Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Excellent!

I'll be picking up Cloverfield and There Will Be Blood for sure. Glad I didn't buy the DVD's, even though I wasn't really tempted to.

Might also upgrade to the BD of Face/Off.

Too bad there's no Sweeney Todd. Maybe they're saving it for a Halloween release, I hope.

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

That would be my definition of "right" too. Can't wait to revisit There Will Be Blood!

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Extremely glad that I didn't pick up either Cloverfield or There Will Be Blood on SD-DVD......I was quite tempted by the Cloverfield steelbook. Those 2 films will be purchased on release day.

Looking forward to more release announcements from them.

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Strikes me as unlikely they won't use the existing Face/Off transfer - after all, it was scheduled for both formats initially!

Thank God for NetFlix - I wouldn't have been able to resist buying There Will Be Blood or Cloverfield on DVD otherwise. I'll buy the blus as soon as they come out.

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Yes, this is the reason why I don´t really buy SD DVD-releases of these "newer films". Give me 1080p.

Great news that Paramount is "back". Since both Universal and Paramount are again active, this could mean that we´ve some great times ahead. I love Blu-ray!

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

I'm sure you're right. If so, it will serve as a timely reminder that format debates are all well and good, but one principle always remains: garbage in, garbage out. Doesn't matter if the bag is red or blue.

M.

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

EXCELLENT!

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Glad I rented There Will be Blood on SD - a definite purchase on BD.

I hope Chinatown comes soon - my most wanted Paramount title.

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Gawd, bring on Cloverfield I loved this film!!

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Must resist the urge to double dip...
I should have waited, but I figured they would go back to Blu after August.

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

I resisted... Bloody difficult but i'm glad i did.

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Make it a half hour and you've got a deal!

These $40 MSRP discs may drive me to Blockbuster yet. . .

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

As I said, unfotunately I did buy There Will Be Blood, and what makes it worse is the packaging of that one.


Cees

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Considering that it was a 'green' production, they may release the Blu Ray in a paper case too. I'm sure this will cause many OCD fits from collectors.

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Hi Cees

What's wrong with the packaging?

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Since Paramount didn't say anything about the Jack Ryan films, I would like to say that the first three (arguably the best in the series IMO) I would love to upgrade to Blu-ray.

And I would like to once again put in a request for a special edition for Scrooge (1970)... on Blu-ray. Here's the thread again I started in Film and Documentary:

Scrooge (1970) - Will we ever see a special edition?

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Glad to hear that Paramount is going to start getting HD titles on retail shelves. And its a very good sign that they are not pulling a WB and are going to offer lossless audio out of the gate.

Thanks for the information Adam as it is very much apreciated!

I can not wait for a Indiana Blu-ray set to come out. That is one of my must have titles for Blu-ray and is high up on the list. I am glad I held off on Cloverfield and am glad it is coming out soon on Blu-ray.

How ever it looks like the titles that Paramount had previously released on Blu-ray are being anounced in May. DVD Empire has a bunch of Paramounts titles that where discontinued and are being released again May 20th. These titles seem to be exactly what was out before, including lossy DD and DTS. So for there previous titles they seem to be pulling a WB on us. I hope with the offering of Dolby True HD with there new titles that we do not see a return of the lossy tracks with no lossless in the future.

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

I'd be happy with a movie-only Blu-Ray of Scrooge

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

This is partly why I started renting again (via Blockbuster Online this go-around).


Yah. That's another reason for renting again... though I still want to own whatever I deem wortwhile of course. I'll probably eventually settle on whatever bare minimum rental service like 2-per-month for $4 (mainly for new releases) while going for the bigger plans on occasion to do catch-up viewings and marginal titles.

Can't wait to see all the Paramount BDs come out (and hopefully done right).

_Man_

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

But that's why my view has been that they shoulda just done it right all along and ideally *not* give us the darned format war to begin w/. Of course, in practice, things don't work out that way because everyone has his/her/its own agenda, etc.

Hopefully, we can *all* leave all the bad stuff behind (while learning a good lesson from it all) going forward...

_Man_

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

DVD Times - Paramount Blu-ray in May/June

"Titles being re-released as Paramount gets back into Blu-ray production are...

Aeon Flux, Babel, Black Snake Moan, Coming to America, Disturbia, Dreamgirls, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Sleepy Hollow, The Untouchables, The Warriors, Trading Places, We Were Soldiers and World Trade Centre."

So slowly the older BD-titles are also "coming back".

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Too bad though that we won't get lossless tracks for at least some of those reissues, eg. Dreamgirls.

_Man_

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

It's the worst "case" I've ever seen.
Mainly a folded cardboard map, and no support to make it evenly thick (from above or below, it looks like an open triangle, meaning the center part cannot withstand any pressure). It's an abomination - and this coming from someone who liked the snapper.

