Terminator 1 & 2

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

The T2 Ultimate Edition DVD featured both DD EX and DTS ES tracks, and I thought the video suffered for it. The Extreme Edition dropped the DTS, and the image was superior, IMO.

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Michael, you're right, we did include both the DD and DTS of the same track on UT2... but sa I recall, we had that lovely "tastes great/less filling" rivalry going on between those who preferred Dolby and those who swore by DTS, and we'd hear an earful from whichever we left off. The way I saw it, we gave folks a basis of meaningful comparison between the two!

Nowadays, though, it IS redundant to have both, since they are both pretty much defults on players.

I think the reason the T2X image looks better than UT2 is the new transfer done on newer equipment with more experience, and not so much the lack of a DTS track... but it certainly didn't hurt.

V

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This is, or used to be, a problem with hard drives. As an HD got nearer to capacity, problems would occur. As HDs have gotten bigger and harder to fill up, this has been less of a problem. Perhaps improving technology has also reduced the frequency of the problem. I hadn't realized that a read-only medium like BluRay could suffer from this problem.

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My apologies, Van, I didn't mean to understate the importance of the new transfer. What I should have said was that I thought the UE looked somewhat soft from the get-go, and I was glad, when I saw the specs for the XE, that the redundant soundtrack had been dropped, allowing the XE to preserve, as much as possible, the benefits of the new transfer.

Of course, now we have an even better presentation of that transfer on Blu-ray, though there remains the theoretical question of whether a still superior presentation would be possible, if the studio were willing to jettison all or most of the supplemental content for the sake of a higher bitrate.

(Lest anyone misunderstand, I call it a "theoretical" question solely because I can't imagine a studio making such a decision.)

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Van, I recently picked up the Australian (and New Zealand) version of T2: Skynet, and although the disc packaging and menu state that it contains a DTS-HD Master Audio 6.1 soundtrack, my equipment only indicates 5.1. The AVS audio/video specifications list also states that the disc is 5.1ES.

Is the soundtrack actually discrete 6.1 or is it matrixed 5.1ES? Thanks!

Adam

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Adam, you have no idea how much of a mess the whole 5.1/6.1 thing was... it's really 5.1 matrixed. The only legit (ie, Lightstorm-approved) remix was the one we did in 1999 for the 2000 UT2 release, which was the 5.1 EX that Gary Rydstrom did. It has a matrixed center surround, which is why it was encoded on that DVD as Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX and DTS-ES 5.1. I always refer to the mix as 5.1 EX so we know the CS is not discrete. Nowadays, DTS prefers to call that same configuration a 6.1 since the CS signal technically exists and can be sent to a speaker. I call this the "rounding-up" school of marketing myself, but what the hey... it's really "5 and a half point 1", but DTS rounds it up to 6.1 while Dolby rounds it down to 5.1.

So when I was doing the menus and asking about the wording, DTS said it should be called 6.1. When I questioned that (since I was going to call the Dolby version 5.1), they said that all of the receivers and players that read it would display "6.1" on their LED panels, so we shouldn't confuse them by calling it 5.1. I acquiesced, and so of course half of the players we later tested the disc on displayed "5.1"... DTS says that older players will likely do that, but the newer equipment should correctly display it as "6.1". My PS3 displays it as 5.1 as well.

Go figure,

V

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Very interesting. Thanks for that Van! Certainly not the first time marketing people have caused confusion by failing to understand the products they sell.

Given the true multichannel capabilities of the Blu-ray audio formats, these kinds of marketing fudges have the potential to annoy a lot of people if they aren't careful. Next they'll be marketing Dolby Surround stereo soundtracks as '4.0'!

