Contact coming in October!

I remember buying it to show off my (at the time) Awesome Panasonic A310 DVD  player ;)  My Toshiba Model 2006 player wouldn't play it.. but I bought Contact and Little Shop of Horrors (with the alternate ending.. a title I will NEVER surrender) at the same time.  

This is a must buy for me :)

I remember the original DVD being one of the first DVDs that I felt really got everything right. That I loved the movie probably didn't hurt.

Probably a day one purchase for me.

i,too, saw it in the cinema opening day. excellent presentation. taht's why i felt disappointed by the DVD's audio presentation, didn't really live up to my expectations.

Same here. I remember the "rotting disc" reports with this title but my copy plays fine after all this time. I just watched it again last night. This will make for an excellent Blu-Ray. Judging by the specs, however, I doubt we'll be seeing any new extras or we'll get it on a 50GB disc. A shame.

This was THE first DVD I bought, in may of '98, in order to try out my new Encore DXR2 decoder card that had S-video out on it.  I had a 20 foot S-Video cable running from my computer room to my TV in my apartment, and was blown away by the picture.  I'm a little harder to please now, but I too watched this recently (on my 50" plasma) and was surprised how well it still holds up... some compression artifacts that you usually don't see anymore, but honestly I think it compares favorably to the latter day WB DVD's, like the Dark Knight and Harry Potter 5 for example.

I'll be upgrading Contact to Blu so long as I don't hear of any unfortunate quality issues.

Amazon now has this for only 18.99 - even better.

This is a fabulous movie from a fabulous book. If you haven't read it, you definitely should. There are some interesting differences between the movie and the book. For example, there are 5 people who go through the machine instead of just one.

This was also one of my first DVDs, if not the first. Not too long ago, I dusted this off the shelf and played it again without any problems.

DVD Beaver has a review up! Not sure I like the shift in color.

 

Not overly worried about the color shift, more worried about the amount of DNR they mention. If it's anywhere near the level of Gladiator I'm going to wait until this hits the discount shelves before upgrading. Too bad to read about the potential PQ issues as this was a title I was really looking forward to purchasing...

Yeah, Gary's review and those screen caps have certainly put me off this title for now. Too bad. I was really looking forward to upgrading this film to Blu.

Sadly, the HDNet screen caps looked superior to the BD ones in DVDBeaver.com's review.

It is odd cause the BD looks better definition wise but the color correction that was done on the HD BD transfer is odd. Usually BD image quality gives a more natural skin tone, but the BD seems to not do so. Most cases more red and not natural looking at all. 

I can't believe this transfer got fouled up. I guess we can wait for another corrected edition for the transfer supervised by the filmmakers in about 10 years and they can put a sticker on it saying so. 

Clearly there seems to be more detail in the BR than the HD broadcast (as one would hope), but what is with that red shift? I guess someone thought the movie color was dull and wanted to warm it up a bit. Every screenshot seems to have that red shift, except for one. Oddly in the one shot of Jodie's eyes (near the bottom of the page), the BR image lookes the "coolest" (i.e. least red). Usually the HD broadcast color tone matches the DVD. But, in this image the DVD looks red, while the BR looks dull, and, the HD broadcast looks vibrant. That shot is also a good example of how much more detail the BR has over the HD broadcast.

The perfect release would probably the BR with the HD broadcast's color timing. In general watching, it'll probably still look fine even with the odd color tone.

Agreed. The BD images seem more detailed to me. I'm more concerned about what prompted the color shift.

Boy, those comparisons at DVD Beaver are startling.  The last time I watched this on DVD (not too long ago) I did think the colors looked a bit drab, and wondered if it was what it looked like in theaters.  It sure looks likes they punched it up... but yikes, that shot of the eye is disturbing.

Now I'm torn about what was a must buy.  It's certainly a net win over the DVD IMHO, as the DVD really has some unfortunate mpeg artifacts, especially in night scenes.  But the DNR reports and that extreme red shift are troubling to say the least.

