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Paramount Makes Official Blu-Ray announcement! Read the press release here. (1 Viewer)

Scooter

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Back in the day, the logic and then truth was, the content drives the format. When porn showed up on video tape, both formats, sales took off.

If the public REALLY sees the BIG difference and the titles are there...the sales of hardware will follow. Of course, prices of players would have to moderate as well.
 

Jari K

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Have to agree on that one. THX (in HT) has always been just another marketing gimmick, nothing more. Hell, some "THX certified" DVDs were NON-anamorphic back in the days. ;) But people love these great sounding "THX certified", "superbit", etc.

Few points about Lucas:

a) Honestly, I have no problem with his newer "Special Editions" with SW-trilogy. He can keep tweaking those films forever, I don´t mind.

BUT, the problem is, that he just can´t give the fans a proper, remastered versions of the "original" SW-trilogy. It was those versions that people learned to love, not the Special Editions. Releasing these old non-Anamorphic LD-masters is more like a joke. Seriously. My "LD to DVD-R" copies are as good as the DVD-versions...

Just give us the both versions. It´s really not that much to ask.

b) Lucas doesn´t need any more money. So that´s one lame excuse. People love his films (at least certain ones), so he could give something back to the fans by releasing at least selected films in Blu-ray. That would truly sell the whole format. I´m sick of hearing how Lucas (and Spielberg?) are going to "wait" before they´re going to release their films on Blu-ray. The war is over, wake up! Jeez..

But hell, it´s futile. Old George is what he´s.. :frowning:
 

Aaron Silverman

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A "THX Certified" DVD is one that was mastered using THX-certified equipment. It has nothing to do with the content.

A point of great confusion back in the day. :)
 

Dave Moritz

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I agree that Lucas should never want to or try to loose money. But IMHO if his buddy Ray Dolby was behind Blu-ray. Lucas would be coming out with movies and help the format grow. Lucas makes alot of money of every other studio mixing sound and doing special effects. He also makes money off the movies he does, that is when he actually does a movie anymore. Lucas care about money and I would agree that the entire thing about himself being a visionary that pushes the industry is a joke!




Now back to the thread and Paramount now putting out Blu-ray titles. :D It is very encouraging that Paramounts three first new titles have Dolby True HD. I hope they keep this up and also make shure they also do the video right as well. I am however slightly disapointed that they just took the inventory that they previously pulled off the shelf and just rescheduled for re-release. I really hate that a title like We Where Soldiers only got a lame lossy DD track and no lossless track.

I am wondering what we could exspect from Paramount there rest of 2008 on Blu-ray? I am hoping that we see some really good titles and I hope that the Jack Ryan Collection will be one of them this year. :)
 

Mike Frezon

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Thank you, Dave...thank you. :laugh: May the force be with you. :emoji_thumbsup:

I have read so many positive comments about Cloverfield on DVD that I am now anxiously anticipating the BD...along with There will be Blood. I hope upon hope there will be some good deals for these discs. Still no confirmation on MSRPs, Adam?

I suppose IF MSRPs Do turn out to be $39.95 we probably won't see much of anything less than $29.99...unless we see an occasional $24.99 during release week.

No listings up at amazon yet (or anywhere else I've checked).
 

ManW_TheUncool

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No. That's not what I said. I said the industry should've given us one "ideal" format from the get-go. I didn't say it needed to be branded "HD-DVD" or "Blu-ray" or whatever else. Yes, they should've just given us a format w/ the highest bandwidth and space feasible. They should also have *not* resorted to MPEG2 either, which was a Blu-ray thing. Also, that format should've gotten all the features ironed out too, eg. none of this Profile fiasco w/ Blu-ray, and the hardware (and/or software) should not be as buggy as they've been. And if bandwidth/space is not an issue (regardless of how you take that), they should've just standardized on providing lossless audio in whichever flavor on top of whatever lossy audio needed for backward compatibility w/ existing hardware. And I'm sure you can probably think of other things to add to that laundry list -- and as it were, I did provide some sort of "list" in my previous post, but you just chose to respond to my quib about DNR, which you basically took out of context as a result.