Adam

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I would not word it that way either. The fooling aspect was referring to the use of sharpening to give the impression of a crisper, sharper and more detailed picture to people who don't have large enough screens to see that it does the opposite, and this way get fooled into thinking they got more resolution when they got actually less resolution. And to the use of DNR to give the impression of more of a clean 'out of the window' look when actually what they get is again less detail and less resolution ( and a look that is simply not accurate relative to its source).
What do the people in charge want? First a well selling product, for sure. No sales no profit. And since there can't be lots of sales if the customers (strongly) dislike the product and it has bad word of mouth they want happy customers. What makes customers happy? To each his own. Some want lots of supplements, some none, some are videophiles and want best image and sound quality and accuracy. Some could not care less as long as it's 'good enough'. Hence the endless discussions.
Yes and no. I agree that the most important aspect to most people is just the film itself (independent of its incarnation) which you refer to here as storytelling. Either the subject interests you or not, the cast is attractive to you or can not motivate you to have a look. But at the same time most people (and I mean most in the general movie consuming population, not here on dedicated web sites) is simply not educated/discerning in these matters. Be it that the image quality aspect is simply not relevant to them, be it that they have no equipment or viewing habits to even see accurately what they bought or be it that they have very simple concepts of good and bad in this matter. That in itself is no problem for videophiles or film buffs as long as it does not generate a feedback loop via sales that goes against videophile principles. Once it does we do have a problem. If the majority of people are grainophobes and want to see no grain (aka 'noise') while the majority of films are inherently grainy and always looked that way then we can kiss the film look on BD good bye. Or at best there are niche releases for videophiles and streamlined versions for the others.
Absolutely. So the trick is to have the cake and eat it too. Find ways to stick to videophile principles while keeping the masses happy at the same time. Not necessarily easy.
There are so many ways we can watch movies if it's about content only. There really is no shortage of options to us. There is currently only one way though of watching them outside a theater (and since > 99.9% of all movies are not playing there at any given time actually only one at all) which one could call high end and meeting the highest standards of quality and accuracy available to the public in general, and that's the Blu Ray. Which makes it special till alternatives arise. If we don't give people (near) master quality there and make compromises we don't give people the film the way it could and should be made available as an option too, at all.
And that's why nobody who understands how it works would blame you for the DNR applied. But as a principle I firmly believe if a top quality presentation of the film is intended then the needs of the film itself are met first (compression is not there to change the look of the film, make it visually lossless) and the rest of the bit budget is then used for supplements. If not all supplements considered essential fit this way a second disc (BD 25) is certainly a good option. Is a supplementary BD25 disc really such a big cost factor that it would cause endless discussions with accountants? And what do customer surveys tell us? How many people actually watch the supplements? And how many watch them never?

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Please define "visually lossless". AFAIK, all video compression schemes currently in use on Blu-ray are lossy.

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No one is blaming you as far as what happened with the PQ of the final product. we understand that. It is what it is. Its some of the people trying to do damage control at various A/V site/forums of which I find really unfortunate.



In regards about the disc . . . .

The complains of users with the menus and naviagation of this disc is unfair. To those people who still has their old blu-ray players that has problems with this disc, what are you waiting for? If the firmware update does not work just buy another player with the latest profile. Future releases will get more extras and stuff and will require faster and better players.


Or just buy a PS3.

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Will we ever see (hear) the CDS track on a disc, say converted to PCM to compare the home mix and cinema mix ?
I for one would love to hear the diff the Rydstrom made

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Interesting idea, Mike... maybe next time, if the fates conspire... although since Gary did the original theatrical mixes as well, I reckon it won't be too different...

V

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when I play t2 skynet on my panasonic and bitstream from the receiver to the player. I only get 5.1 but then I do the PCM with my ps3. then I get 7.1
reads on the display screen as 6.1 (ps3 display).
thanks van for clearing that up.
Jacob

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

I just checked out the Skynet edition of T2 on BD and won't add anything further to what many others have stated here. I felt it a tad soft myself, but I was for the most part satisfied with the PQ and particularly, the audio. I wanted to bring up something else.

I've read the posts in this thread starting from early May and did not see it discussed before. I've enjoyed the previous supplements provided for this film in other editions. I particularly remember the wonderful job Van did on the laserdisc special edition way back when. Hence, I was rather mortified to discover that virtually ALL the extras, with the exception of a few trailers and deleted scenes, are ONLY accessible in interactive modes to play along with the movie, branch off, etc. There are five or six such modes I think, which would force the viewer to sit through a fairly long movie many times in order to appreciate these materials.

Could anyone tell me why such extras were not made accessible directly through the Ancillary Data menu? This single minded focus on interactivity to the exclusion of what to me is common sense truly mystifies me. If the information was available separately as well, as is thankfully the case elsewhere for the most part, there would no real reason to complain. However, that choice is not allowed us.

My time for enjoying home video is somewhat finite and having it artificially lengthened in this manner when the time spent could have been cut down significantly really ticks me off.

I briefly sampled a few of these modes and while interesting, I can't say it was worth my time to sit through T2 again and again. I would hope that if Van works on The Abyss with James Cameron in the future, to please consider cutting his fans a break and allow us to access whatever extras are provided separately.

