Superman Returns HD-DVD Review (some spoilers) (1 Viewer)

[Dan Hitchman]

And here is a prime example of how the format war is actually hurting both audio and video quality. WB is using HD-DVD as the lowest common denoninator for video... and probably politics for why they didn't at least use an exact 24 bit/96 kHz LPCM copy of the master soundtrack for Blu-Ray. Come on! You don't have to pay either DTS or Dolby for that (and they had over 20 GB's of extra storage)!

Dan

 

[ppltd]

Don't know what else to say but, bunk.

Warner has stated that the reason they are not placing DolbyHD on the BD disks, is because BD decided to make DolbyHD an option for the BD manufacturers. If they are playing to the lowest common demoninator, it is certainly based on BD's decisions.

Maybe we should be a little more concerned with the BD exclusive studios who decide to waste space by using MPEG2 instead of a more efficient codex. Then they could use more bandwidth for the video.

The studios have only one vested interest, and that is to make money. Since they sell there product for the lowest common demoniator. You don't really believe they released the HD formats for Video or Audiophiles? They released it for the general public as a replacement for SD DVDs.

 

[dpippel]

{sarcasm} This is exactly what I was thinking, since Warner's HD-DVD releases so far have been absolutely horrible in the video quality department. {/sarcasm}

Warner has produced many of the finest looking HD releases so far on both HD-DVD *and* Blu-ray. How can you seriously make the above comment?

 

[ppltd]

Doug,

You could not be more right. Why is it that the most consistantly good releases come from the studios that support both formats?

 

[PeterTHX]

They did most certainly not (and Amir does not speak for Warner Home Video).

BD uses a different streaming method. They would need to completely reauthor the title to use Dolby TrueHD, it's a matter of time and money. PLUS Dolby TrueHD on BD requires a Dolby Digital compatible core, so it will play back on ALL BD devices, Dolby TrueHD capable or not.

They COULD have used uncompressed PCM, the BD50 has plenty of room. BD has 54Mbps to play with for both video and audio so its not a bandwidth issue.

 

[ppltd]

Actually, they did. By the way, who is Amir? Not from my comment.

 

[PeterTHX]

Link please.

Seeing as Dolby and DTS HD ***must*** provide a core stream for playback on all BD players, as well as supporting high resolution multichannel PCM out of the box, shows BD to be far more capable and compatible. With the upgradability of the Panasonic, the native decoding of the PS3 and Sharp, BD has the ability to put Dolby TrueHD into far more homes and Warner is completely wrong in this thinking (if true).

 

[Shawn Perron]

The problem isn't that any Blu-Ray player won't support TrueHD, it's that Warner is too cheap to make the effort to encode a stream that meets the Blu-Ray standards. Even if they don't want to pay to encode a 2nd TrueHD stream, how about just throwing a LPCM stream, which they needed to make the TrueHD stream in the first place, onto the BD disc? Warner has much to gain if HD-DVD is the eventual winner, due to patents and royalties. Wether they have legitimate reasons or not for the lack on Blu-Ray, it has the appearance of intentional favortism.

 

[ppltd]

I have read many posts like yours, but have yet to see anything that Warner is doing that validates this. If Warner truely wanted to hurt BD, they would stop producing BD disks. Warner has one of the largest catalouge libraries and if Warner did not produce disks in the BD format, the impact to BD would be devistating.

 

[dpippel]

Even if this is true, so what? There are studios on both sides of the format issue who are exclusive to one side or the other. The possibility that a company currently releasing titles on both BD and HD-DVD is playing "intentional favoritism" with an audio codec is the least of our worries.

 

[dpippel]

On the flip-side, Blu-ray players could simply include Dolby TrueHD decoding, but that's *also* a matter of time and money.

 

[Nick Graham]

It's always seemed pretty plain to me that Warner and to a lesser extent Paramount are in the Blu-Ray business begrudgingly. They bowed to corporate pressure to become neutral, and now probably realize HD-DVD would have some good footing against Blu if they had just been able to stick with their original choice.

I tend to think there is a reason you don't see Batman Begins, Constantine, or V For Vendetta on Blu yet, and why Superman Returns has a lossless track on HD and not on Blu, and that is to give HD-DVD a bit of an advantage. While I agree it sucks for those of you on the Blu side (just as being without Kingdom of Heaven and X3 sucks for us on the HD side), it's just a grin and bear it political situation for those of us stuck in the middle of a format war.

 

[ppltd]

I recieved my copy (HD-DVD) today, and while I have had only a few min. to scan through the movie, the Picture (Tosh XA1) is on par with the excellent King Kong release. I think part of the perception is that one was filmed on HD wquipment, and one film.

I can find no fault with SR, but I will look a little closer when I get time to view the whole movie.

 

[Christopher a]

Ya know, I read 2 "pro" reviews today and the first site saw similar things to what I saw...noise and atrifacts, especially in solid objects and underwater sequences. The other site rated the disc very high. Just don't know what to make of it. The most confusing part for me is that I have generally agreed with the concenses of most reviews for the most part. KK and Mission are outstanding transfers. Even transfers that got bashed a bit for being too "soft" such as Nacho Libre I thought looked quite good. Hell I thought the Break-up looked good which was universally panned by everyone. There is just something very off here...

