True Blood Blue Ray – Worth the Upgrade

If you have HBO and are catching up on True Blood in preparation for its return this Sunday, June 14th, odds are you are watching the replay for free. If you have a blu-ray player and a 1080p capable TV, though, you are making a big mistake – True Blood is the perfect example of a series made to be seen with the ultra high bandwidth of the Blu Ray standard.

For starters, let’s correct a common misconception. If you have HD cable, you may not actually be receiving full resolution HDTV. For many customers, myself included, HD cable means 720p or at best 1080i, and then very likely up sampled. The truth is in the grain and noise. If you have it, you are not experiencing the true HD experience. Cable providers throw around the term “High Definition” as if it has no meaning.  Viewers too will often dismiss the difference between satellite/cable HD and Blu Ray HD.  You either have the equipment, or you don't.  If you can't see the difference, chances are you have bad eyes, a bad TV, or a little of each. Now back to the matter at hand: True Blood.

Filmed mostly in Los Angeles – with bits of Shrieveport, Louisiana sprinkled in for authenticity – True Blood manages to feign its locale, Bon Temps Louisiana, with a mixture of believable foliage, color, and texture – and illusion that could fall apart through the lens of crystal clear HD, but instead becomes a viable reality with this set. Blu Ray aficionados will often praise how their format of choice exposes the true look of films, and for True Blood this claim couldn’t be more accurate.

I originally watched True Blood in 720p on Time Warner, complete with occasional blasts of digital block noise. For the most part better than average, but once you’ve seen the show in 1080p with a full out uninterrupted data stream, crystal clear fast motion, and uncompressed audio, there is just no looking back.

Of course the story is no better in this format, True Blood remains as engrossing and decadent as it always has been. Alan Ball mixes in a little fantasy with the morbid ‘Imp of the Perverse’ guilty pleasures of Six Feet Under and comes up with a southern fairy tale that somehow finds a thread of innocent wonder amongst an insulation of Vampires, psychics, gore, sex, and good old human evil.  What the set does add to the story is an intriguing bundle of enhanced viewing features that focus on the back-story of the characters.  Every episode gets the extras treatment with revealing behind the scenes commentary and various story slanted bonuses such as how each vampire was made, maps of Bon Temps, and more.

The quality of the story telling alone is reason enough to purchase any collection, but if you have the opportunity do yourself a favor and reintroduce yourself to True Blood through the Blu Ray.