I for one feel that the DVD medium had it right in many ways. Allot of the so-called improvements being foisted on BD are ill advised and real time wasters, at least with regards to the total extra time expended because of additional load times, etc. on these discs. Just because it's new doesn't make it better. That is certainly the case here.

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I agree with you. I'd rather have separate extras than these embedded ones. I suspect one reason is marketing. The producers think that having PIP extras to tout boosts sales and maybe they're right. For the most part I don't like them. So far the only ones that I have liked are done by Pixar.

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You can just skip to the next PIP feature when watching it. The navigation was a little weird but I was able to watch them all in about 45 minutes instead of sitting through the entire movie. I do wish they had a "play all" option so I wouldn't have to navigate after each one. Some of them were only like 10 seconds so it got a little tedious.

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I'd call that an irritatingj "workaround". Why not just provide the content in the most convenient form? I have to wonder just how much thought is given to how people in the real-world use the product?

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Sadly, Johnny I don't think much thought is given to us out here and we are the more enlightened. I'm not sure the majority of the public will care at all and making the process more complex and problematical in performance and reliability will likely turn them off to dipping into these "modes" period.

However, thanks for the tip Matt in any case, I will look into that. By the way when you say "skip to the next PIP" do you mean use the chapter advance or are there on-screen prompts provided? I admit I only briefly looked at two of them.

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Charles, I do in fact give quite a bit of thought about "real-world" usage when I irritatingly design these things, but it's a fair question. First off, the very fact that I've already done it one way on the previous DVDs is the reason I try to do it a different way on the Blu-ray version, to take advantage of and push some of the interactive capabilities of the format and not just repeat the content verbatim. With the exception of the trailers (which are new HD transfers), all of the Interactive Mode extras are designed to be just that, and several of them do not make sense when not running concurrently with the feature film. Another major reason that we didn't include the Picture-in-Picture material in the Ancillary Data Menu as standalone is due to disc space. When you do PiP, the secondary video layer material --whose native video frame is 29.97fps--MUST be running at the same frame rate as the main feature, which is to say 23.98fps. So it has to be converted and deinterlaced from 29.97 to 23.98fps, which makes it kind of look less than optimal, especially if we want to view it standalone in and filling most of the HD frame. We would thus need to include that 40-plus minutes of material TWICE on the disc, which means even less disc space for making the movie look good.

Johnny and Matthew, you can easily skip to the next PiP segment during the viewing of any PiP segment in Interactive Mode. When a PiP segment plays, you'll notice that there is a highlight on the little right arrow icon in the framing window of that PiP segment. Pressing ENTER on your remote will jump you to the next segment. Similarly, if you press the LEFT arrow, you will highlight the little left arrow icon, which will jump you to the previous PiP segment unpon pressing ENTER. Finally, arrowing UP during a PiP segment will move the highlight to the Interactive Mode Control Pane at the top; you are also there as a default whenever there is no PiP segment running. From this Interactive Mode Control Pane, you can select the various Modes (there is an icon for each) and toggle them on or off. When you select an icon, you can arrow DOWN to get to the selections for that Mode. In the case of the PiP and the Data Modules (slideshows), you can select a subtitle language stream for them OR you can also select "GO TO NEXT SEGMENT" or "GO TO PREVIOUS SEGMENT" and press ENTER.

And as for "Play All", you can select "GO TO SEGMENT INDEX" for either the Visual Implants (PiP) or the Data Module Modes and by pressing ENTER get to an index page that lists every segment so you can select them individually or play them all in order. You didn't think I was going to deprive you of that functionality, did you? ;-)

Note that playing the PiP segments from this menu means that they play in a small window in the upper right corner, not full frame. This is the only way we were able to program it without having to include the material twice on the disc (and lower the feature bitrate further).

This is what I mean by "interactive". If you play with the Control Pane navigation a bit, you'll see that there was more thought put in than you might at first suspect. And if you don't like this navigation --as is your right-- there are always the previous DVDs...

Hope this helps,

V

PS: Johnny, I agree with you that the Pixar discs are awesome; that's what you get when you have filmmakers who actually care about the disc releases, are willing to do them in-house, and have the track record to demand the necessary budgets from the studios to do them!

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I love how the disc works, there is no reason to be slavish to past formats.

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I really have mixed emotions about this. While on one hand I want BR to be more than DVD, on the other hand I don't want features to be used just because they're there. With all respect Van, this disc takes way to long to load and that to me is a real-world issue that deserves more consideration. I have about 30 BDs and by far, this disc takes the longest to load. BTW, my player is the Sony BDPS550 which is a 2nd generation player. Not as fast as a PS3 but at least on a par with other 2nd generations players.

