo on January 29, 2012 at 1:39 am.
Easy to use, DLNA takes some work,
I have been waiting for this Blu-ray player since it was announced in January, bought this to use with my Panasonic VIERA TV set. VIERA link is the main reason I bought this — it’s for our exercise room, and my wife hates all the remotes. Great as a basic DVD/blu-ray player. Pop in a DVD, TV turns on, and sets the correct input. Also, one button selection of Netflix works great, and the new Netflix interface includes search. On screen interface is also very nice and easy to use. As will all new players, only has HDMI and composite video connectors, but single HDMI for video and audio is nice and is required for VIERA link.
Only reason for the 4 stars is DLNA (which in not just an issue with this device). Writing this in the hopes of saving at least one person the hours I spent setting this up. First, with my Windows 7 PC, the device was able to see and play the Windows Media Center .wtv files (I have a TV tuner card in my PC), so you can record shows on your PC and watch them on this player in another room. Compatibility with .wtv files was not mentioned in the manual, nor by Panasonic online support. Panasonic support also said that .mkv files would only play via a disk or the usb, but some of my .mkv files on my PC did play using DLNA (for some reason, only the files with an aspect ratio of 1024X576 or higher will play). Decided I needed a media server.
After trying Tversity, Playon, and Serviio, none of which would work with the DMP-BD75, I installed Mezzmo on my PC. Worked like a champ! The player sees all the files on my PC and they play flawlessly over my home network.
Remote will only control TV volume, power, and input, so if you switch to TV, you have to switch remotes. Don’t know why in TV mode the number keys couldn’t function to enter a channel number. Still, the remote will control all disc functions, Netflix, and all my video files via DLNA. One thing with the remote and VIERA link, the large power button turns on the player and will also turn on the TV at the same time. However, when you power down, using the large power button only turns off the player (which does make sense, you may want to leave the TV on). There is a second power button for the TV. If you turn off that button, both with shut down.
Overall, for just under $100 you can’t go wrong. And if you aren’t interested in DLNA or 3D, then this would be a 5 star player.
Update 12/18/2011
Panasonic recently release another firmware update, 1.33. I notice that the DLNA connection is much faster than before. However, I just upgraded my TV to a new Panasonic Viera Plasma set. It also has DLNA, and the DLNA files load extremely fast on the TV compared to this Blu-ray player. Sometimes on the BD75 it takes a minute or more to load a video, the new TV does it in seconds. Both are on hard-wired ethernet on the same network. Looks like after only 9 months this will strictly be a Blu-ray player on my system.
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|L. Anderson "vintage rocker" on January 29, 2012 at 1:46 am.
Gorgeous Blu-ray picture and Netflix streaming,
I’ve had this Bd75 for about a month now. When I first received it , I had problems. I mainly got this unit so I could stream Netflix movies, and wanted to have a Blu-ray player to connect to my Panasonic TC-L42U22 1080p LCD TV.
When the player chose to work, I was overwhelmed by the fantastic picture quality of this TV/Blu-ray combo. But, the Bd75 had bugs, and if you’re like me, if something doesn’t work as it should right out of the box, chances are things are only going to get worse.
I decided that the Bd75 was so good at streaming Netflix movies that I would keep it, bugs and all.
Now for the really good news. I turned the unit on a few days ago, and had a on-screen message that there was a firmware update available. Version 1.19 I let it download. It restarts itself after the download, and since then, NO bugs, freeze-ups, or any other problems.
If this firmware update does its job, then this Bd75 player will be a steal at the $99.00 it sells for.
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|bobfromholland on January 29, 2012 at 2:42 am.
Don’t Buy This for Amazon Video on Demand,
Panasonic says this player won’t support Amazon Video on Demand as it does not have VIERA Cast capability. There is currently no firmware update and they told me they don’t expect to add this feature in the future either. It does support Netflix streaming.
I have since returned the DMP-BD75 and purchased a Panasonic DMP-BD65 with VIERA Cast. The DMP-BD65 works great and streams Amazon Video on Demand.
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