In any case, the thrust of my previous couple posts was to speak against the format war, not to speak in favor of one format over the other. My primary point was that they should've settled everything and given us one "ideal" format from the get-go instead of the format war. They were closer to that w/ the DVD launch though even then we briefly had DiVX to cause a little trouble. That the DNR issue came up at all was just one particular issue that someone else brought up -- and I just decided to factor into my previous post.

_Man_
 

Douglas Monce

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According to people at Lucasfilm the original elements of Episode 4 no longer exits in a printable form because the negative has deteriorated. Because the original cut appeals to a rather limited audience, a restoration of that cut might not bring a return on the investment.

Honestly there are a few minor things in Episode 4 that bother me, such as the goofy stuff with the robot as the enter Mos Eisley, but its so minor that I don't see any point in complaining about it.

The recent DVD release of the original cuts, while they aren't up to modern standards are very watchable and its not like thats the version that I would watch given the choice. For me its more of a curiosity than anything else.

Doug
 

Douglas Monce

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This is absolutely correct. DNR, contrary to popular belief, is not always applied strictly for aesthetic reasons IE grain reduction. Sometimes DNR is used because the transfer to a given video format doesn't look look like the original source. Sometimes the transfer will cause exaggerated noise because of the way the film grain interacts with the scan lines of the video format. In these cases and in others the judicial use of DNR can help the video version look more like the original source.

Of course like any useful tool DNR can be abused and a natural looking film can be made to look like plastic, but just because it can be abused doesn't mean its not a useful and sometimes necessary tool. Saying that DNR should never be used is kind of like saying they shouldn't color correct the transfer to make the finished version more like the answer print. I do agree that it should never be obvious that DNR was used.

Doug
 

Adam Gregorich

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We were Soldiers is one of my favorite movies, so i wish a had a copy with lossless sound, but I think with the authoring bottlenecks right now it's better for Paramount to stick with what they have in the way of prior releases and focus on authoring new material. I'd rather they give us Cloverfield and There Will Be Blood now rather than taking the time to re-do what is already available. The current Paramount titles aren't that bad, they could just be better.
 

Michael Reuben

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Then I'm not sure why you felt the need to reply to me, because my point had nothing to do with the format war. Indeed, the irrelevancy of the format war to this issue was the very point.

I'm not talking about theoretical situations in which DNR was applied because of space or bandwidth limitations. I'm talking about specific Paramount transfers to which it was applied excessively for (as best as anyone can tell) "aesthetic" considerations that, IMO and the opinion of other knowledgeable people, are invalid: namely, the elimination of anything that looks like film grain, due to a perception on the part of certain consumers that all grain is bad.

(Note to Doug Monce: I'm well aware that DNR is a legitimate tool when used correctly. If you look at my initial post on this subject, I specifically referred to the "over-DNR'd" transfer of Face/Off.)

You're free to keep talking about the format war if that's where you want to put your energy, but that's the past. This issue affects the future, and to me that makes it more important.

People keep talking about Paramount "doing it right". Well, if Paramount puts out a bunch of Blu-ray discs with lossless audio and VC-1 encodes, but the transfers have DNR at the level of, say, Face/Off and The Untouchables, they will not have gotten it right. IMO, such discs wouldn't be worth owning.

M.
 

Robert Crawford

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I agree with your point about the non-value of discussing the format war at this time and how we should be concentrating our energies towards issues such as excessive DNR transfers. However, I disagree with you that the current HD presentations of Face/Off and The Untouchables aren't worth owning. Both are far from perfect, but I wouldn't go as far as saying they're trash either.





Crawdaddy
 

RobertR

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I guess each of us will have to decide what does and doesn't constitute too much DNR. I would hope that every knowledgeable enthusiast would agree that DNR done solely for the purpose of achieving a grain-free look is wrong. I'd like it if HTF went so far as to state opposition to such alteration, similar to the opposition to P&S.
 