This very long explanation of how to use PiP stuff, IMO, proves a point. If a feature is not intuitive in how to use it, a lot of people won't use it. I consider most of us here on the HTF to be HT geeks. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the supreme geek) I consider myself a 2or 3. I think I'm closer to the famous Joe 6-pack than most here (I do like a good beer-Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale). I don't want to jump through hoops to use a feature. The fact that I have to go into my player setup to change my audio setup in order to get the sound out of the PiP is a hoop. Couldn't the PiP been configured so that changes to the player setup were not required?

Hmmm. Well, I know you're not talking about JC, so I'll just leave the comment bubbling in my head. As for the Pixar PiP, it appears to be simplicity itself. Small screens pop up from time to time, sometimes it's video and sometimes still pics. Any audio is there with my standard player settings.

I realize also that Pixar has an advantage in that they are releasing current or at least more recent films on BR and that must make it easier to produce extras. Heck, from what I read, "A Bug's Life" doesn't have the PiP and that's an older Pixar film.

Maybe I'm asking for things that are not technically feasable, maybe not. Here's my attitude: I'm a customer talking to the person who produces the product I buy. Like any customer I think I know it all and only my concerns matter I also realize that you have other requirements tugging at you besides what I want.

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All fair points, Johnny, but there are in fact a ridiculous number of technical issues that frustrate the heck out of me in the BD format, where you can do A but doing so will disallow B, or take away bandwidth from C. The disc does take longer to load on slower players, and that was supposed to be addressed by the benchmarking process that happens upon disc insertion. If it's still slow, then obviously either our benchmarking isn't working, our implementation isn't optimal yet, or the player is just slow. Sadly, because I'm not a programmer, I must rely on the expertise of others in the programming area, and as far as I can tell, we're all learning the format and making mistakes and figuring out solutions as we go. So I value your feedback as it gives me impetus to keep trying to come up with more elegant and efficient solutions next time around if I can. And if it comes across to you that I'm just following the technological imperative and doing something just because the capability is there, then I've obviously failed... but I keep trying. When someone complains about the lack of a feature and you show them that it's in fact there (you're welcome) and then they complain that it's too slow and should be easier, most people in my business generally say "screw 'em if they don't appreciate it". My folly is that I try to get past the demoralizing part and try to find the constructive criticism in it.

As for the PiP, of course we could have worked it so you didn't have to go into your audio setup, but it would have meant we needed to add an additional, premixed audio stream and therefore lower the overall bitrate of the film yet again. When you're dealing with a zero-sum game, every accommodation for one thing is a sacrifice of another, so we make judgment calls on what we feel is priority. And obviously, everyone has different priorities. Wanting everything does not qualify as a priority... it is in fact the unreasonable lack of priorities . Your attitude, while not atypical by any means, is not a "solvable" problem by means other than education. And I don't ascribe to the idea that everything should be spoonfed to the consumer as if they were all idiots; while I do try to make the navigation relatively intuitive, I expect those that have the interest to meet me halfway and figure it out. I don't think that's any more unreasonable an expectation than what I often hear as feedback (include everything and make it all work for next to nothing with no compromises in speed or quality).

So here's MY attitude: help me constructively figure out how to make these discs better. Give me the same respect in trying to understand the process, the format and its limitations as I do in trying to patiently explain the same. Stop buying anything less than the best and most capable players so the manufacturers raise their minimum standards because they see that consumers do expect quality products and won't settle for less. Because if we keep telling our content creators that they have to dumb down their products to accommodate cheaper players, then we're just going to end up with movie-only discs and little innovation. Now, I'm not blaming any given player; I'm frustrated with the huge disparity between player performance from one unit to another that makes the creation and testing process a nightmare and tends to make studios want to make discs more reliable and economical by removing features and sticking with basics only.

End of rant,

V

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I got jumped in another forum about the attitude of the extras and stuff. I remember being excited to see the documentaries on the dvds from star wars to indiana jones to the abyss and many others. lately it seems that they have slowed down and not made that interesting documentaries. even if they are 2 hours long. the last good one that I saw was on the fly remake. I might have missed some of the recent ones. now I am more into watching the movie. if the movie has a trailer, I will watch that. (PS the trailers for t2 are in HD. thanks van) I do check out the pip things from time to time. its pain to change the audio thing with my stand alone player. its work better with my ps3. like the new ghostbuster bluray.