I want it to be clear, though. I don't have a problem with the "look" of the film. Artifacting,posterization, or blocking was never present in the HD source material. Thats the transfers fault.

 

[Grant H]

I wouldn't doubt some equipment does a better job of masking the problems than others. Much like chroma filters can pretty much eliminate the chroma bug that plagued so many DVD players, some displays may perhaps blend out any defects while others present exactly what is there.

I don't think everyone saw the (rare) flaws in the Episode II transfer either, but on the same equipment you could note their absence in Episode III, so it likely does point to the compression of the material, not the source. I honestly don't think WB transfers tend to exhibit the best compression around. Not that they're bad, but certainly not consistently the best.

Some tried to blame the HD master for Episode II as well, while others who claimed to be familiar with the equipment used claimed such "artifacting" as seen on the Episode II transfer could not have been produced by the HD camera used.

I wouldn't doubt this film could use a little more "room to breathe" when compressed. Something about darkness + digital = larger amounts of data.

Too bad we missed an opportunity since the HD-DVD and the BD use the exact same file. We could have found out if an increased bitrate (and larger storage space) would have eliminated the problems some are seeing.

 

[Mike.P]

High Def Digest gave it a 4.5/5 for video. I was buying it regardless of the reviews I got, simply because It is the reason I bought my HD-DVD player in the first place .

My order shipped today. I hope I get it by Thursday or Friday, I wanna watch Superman 1 and 2 on Saturday in addition to Returns as well!

 

[ppltd]

And maybe we would have found out it didn't make a hill of beans difference. Maybe you would have been happier if Warner and Paramount just never released video's in the BD format at all? Give it a break, already. This lack of space issue has been worked to death, and is no longer relevant. It is what it is and it is not going to change.

 

[Grant H]

No, I haven't seen the HD presentations, but I figure anyone who cared enough about this film to buy it probably woulnd't make up problems with it, and it sounds like "problems" we've seen with digital transfers in the past, I use quotation marks because they're issues that didn't plague everybody.

I'm just saying the Star Wars films showed us compression of a digital source isn't the easiest thing. It's not an automatically perfect transfer. It seems to present its own unique challenges. Many considered Ep. II flawless at the time, but it truly wasn't, as the compression was improved upon with Episode III. The flaws weren't numerous and you almost had to look for them. Personally, I found with different players and/or processors the visibility of those flaws varied quite a bit.

Could be the same case here, as I doubt people are just making up issues when their systems are fine with other sources.

Superman Returns is another 2.5 hour digital film, with a lot of darkness and rich, rich solid colors, so there could be similar issues with creating a truly flawless transfer. And if flaws in the master weren't seen blown up on gigantic filmscreens (IMAX even), that points to the transfer. I have no doubt the transfer is good overall, but I also have no reason to doubt people's claims that it is imperfect.

It should be noted the DVD quality of this film has been under scrutiny as well, some saying it's wonderful, others saying plenty of room for improvement, citing what sounds like the same kind of compression issues as the HD version.

Space has certainly not been proven to be a nonissue as of yet. Especially when there are a number of 3.5-4 hr films people would like to see placed on single discs, as they have been on DVD. But compression is an art more than anything and regarldess of what amount of space you're working with, the HD format is in its infancy. Frankly I'm amazed early product is as good as it is.

We just don't know if the film could have benefited from more space because the opportunity was not afforded. Science wouldn't get very far if everything was just outright dismissed without testing. I'm glad studios are putting out films on both formats, but I do find it's ashame that causes them to cripple the potential of one of them, due to cost-cutting. It's understandable, but ashame nonetheless. Like I said, would have been a nice experiment. Without actually doing it, no one can definitively say yay or nay to what an increased bitrate would have done.

The fact is everyone will have to wait for an inevitable extended cut of the film for a chance to see if the compression issues some people see will then disappear, either because more bitspace is allocated for the film, or just because compression will have improved by that point in time.

EDIT: I wanted to amend my post to include a possibility my own words let me to. It IS possible that the transfer is flawless (or close to it) and is revealing limitations in some individuals' equipment, as very clean video signals sometimes do, whether it's something similar to a chroma bug or just certain processors, be they in players or displays. And I DO apologize for all the conjecture, but it's the most fun I can have since I'm not playing with these toys just yet.

 

[ppltd]

Yes, but this is not a science project, it is a product that the makers are hoping will turn into a mass market, WalMart and Target audience product. Will there be some compromises. Most definitely. But I will take those compromises other than the alternative; no HD product at all.

 

[dpippel]

I picked up my copy at Best Buy this morning and they matched Target.com's price. I've skipped through the disc a bit, watching the plane rescue scene and a few others. I'm disappointed. The banding issues in some of the underwater scenes are definitely there, and from what I've seen of the transfer so far (compared to the DLP and film projections I saw in the theater) it's overly murky and many scenes simply lack good fine detail. This film absolutely sparkled in the theater and had a beautiful, luminous, airy look. Based on what I've watched these qualities are completely absent on the HD-DVD transfer. I'm NOT a happy camper. Something is definitely amiss here.