Now that we're officially in a single format world, what's with Warner's recent tendency to use only 640k Dolby tracks on recent Blu-Ray and HD DVD releases?
I just borrowed Michael Clayton from my brother, and was surprised to see that such a high profile title only had a lossy track. Ocean's 13 was also a victim of this policy, as well as recent catalog titles such as The Aviator, which is a film that would have benefited greatly from a lossy track (for the plane crash scene especially). These aren't titles with IME tracks taking up bandwidth, and they aren't significantly lengthy movies, so even authored within the parameters of HD DVD, a lossless track should not have been an issue.
With Warner likely about to begin authoring strictly for Blu-Ray any day now, we need to speak up to ensure they take advantage of the added bandwidth and capacity. With a year of HD DVD and Blu-Ray under my belt, I'm now accustomed to at least high bitrate lossy tracks, if not full lossless. We're paying a premium to own a high def version of current films, which is appropriate, but I think with that premium there needs to be a higher standard in audio than is available on standard def (and 640k is not enough of one).
I just borrowed Michael Clayton from my brother, and was surprised to see that such a high profile title only had a lossy track. Ocean's 13 was also a victim of this policy, as well as recent catalog titles such as The Aviator, which is a film that would have benefited greatly from a lossy track (for the plane crash scene especially). These aren't titles with IME tracks taking up bandwidth, and they aren't significantly lengthy movies, so even authored within the parameters of HD DVD, a lossless track should not have been an issue.
With Warner likely about to begin authoring strictly for Blu-Ray any day now, we need to speak up to ensure they take advantage of the added bandwidth and capacity. With a year of HD DVD and Blu-Ray under my belt, I'm now accustomed to at least high bitrate lossy tracks, if not full lossless. We're paying a premium to own a high def version of current films, which is appropriate, but I think with that premium there needs to be a higher standard in audio than is available on standard def (and 640k is not enough of one).
