Blu Ray Players and movies 6-25-06

Ears · « **on:** 2 Mar 2006, 05:18 pm »

http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/thomasnorton/

1080P via analog for Sony/MGM movies and uncompressed audio

Ears · « **Reply #1 on:** 7 Mar 2006, 07:30 am »

Check out these Blu Ray movie prices www.dvdsoon.com just search Blu Ray.
17.79 to 22.87

thats far cheaper than I figured

mcrespo71 · « **Reply #2 on:** 7 Mar 2006, 11:48 pm »

How are much older movies going to look in Blu-Ray vs. DVD. For example, should I be selling my DVD copies of Gone with the Wind or Wizard of Oz because the video improvement will be so noticeable?

Michael

Ears · « **Reply #3 on:** 8 Mar 2006, 04:27 am »

Quote from: mcrespo71

How are much older movies going to look in Blu-Ray vs. DVD. For example, should I be selling my DVD copies of Gone with the Wind or Wizard of Oz because the video improvement will be so noticeable?

Michael

I wouldn't bank on all really old movies being released in Hi Def....or that you will be able to replace them all with the ones that do anytime soon.

I have seen Lawrence of Arabia is going to be on Blu Ray, and The Bridge over River Kwai is supposed to come out with a 50gb super version with losless audio...and there have been a few others mentioned.

For the most part though...there will be mostly movies from the 80's and up I would think...as well as upcoming new releases.

Dusty Chalk · « **Reply #4 on:** 8 Mar 2006, 10:42 pm »

Most of those look like new releases.

bubba966 · « **Reply #5 on:** 9 Mar 2006, 01:51 am »

Quote from: Ears

I wouldn't bank on all really old movies being released in Hi Def....or that you will be able to replace them all with the ones that do anytime soon.

I have seen Lawrence of Arabia is going to be on Blu Ray, and The Bridge over River Kwai is supposed to come out with a 50gb super version with losless audio...and there have been a few others mentioned.

For the most part though...there will be mostly movies from the 80's and up I would think...as well as upcoming new releases.

Aren't Lawrence & Kwai both SB discs? I know Lawrence is, but don't recall if Kwai is offhand.

Anyway, being SB discs Sony uses HD transfers for those releases. So they should already have the transfer done for anything they put out in SB.

Should make BR releases pretty damn easy since the transfer is already done.

And in the case of Underworld there probably isn't really any transfer as it was all scanned into a 'puter in the first place.

fiveoclockfriday · « **Reply #6 on:** 9 Mar 2006, 02:46 am »

I can't say whether or not you should trade your copies of older movies in, but if the studios put the money and effort into it, they can look absolutely amazing. There are many articles online with the consensus being that high end films (ie, major motion pictures shot on ~35mm or one of its older, similar brethren) are now being scanned at 4k pixels per frame. Essentially double the existing top end of HD format res. (1920 x 1080), this means there's a phenomenal amount of detail, gradiation in tones,etc. to be taken from the older film. Of course scanning at such detail makes imperfections all the more noticeable, which leads to a new level of retouching/'visual remastering'. My favorite example is the Star Wars trilogy. Although getting up there in age, the DVD transfters/remasters look like they were filmed yesterday; hell better than most modern scifi and action movies. The blacks are deep and rich, colors are vivid but natural, and so so sharp all around. It's spectacular if viewed on a good player and good calibrated tv/monitor...and this is only in DVD resolution! But, the prints were scanned and edited at 4k, so a HD or higher transfer would be a snap, and most likely look jaw dropping.

Not to be an Apple shill - but here's a link, many more are out there if you search : http://www.apple.com/pro/film/lowry/starwars/

An interesting question, in my opinion, is how they're going to market many of the amazingly well-selling box sets of sitcoms and similar tv shows for the new formats. Many of these were filmed on either A) cheap, low quality film, B) video (think Welcome Back Kotter), or C) digital, some potentially "HD" but some before that. None of these come close to 4k transfers, and it might be tough to convince people to buy things like this in a higher res format. If the quality just isn't there, what do you push?

