A Few Words About A few words about...™ King Kong -- in HD-DVD (1 Viewer)

[Lou Sytsma]

Any word on if the extended cut is coming to HD DVD? That is the version I am waiting for.

 

[ppltd]

Actually, there is enough space on this disk to place the Dolby HD track and some supplements if they had wanted to. No, this is Universal, so what we are looking at is a Studio poised to hit use with a special edition in a month or two.

I wonder if this has more to do with the fact that they are using this release as the give away for the 360 Add-On.

 

[ppltd]

It is becoming very obvious that three of the major exclusive studios, Universal with their shaft the HD camp's release of King Kong with no Dolby-HD track or suppliments, Fox with their less than stellar XMEN release (Though not quite as lacking as King Kong release), and Sony with just about all of their releases have shown little regard for the consumer.

Thankfully, we have Warner continuing to release quality product for both formats, and Paramount not far behind.

I am going to become much, much more selective when choicing which HD disks to purchase.

 

[MarekM]

Thomas,

any chance to get info how much space took King Kong on disk ?

Marek

 

[ppltd]

Marek, I saw the space utilized on this disk sonewher, but for the life of me, I can not find it. If I do, I will post it.

If I can not find it, I will check this weekend when I get home.

 

[Romar Armas]

A 27.4GB ISO of the King Kong HD DVD has been sucessfully ripped using the Xbox 360 drive.

 

[MarekM]

did you saved iso file to hardisk ? how ?


Thomas, are you sure there is a place for DolbyTrueHD, if KK now is on 27.4GB ? is 2.6GB enough for DolbyTrueHD ? how big can he 3hours soundtrack in dolbytruehd ?

Marek

 

[Romar Armas]

I didn't but using the Xbox 360 HD DVD, people were able to extract the ISO of the disc when connected to a PC. Fortunately, it seems that the encryption is intact.

 

[Ron-P]

Then you split it between two disks.

 

[AaronSCH]

Unless you have superb audio equipment and the proper acoustics, I don't find the audio differences negligible in most cases. The debate over Dolby Digital and DTS always left me scratching my head. However, the image upgrade of HD DVD is easily apparent even on my old Hitachi 57" Rear Projection TV. KING KONG on HD DVD is SPECTACULAR ...both sound and vision.

 

[Ron-P]

There is quite a noticeable difference between DD+ and TrueHD, so much so it's very easy to hear. This is nothing like the dd vr dts sound war, were talking lossy vr lossless, a huge difference.

 

[Sam Posten]

I was flipping through a few chapters of my Kong that came with the 360 HD drive, and I thought I saw some dust on a few frames together. I rolled back and... it was a CG mosquito buzzing in and out of the fangs of a T -Rex. SLICK.

 

[MarekM]

hey Ron-P, I am with you on DoblyTrueHD, well I am not sure about splitting on TWO discs, you can imagine that storm from users that 30GB HD-DVD can't hold reference quality 3hours movie with loosless soundtrack

Marek

 

[ppltd]

From what I have read, there would have been little problem organizing the disk to hold Dolby-HD, if Universal would have wanted to.

Marek, the Split Disk has already happened. Reds has been released in both BD abd HD with the movie split down the middle. That sucks.

 

[Robert Harris]

Reds has an intermission

 

[ppltd]

Robert, I have no issue with movies split at the intermission onto 2 disks. Even without the intermission, it can be done without interrupting the flow of the movie. The extended editions of LOTR are fine examples of this. My 'sucks' comment was more related to the slow response of the current generation of players. When these players are capable of loading and unloading at current DVD player speeds, it will be no issue for me.

I do wish Universal would have included a Dolby HD track on their release. There seems to be little excuse for the studio to eliminate that feature from a movie with as powerful a soundtrack that King Kong has.

Oh well, here's hoping for a special edition.

 

[Ron-P]

I want the EE and will buy it, TrueHD or not, that's why this Kong HD-DVD I don't need, the SD is fine for now. I just hope it gets a TrueHD track.

 

[Dan Hinson]

I’m not saying Universal shouldn’t have included extras, but is anyone really paying $40 for this disc? I paid $20 for mine.

 

[MarekM]

interesting thread............ some users are seeing too many artifacts on KK hmm

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King Kong is NOT the image King!
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5&page=1&pp=30
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Marek

 

[Grant H]

Not to totally derail this thread, but somebody mentioned about the soundtrack should live up to theatrical DD just fine.

Now I'm not debating the sound quality of this release; I'm sure it's a fine DD+ release (even if it's not lossless compression).

But isn't it not saying much to compare a track to the theatrical DD track? Isn't it (or wasn't it) true that theatrical DD is actually more compressed than what we get on SD DVD, thanks to the limitations of printing the code on the film, or have they improved it? I always thought part of the reason theatrical DTS (not the same as the DD vs. DTS at home debate) was far superior was because it didn't have the limitations of printing it on the filmstrip; it's on discs, enabling a high bitrate. There are just codes on the film to keep it in sync.

I've only experienced a few DD theatrical presentations, and I'm happy it was only a few. Digital blips at all the reel changes (likely someone just pieced the film together poorly) and generally thin sound. For me, DD has always been better at home.

I do have to wonder what the difference in size has to be between a 1.5 mbps DD+ track and a Dolby True HD track. With that high a rate, you wouldn't think the file size would be that different. It's not like Dolby True HD is uncompressed PCM. But I know little about the numbers behind these compression schemes.

And does anyone know how the file sizes compare between Dolby True HD and DTS-MA?

I'm actually kind of glad we haven't yet reached the time (but it's a comin') when people start arguing that one lossless codec sounds better than the other lossless codec. Though there is some debate that Dolby's track has more opportunities for corruption. Then again, there's also been argument of whether DTS's scheme would function properly and be truly lossless. Don't know how warranted either of those arguments really are. I'm guessing both companies' schemes will do the job just fine. I know I wouldn't want my player introducing anything into the track though.