Is it really that hard to do this right? 

Every time we buy crap like this, it says to them ...WHATEVER WE PUT OUT, THEY'LL BUY!!!

After looking at those screen caps on DVDBeaver I'd say the Blu-ray release looks the best, a couple of those the reds seems a bit to strong but calibration of displays, screens and so much more go into affecting colors that I'm not too concerned. I plan to buy this on street day, it's just too good of a film and from what I've seen, looks great on Blu.

well, i pre-ordered it already ='(.

i am so sad, what is UP with all this DNR crap? no1 is complaining to the studios about film grain... why do they have to mess things up?

Be careful how much weight you place on Gary's screencaps. As I recall, his caps @ one point had colorspace issues and I'm not sure if that's been corrected yet.

Yeah, I'm waiting to see this for myself. I still have it on pre-order and I'm not going to cancel it. Honestly, looking at those screen caps I don't see any obvious DNR issues. It still looked better than any of the other sources in terms of detail. Colorspace problems could certainly account for the incorrect color tone.

I'm sure in normal motion this disc will probably look just fine.

I frequent Gary's site on almost a daily basis. I agree with you about there having been a colorspace issue in the past with a few images. But, I must say that good, bad or indifferent, Gary's screen caps are always very consistent (especially in his own personal reviews.) Based on the vast number of screen captures posted each week at DVD Beaver that I have seen, I have to say that these look dramatically different. I'll be very surprised if these screen captures do not accurately reflect the actual look of this disc. Those reds are totally out of control IMO and I know I will be completely distracted by them if I were to watch this BD. If this is a DVD Beaver technical issue then fine, I'll gladly reconsider and pick up a copy. Otherwise, I am going to sit this one out. And it pains me to say that since I have been anxiously awaiting Contact on BD.

http://www.imagebam.com/image/efc9ef50821530
http://www.imagebam.com/image/2e1c5a50821531
http://www.imagebam.com/image/d2c71c50821532
http://www.imagebam.com/image/32926250821534

Jedi,
Are those from the Blu-Ray?

Ha!

I'm really hoping the screen caps are not quite right or something.  I did even download the pics to see if I could verify potential colorspace problem in (my old version of) Photoshop CS, but no dice in part because the pic files (as shown on the site) do not retain colorspace info at all.  I also tried a simple correlated comparison w/ say one of their Braveheart screen caps (since nobody reported problems there), but no dice there either after an initial (false) impression of a visual discrepancy.

Too bad to see that this film *might* not have gotten the proper treatment  as I was really looking forward to picking it up (at a decent catalog title price of course).  Had thought Warner had finally gotten over the transfer quality issues now, but maybe not afterall.   This one may end up being another tough choice to simply bite the bullet and buy it flaws and all, if I can find it at a hard-to-resist bargain price (much like the Amadeus BD) -- that is, if the PQ issues are real of course...

_Man_
 

Thanks for posting those, it looks great. A must add to the collection for sure.

Hmmm...  The caps posted by JediFonger don't seem to exhibit the same color bias issue as those on DVDBeaver though -- at least nothing that obvious -- but then again, we don't have comparison caps to see side-by-side for these...

_Man_

JediFonger's screen-grabs look MUCH better than the DVDBeaver review images. I hope a couple more reviews are published before the Blu-ray streets so we can definitively clear this up one way or another...

Exactly why screen grabs are useless, and makes me wonder why so many put so much stock in captured images posted on a website.

I'll be buying this next Tuesday, then I'll decide for myself. I agree JF's grabs look much better than Gary's.

Like Patton, this film is too good to pass up for some minor video issues. For me anyway. I expect that the Contact Blu-ray, like Patton, will be a major step up from the DVD. Unfortunately, not every title will look as good as Braveheart or The Wizard of Oz. They still almost always blow away their DVD counterparts. YMMV.

Screencap colorspace issues aside, I'd like to read another review just to get a second opinion regarding the "egregious use of DNR" Gary mentioned in his DVDBeaver review.