I had problems with the t2 loading.. I can wait for it. van.. you do such a great job.. keep up the great work. some people will like it and others will not. I have learned like others.. that you cann't please everyone.

Jacob

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Even though this occurred later in your comments I'm putting it at the top because I'm concerned there is a misunderstanding here. In writing about my dissatisfaction with T2:Skynet, I've always been writing civilly and with respect, at least that was my intention. I'm pretty sure I've written this in the thread before, but I'll repeat it again. I seldom buy a BD on release date any more. I wait for the price to drop as they almost always do. T2 was an exception, I couldn't wait and I'm glad I have it.


Beginning with the first time I saw the first paper insert warning me the disc may not play and the first time I realized that most BDs are not resumable, I started to wonder if the BD technology was rushed to market before it was ready for prime time.

There has been no change in loading speed. Also keep in mind that I have a 2nd generation player (Sony BDPS550) and the many comments on this forum about loading speed of this disc and the fact that of all my discs, this one is the slowest. This is a slow loading disc.

That's not folly that's good business. Even an unreasonable customer may communicate a nugget of wisdom. My attitude is the customer is or should be king. No matter how much work is invested in a product, if the customer doesn't buy, then the merchant has a problem.

If you feel demoralized, keep in mind that we really are trying to help much more than we are trying to complain. If I ask for something that can't be done, I'm still trying to help.

T2 is certainly not alone here. In fact, it's with the crowd. PJ's King Kong and the new Ghostbusters BDs also are implemented this way. I started to think that the Pixar discs were all 2 disc editions and that's how they got around it. Ratatouille is a single disc and does not require a change to the player disc. However, I dimly recall complaints that Ratatouille dropped some extras from the original DVD release, so maybe that's how they found the space. Not sure about that.

My attitude is that I'm a customer and when given the chance to tell the producer what I would like to have, I'll tell him. I wrote about loading spead and the requirement to change my player setup issue and about the "intuitive" issue. To prioritize my top two issues are 1) loading speed and 2) the PiP audio issue. I do not think that I was asking for everything.

Here's my attitude: I am trying to help you make the discs better by telling you want is important to me. I do read the forums and think that I understand better than the average Joe on the street that there are limitations. But I think I help you more by telling you want is important to me as a customer. I also realize I'm only one customer, but there are a lot of customers out there that are not taking the time to tell you what they think except by their purchasing decisions.

As a customer, the ultimate respect is given by purchasing the produce. Below that in level of respect is communicating any issues with the product. I don't believe I should have to understand your process in creating the product to tell you what I think.

I understand that you are trying to serve two masters: 1) Those who hire you (the "boss") and 2) those that buy the product. I also understand that if what the boss says disagrees with customer, the boss is going to get his/her way.

I think it's more than just a "cheaper" player issue. My neighbor bought a first-generation Samsung and has problems with newers discs not playing. In the past, people would upgrade their home theater equipment for better sound. Now they have to upgrade just to get things to work. Once again, and this is not your fault, I think the BD technology was rushed to market. This is why I don't buy the first generation of anything.

I've been involved with developing software and can readily sympathize with this. And I didn't have to worry about a 100 different operating systems.

I appreciate that you keep coming back for all this abuse

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The speed of a BD loading will sooner or later not be an issue. We have to remember that BD hardware is still evolving. We are still early adopters who most likely purchased the 1st gen of profile 2.0 players.
Much like my 1st DVD player, my first BD player handled branching like crap. It was something that I had to accept for my gimme-gimme-gimme new tech attitude even though it made Wall-E and Close Encounters a pain to watch.
Although, It still kinda sucks having your friends sarcastically say "Superior high definition, heh heh" during a long load screen. You gotta show them the DVD afterward just for them to get it. Luckily they do.

Van, The T2SE-BD sounds like a very complex setup with a simple interface. Thanks for filling us in on what's underneath.

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I need to comment here, thought BD technology was indeed rushed, (for reasons of competition, in order not to have HD-DVD killing it, and killing the disc market in the process), it was 3 years ago and it has evolved a lot since then.

regarding having to upgrade just to get things to work, you can't compare the kinks of Blu-Ray players, which are basically computers, with original DVD and LD players, which were mechanical ie like a CD player or vinyl player.

We're now in the 21st century, and BR players are like computers : they need to have constant updates to be up to current level technology. It shouldn't bother people more than updating OSX or Windows does. It's the nature of the beast.