My .02 for tonight

Ears · « **Reply #7 on:** 9 Mar 2006, 04:19 am »

Quote from: Dusty Chalk

Most of those look like new releases.

Those are just some of the movies available day one and don't include any movies from Warner,Fox, Disney ,Pixar ect ect yet.

Also from Lions Gate in June as far as official announced release dates

The Devils Rejects
Dune
Resevoir Dogs
Stargate
Total Recall

Underworld Evolutions from Sony

Ears · « **Reply #8 on:** 9 Mar 2006, 04:34 am »

Quote from: bubba966

Aren't Lawrence & Kwai both SB discs? I know Lawrence is, but don't recall if Kwai is offhand.

Anyway, being SB discs Sony uses HD transfers for those releases. So they should already have the transfer done for anything they put out in SB.

Should make BR releases pretty damn easy since the transfer is already done.

And in the case of Underworld there probably isn't really any transfer as it was all scanned into a 'puter in the first place.

bubba....no way are they using SB transfers or any other sd transfers...and Kwai is not an SB ....unless its an old out of print one or import. that I don't know about.

Actually Blu Ray is more complicated than hd dvd according to insiders in the business.

They will be using 1080p (think better than is available via hdtv at this time) original studio masters.
This will be the first 1080p format. ...and all Sony and MGM titles from day 1 are supposed to have never compressed multi channel audio also. via analog outs.
So thats all new 1080p transfers from the masters.

I threw away a local B&M flyer about a month ago because I wasn't in the market for any gear.
But apparently, three weeks ago they had a Blu Ray demo on there Ruby 1080p pj with a split screen with one side using an up scaled dvd vs Blu Ray.
Those that were smart enough to read the store flyer before throwing it away, said that as good as sd dvd looked via the 1080p Ruby...Blu Ray was much better.

Ears · « **Reply #9 on:** 10 Mar 2006, 04:31 pm »

Hers some more info on the amount of 1080p movies already mastered for Blu Ray.
http://www.avrev.com/news/0306/08.blu_ray.shtml

kbuzz3 · « **Reply #10 on:** 10 Mar 2006, 08:59 pm »

As been stated many times, i will be one of those who CANNOt commit to blu ray until the format war is resolved.

Joh stewart's reference to beta tape at the oscars reminded me not to get excited until we know its a viable format.

Ears · « **Reply #11 on:** 12 Mar 2006, 06:52 pm »

In this case Blu Ray has the studio support and is the VHS....hd dvd is the beta this time around.

Srinivas · « **Reply #12 on:** 25 Mar 2006, 02:08 pm »

And I am gonna wait till the prices drop. I cant believe I paid $350 for a non-progressive scan, will not play CD-R or DVD-R, 2-disk DVD player. (Toshiba SD-3900 I think).

dcbingaman · « **Reply #13 on:** 15 Apr 2006, 05:21 am »

Before everybody gets hot and bothered over Blu-Ray or HD DVD check this out from an insider in the LA Times. There is already a LOT of doubt as to whether either format has a chance of making it, particularly if they down-rez the component video outputs. if you thinmk CD is an entrenched format, wait until you try to sell people on upgrading to HD DVD for their NTSC sets. I predict an even bigger flop than SACD / DVD-Audio. (remember them). Unless Sony does a MUCH better job promoting Blu-Ray than they did with SACD, I'd sit this one out for a while.

From the LATimes, 10 April 2006

EDITORIAL
Seeing trouble in HD

April 10, 2006

IF THEY WANT A GLIMPSE OF THEIR own future, Hollywood executives should take a peek at the latest year-end report from the Recording Industry Assn. of America. It's not a pretty picture. There, amid the statistics about declining CD sales and booming music downloads, are the grim numbers for the higher-fidelity formats once billed as the music industry's Next Big Thing. Their sluggish performance suggests what could happen to the two competing high-definition video formats that Hollywood will soon try to sell, HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