There's absolutely nothing "green" about it: just cheap.


Cees

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Looking forward to the announcement of Mean Girls. Hopefully, it won't take too long. I'm also hoping that we'll see some of the Friday the 13th films by October. Parts 1-6 are what I'm most interested in. Maybe they'll release two each year like they did on DVD. But they really should use the original poster art, not that photoshop junk they used for the DVD covers of parts 5-8.

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

And at least for those particular titles Paramount is pulling a WB on us. I never understood why the heck they used the tired old lossy DD and DTS tracks on an HD title? I really wanted We Where Soldiers but I might hold off until there is a re-release of that with a lossless track?

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Man, I think you've missed my point.

I regard the format war as a trivial matter compared with an issue that existed long before anyone had heard of Blu-ray and that will continue long into the next format (whatever that may be): namely, the quality of film-to-video transfers in general. So while I'm as happy as the next person that Paramount is finally starting to announce Blu-ray titles, my enthusiasm is tempered by the recognition that a bad transfer is still bad, even if it's on Blu-ray. And that's very likely to be the case with Face/Off and several other Paramount titles.

M.

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

I suspect not entirely though the finer details might've been skewed somewhat in different ways.


I agree w/ that, and actually, I was just pointing out how "ideally" the studios (and CE companies) should in general have done what's right and get things done right from the get-go. Yes, in a sense, the format war was trivial to this specific matter, ie. if Paramount wanted to give us great quality titles, they could've regardless of the format war. But I do believe in practice the format war (or rather the approaches that the various parties took that led to and perpetuated the war) did in fact contribute somewhat to the problem anyhow. IMHO, there are various interrelated factors involved. And the format war being what it was did probably play a significant role in presenting an extra obstacle for certain studios in their delivery of quality titles to us.

For one thing, if they had done everything right, ideally, MPEG2 would not be a concern. Bandwidth and space limitations would also be less of a concern too, if/when those might play into the resulting quality. The lack of a format war would also have allowed certain studios (and CE companies) to commit more strongly and clearly (and quickly) toward max quality output. And those are just what's off the top of my head.

Yeah, stuff like the DNR issue is a bit different (and philosophical), but even there, one can argue that less DNR might be used in some cases if bandwidth/space limitations are of absolutely zero concern (thus leaving it purely to the rather philsophical debate about how/when DNR should be used, if at all). And if the transfer is bad, it costs $$$ (and time/effort) to redo it -- again, there can be interrelated factors there also, including the $$$/time commitment involved, if there's a format war to cloud things, not that Paramount has had a great track record (like you said) anyhow though they seem to eventually improve when all obstacles are removed, eg. it took them a while, but they eventually got to the point where they released pretty decent 16x9 DVDs at a decent pace vs doing very little and sticking w/ just non-16x9 (LD transfers) during the early days of DVD. And of course, the list can go on...

_Man_

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

The older releases that are coming back (I consider Face/Off and Next to be part of these) are what they are, and I don't think we will see these titles revisited for a long time. Paramount really stressed that they want to get it right going forward and I think their newer titles reflect that, and that's why some title(s) that people expected haven't been announced yet.

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

Wow, Scott, GREAT idea. Now that the remake is coming, it´s time to re-release all Friday-films - in 1080p!

(..and where are those Unrated-versions of certain films..?)


I can feel your pain. Paramount/DW was never that great of adding lossless/PCM-tracks to their releases, not even with titles like "Transformers" etc. Of course, there were speculations that one of the reasons was the limited (max 30gb) size with HD DVD... Who knows. Then again, HD DVD often used "1.5MBps" DD+, while Blu-ray got "640 Kbps" DD..

Anyway, "Bee Movie", "Cloverfield", "There Will Be Blood", and "The Spiderwick Chronicles" has Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and "Blades of Glory" has PCM 5.1. "Face/Off" has "only" DTS 6.1 ES/Dolby Digital 5.1 EX, though. "Next" TBC.

So I guess things are looking better now?

Re: Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here.

One can argue anything, but that doesn't mean the argument is valid.

The use of DNR has nothing to do with limitations of space or bandwidth. It has to do with achieving a certain "look" that is perceived by some members of the audience to be more desirable (i.e., zero grain). The fact that this look is inaccurate to the source and leads to other undesirable artifacts (smearing, loss of high frequency information) is well known but ignored in favor of pleasing those that downgrade a disc the minute they notice any grain.

So while one might like to imagine that we wouldn't have this problem if everyone had gone Blu from the get-go (and isn't that what you're really saying behind all that space and bandwidth language?), I'm reminded of a famous line from Hemingway: "Isn't it pretty to think so?"

M.