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Well that's a bit of a shame, I think. I stick to the good ole analogical 2-way stereo scheme for sound (receiver and cd player) and I liked the fact that DVD was built the same way. I ended giving in into the BD cause but I really dislike this all-new-digital crossplatform technological way. I mean: my BD player offers a YouTube access... What's the point???

And the worst part is I'm only 27!

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Well, I have to agree to some Fabien has said:
I truly love BD for its superior PQ and AQ, and some of the new interactive possibilities are quite interesting, but I would rather not have any bonus materials at all, if it diminishes PQ and AQ of a film. Therefore in my opinion it's best to go with 2-Disc-Sets.

I really want Blu-ray to succeed.
Everyone who has seen a film on BD and the comparison to standard DVD on my setup acknoledges, that it is in fact a significant improvement.

The only alternative to Blu-ray would be Internet Downloads, and I just hate the thought that I have to pay multiple times, if I want to watch a film again, while at the same time PQ and AQ are not as good as on BD and much of the bonus features are missing, or have to be paid for separately. This is something the studios would embrace.

I think we should tell people the truth:
If Blu-ray fails, time will come that films cannot be bought on any medium any longer in best PQ and AQ. We will only be able to rent movies for a limited time as Internet download.
If Blu-ray fails, many people will lose their jobs, because the studios will sell movies as download themselves or via stores like iTunes.
There will be no need anymore for manufacturers of discs or shops where you can buy physical media.
In my opinion this is a future I don't want to live in, but I am sure will be here in about 20 years latest.

I think the success or failure of Blu-ray depends largely on one simple fact:
Will the hardware manufacturers and software providers (studios) be able to make Blu-ray fool-proof, easy to use and without annoying limitations?

Many people still do not understand, why they should buy an HDCP compliant TV, if they want to watch a BD. They have a TV and everything should work.

I showed Blu-ray to my 60 year old father and he loved it, but kept asking me:
- Why does it take so long to start a movie? The loading times are too long (e.g. Ratatouille). I have a Panasonic DMP-BD50.
- Why the heck does the movie start before I can make any choices about the languages or watch a Trailer before? Or why do I need to select bonus features while the movie is playing in the background?
- Why does a disc not play at all?
- etc.

To be able to use a Blu-ray player correctly you need to have some knowledge about Home Video techniques, Internet connectivity and Computer Hardware!

This is just unbearable:
My father and most of my friends are completely unknowing of things like connecting a player to a TV or performing Firmware updates. They do not even know how to use the internet. And why should they?
They just want to be able to play a damn disc whenever they want without any annoyances.
They are able to do this with DVD in inferior PQ and PQ, but without any problem.

As long as Blu-ray does not have the user friendliness of DVD, it will not succeed, and it should not be necessary to have an Internet connection to watch a movie (or download a necessary Firmware update).
This is a fact!

It is true, that first (and second) generation DVD-Players also had problems playing discs (e.g. "Follow the White Rabbit" on "The Matrix" or other branched discs), but after two years you could play virtually any DVD on the market. I know that, because I am watching DVDs since 1998.

BD is now 3 years old, and apart from slightly better loading times, I do not see any real progress regarding user friendliness. And to be honest I don't think that this will improve in the next 2 years. Did you ever try to use BD-Live with a Sony disc in Europe! It is an unbelievable pain in the a..!
At the moment I fear, that BD will share the fate of LaserDisc, and this would truly be a shame, because - as I said - I think, that Blu-ray will be the last physical medium to watch a movie.

But maybe the studios want Blu-ray to fail eventually ...

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All of this is quite true. Last night I went through the many interactive extras of T2 BD. They are really interesting! But the programming is so painful...

Hi!

I just got my German Endoskull with the European version of the Skynet-BD, and I am very happy with the disc. PQ and AQ are quite nice and the disc design is great. Loading times on my Panasonic DMP-BD50 are alright, but I have seen faster discs ... ;)

The one thing that bothers me: I tried to watch the disc (to cross check the loading times) on my Computer using PowerDVD 7 Ultra which was included with my LG HD-DVD/BD/DVD drive. I have the latest PowerDVD 7 update/patch installed, and the discs start, but soon after the initial loading symbol (Skynet Access) "PowerDVD" instantly closes itself without playing the disc.
Using PowerDVD 8 or 9 does not make any sense, because these versions are not able to play HD-DVDs anymore which I desperately need.
(By the way: PowerDVD 7 does not have any problem whatsoever during playback of my other 30+ Blu-ray discs.)

Does anyone else have problems playing the European Skynet-BD with PowerDVD 7?