Here are the parallels. Like the advanced audio formats, the new video discs are the creation of consumer-electronics companies looking for new gear to sell, not artists pushing for a new medium. Just as the labels were split over their new formats, DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD (SACD), the studios have yet to rally behind either one of the high-definition formats.
DVD-Audio and SACD discs were mutually incompatible and required expensive new equipment to play; ditto for HD-DVD and Blu-ray. DVD-Audio and SACD were sold as a major improvement in sound quality over CDs, which were already good enough to satisfy most music fans; replace "sound" with "image," and ditto for HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

If the experience in audio is any measure, these are not the ingredients of a successful debut. The first DVD-Audio discs arrived late in 2000. In the years since then, shipments have fluttered between 300,000 and 500,000 discs - less than 0.1% of conventional CD shipments. SACDs, which dribbled onto the market in 1999, reached 1.3 million units in 2003. Since then, shipments have plummeted to 500,000 units. Even Sony, which helped invent SACD, has shifted its energies toward another new format.
True, the video improvements promised by high-definition discs may be easier for most people to discern than were the audio improvements promised by higher-fidelity discs. The discs will display more than five times as much detail as a DVD.

To get the most out of all those extra pixels, however, viewers will need a much larger screen than most Americans have in their homes today - say, a 50-inch-or-larger set.
Some studios are looking at other aspects besides picture quality to boost their high-definition offerings. Disney executives in particular have talked about using the expansive capacity of Blu-ray discs to pile on extra features. The two formats also have built-in interactivity and networking capabilities, which the studios would be wise to take advantage of. Otherwise, the new discs' fates could be summarized by one of Paramount's latest releases: "Failure to Launch."

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #14 on:** 15 Apr 2006, 06:39 am »

A nice fluff peice by a rag that doesn't know its ass from a hole in the ground. Not that that automatically means they're wrong, just that it's comical to bandy filler like that around like it's authoritative on any level. It's just another hack decreasing the S/N ratio of the issue.

Just my 2 cents.

dcbingaman · « **Reply #15 on:** 15 Apr 2006, 08:52 pm »

Rob, you may be right, but I just read the retailers are ALREADY discounting the Toshiba HD DVD players to get their initial inventory out the door. I smell a great big commercial flop right around the corner, and the industry has no one to blame but themselves. If they had done a better job promoting SACD and DVD-Audio, say like Apple has with the iPod, I'd be more optimistic. But when they cave-in to the trogodytes in Hollywood and allow downrezzing of the component video outputs so that nearly all the early adopters are required to replace both their DVD players and their displays to see the benefits of the technology, well, that is just abject stupidity. And digital inputs are no answer either. Remember that HDMI was not made reliable enough for anyone to really count on until LAST YEAR. Hence EVERYTHING built before 2005 potentially has a huge compatibility issue with the new players. This is a trainwreck just waiting to happen. I hope Best Buy, et al. increase the size of thier return counters to handle the volume.

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #16 on:** 16 Apr 2006, 03:23 am »

That's true. It seems like the mfg'ers of new formats are falling all over themselves in the rush to shoot themselves in the foot.

Ears · « **Reply #17 on:** 17 Apr 2006, 01:21 pm »

Quote from: dcbingaman

Rob, you may be right, but I just read the retailers are ALREADY discounting the Toshiba HD DVD players to get their initial inventory out the door. I smell a great big commercial flop right around the corner, and the industry has no one to blame but themselves. If they had done a better job promoting SACD and DVD-Audio, say like Apple has with the iPod, I'd be more optimistic. But when they cave-in to the trogodytes in Hollywood and allow downrezzing of the component video outputs so that nearly all the ...

Actually, most studios will allow 1080i over component....and its the actual disc that decides this and not the format or player itself.

I already bought an hd dvd player, and the returns will instead be coming from people dissapointed that there audio reads Dts....and is down 8-10db with little dynamics and has weak bass.
Were talking worse audio than sd dvd...as the DD+ on Warner titles can only be decoded by receivers with hdmi...and those will be outdated in a couple months by hdmi 1.3.

This is going to be a mess...and I think hd dvd is going to be sorry for trying to launch early as it back fires in there face.

Hopefully, Blu Ray sees this, and learns from it.