Michael Reuben

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I didn't say they were "trash", Crawdaddy. I own 'em both, or I wouldn't be so familiar with their limitations. But I got them for a lot less than I suspect the Blu-rays will be available for, and if I had it to do over, I wouldn't be in such a hurry to upgrade my S-DVDs. The improvement in resolution is seriously undermined by the deliberate removal of numerous textures that such resolution is capable of presenting.

Perhaps I should have qualified my earlier remarks by including "at the price-point I expect Paramount's Blu-ray discs will command".

M.
 

Robert Crawford

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Michael,
The only thing I had to go on was your use of "wouldn't be worth owning" which is why I use the word "trash". Now that you quantify your comment then I can see your point.





Crawdaddy
 

ManW_TheUncool

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I was responding to your point that the format war was irrelevant or trivial to the matter. And I said, on certain levels, I agreed w/ that. But on certain other levels, I do not -- and then went on to point out various things that the format war probably clouded for certain studios, etc. which could impact their decisionmaking process wrt "doing things right" because "doing things right" probably means a greater commitment than some of them were prepared to give in light of the format war situation (on top of other things), IMHO.

And in the case of Paramount, I even later pointed out how Paramount was a slow starter even back in the earlier days of DVD. And I believe the format war probably added to the matter in this go-around.

_Man_
 

Douglas Monce

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Michael,

Sorry I couldn't find your original post so I wasn't able to read your ideas in whole. I wasn't really speaking to what you said, just the general notion that DNR is AWAYS bad.

Doug
 

Michael Reuben

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Don't worry about it, Doug. My point was fairly brief and straightforward, until Man side-tracked it.

Your history lesson proceeded from there, and even you had to admit that you'd "skewed" my point, at least to some degree, to get where you wanted to go.

Once more, and for the last time: My only concern is with the excessive, unjustified use of DNR to remove grain and textures that should remain in the transfer if it is to represent the film source accurately. It remains my contention that this practice, both as seen in Paramount product and elsewhere, has nothing whatsoever to do with media formats. Instead, it is motivated by an effort to make transfers acceptable to a certain segment of the audience that is allergic to anything in a video presentation that looks like grain.

This is and will continue to be an important issue for anyone who cares about the accurate reproduction of film in the home theater. I mentioned it in this thread simply because Paramount's hi-def product contains some of the most egregious examples to date.

Now, maybe you find it more comforting to relate this problem to the format wars, because those wars are in the past, so maybe this problem is too. I don't see it that way. I see this problem resulting from entirely different factors, ones that will only grow in importance now that there is a single hi-def format attempting to achieve greater market penetration. And I would much rather devote energy to letting studios know that there's a part of the audience that wants accurate tranfers, grain and all, because that's something where we can still have an impact. Whereas telling them that "the industry should've given us one 'ideal' format from the get-go" is, IMO, both irrelevant and a complete waste of time.

M.
 

ManW_TheUncool

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M,

Again, I think you misunderstood the thrust of what I was trying to say.

Yes, you were speaking specifically about the Paramount use of DNR. I was basically pointing out that it's part of a much larger issue (that you probably agree to some extent) and that the format war did probably make matters worse in ways like delaying full commitment to doing things right (or even understanding what "right" means for them). I guess you do not agree w/ my view on the impact of the format war -- and you probably meant as much by calling it "trivial", which was when I went on to elaborate what I meant. That's fine. We just agree to disagree on this.

And no, I'm not suggesting that the format war makes a good excuse for Paramount's pass attempts in HDM. It's just what it was just as how Paramount's commitment in the past w/ DVD is what it was. And I do want them to do better going forward -- and I'm hoping that they will make better efforts now that the format war is indeed behind us. But yes, I would also agree that unless things change, they are not likely to do much better w/ Blu-ray than they did w/ DVD wrt the various aspects mentioned, including the use of DNR and a commitment to higher quality transfers.

_Man_
 

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