Are there 10 titles that would make you cave in (re: HD) (1 Viewer)

i know a lot of you sound pretty adament about waiting until there is a format war victor, or being fully aligned with one format as opposed to the other, or waiting till things hit a certain price point- but there has got to be something that would cause your knees to weaken and your conviction to slacken.

think about it. 7 or 8 months from now, you're in your favorite retailer on a tuesday afternoon to pick up a $13.99 new release and you casually walk over to the HD racks to sneer at the BD and/or HD DVD titles but then you see ____ and your heart pounds and you imagination races...and then you see ____,
and ____,
and _____,
and _____.

can you still hold out? could you still maintain an allegience to the other format knowing these aren't available on it?

what titles would cause you to go bi-format or jump in before you had expected to?

or aren't there any?

There are plenty for me. But it depends if we're being reasonable or not, though. For example, I would buy into any format that Star Wars will be on. Same for Jaws, Alien/Aliens, the Lord of the Rings trilogy. However, we don't have any confirmation of these right now, so I don't know if these count.

However, some of the announced titles (and the $500 price-point of the HD-DVD player) have already caused me, an ardent Blu-Ray supporter, to think about HD-DVD though. For example, Serenity and King Kong. I think Terminator 2 has been announced as well for one of the formats. Also, many films that I expect to buy on SD DVD, such as Superman Returns and the aforementioned Kong, will be available the same day of SD release in an HD format. One part of me says that it will be sensible to just go ahead and jump right into the HD formats because it could save money in the long run to buy these titles in HD in the first place.

So, I guess to answer your question: yes, there are definately more than 10 titles that could make me think about caving; it's just the whole format war is kind of clouding the issue for me. Since I'm a gamer, and plan on picking up a PS3 later this year, my decision is made. I'll use that for my BD player for awhile, and if that format succeeds and prices drop on a standalone player, I'll dive right in completely. I think it's really the safest path for me. I won't get burned by any obsolete hardware (unless the PS3 somehow bombs...not likely though).

Oh they count, Brett.
that's exactly what i want to know- just what would it take.

most of what you mentioned are the exact same things that would push me over the edge, and without them or certain others, the pull isn't going to anywhere near as strong.
it sounds like you are de facto going to be a Blu ray user in the not too distant future- so it comes down to more of a question of what titles that weren't available on Bd but were available on HD would cause you to (want to) go with both formats.

Well then, since anything goes, I'll get this back more on topic. So here's my list, in no particular order.

"Star Wars" (the entire saga)
Superman (and probably a Donner cut of Superman 2)
Lord of the Rings trilogy
Alien/Aliens
Psycho
Dawn of the Dead (Romero version)
Terminator/Terminator 2
Psycho
X-Men/X-Men 2 (and X3, depending on how that turns out)

and finally,

Either the "Friday the 13th" or "Nightmare on Elm Street" series. I know these aren't considered classics by any means, but they're two of my favorites for some reason, and I'd love to have them in HD. The current NOES set was the first real DVD purchase I ever made and got me started with this whole thing.

So, that's really more than 10, but honestly most of those don't make sense without the entire series being included (although you could probably do without ROTJ, right Paul? ). So if these movies found a way to be HD-DVD exclusives, I'd break down and buy an HD-DVD player along with a Blu-Ray player.

To me, there's not much of a point in superior hardware if my favorite titles are only available on one format. Ultimately, everyone's going to have to ask themselves if they want to watch a bunch of mediocre titles on their preferred hardware, or if they want to watch the movies that got them into this hobby in the first place. In the end, HD-DVD will be better than nothing if that's the only format that has any of these titles. The trick will be resisting and hoping Blu-Ray ultimately emerges victorious and we can have all our favorite titles on one format.

There is one, and only one, film that by itself could cause me to cave:

A Robert Harris, fully-restored roadshow version of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

I guess it all depends on how much value you place on the audio quality, and more so the picture quality of the films you like to watch on video.

Personally, I'm rather amazed and the number of people who re-bought Toy Story and Toy Story 2 due to the extremely small improvement in A/V quality, and yet say "Standard DVD is good enough for me", when even 720p video looks head and shoulders superior to standard DVD. The leap in resolution alone from standard DVD to 720p DVD is far greater than the leap from VHS to DVD - and 1080p has 200% more resolution than even 720p... I guess I just don't get the lack of excitement, except from those that are understandably put off by the format war and the initial costs, but then again, many people have no problem what so ever re-buying the same titles over and over, for something as small as a new transfer in the same resolution, when an HD transfer would/does look soooo much more superior.

That said, I feel no urge to replace my entire collection with HD versions as soon as they become available, but only because the cost currently does not warrant such a drastic upgrade. I will though be replacing many of my favorite titles as soon as they are released in HD, as for me, the quality improvement is so very much worth it.

I imagine the more HD video I get, the more likely I'll stop watching my standard DVDs, as I know this was the case with TV shows. The more shows I watched in HD, the more I realllly hated watching shows in standard def, and now I'll even avoid shows I might have normally enjoyed seeing, simply because I really can't tolerate the poor quality of standard broadcast video - despite the fact that prior to HD, I was as content with it as ever I could be.

I'd start looking at either format that issues a fully-restored roadshow version of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and the rumored "Blade Runner" boxset.

10 films to make me buy a HD player:

1. Excalibur
2. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
3. Dr Zhivago
4. Citizen Kane
5. Great Escape
6. Journey to the centre of the Earth (1959)
7. The Haunting (1963)
8. Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
9. Spartacus (Kubrick)
10.Vertigo (and other Hitchcock)

Lawrence of Arabia
2001: A Space Odyssey
Fantasia
Vertigo
Around the World in 80 Days '56
The Third Man
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Rear Window
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Metropolis '27

Wow, These are some great lists.

SW
CE3K
Moulin Rouge
Titanic
Bruce Springsteen Live at MSG
LOTR
Gladiator
Citizen Kane
Trek
State of Grace
Bram Stoker's Dracula
The Fifth Element
Alien(s)


and more, I'm sure....

LOTR, TT, and ROTK

With Sony behind Blu-Ray, I have to say I'm surprised two of my top picks weren't on the initial release list.

Spider-Man
Spider-Man 2

It could be just residuals of a childhood of Spidey comics, but I'd love these films in HD. Luckily for me, 'Sense and Sensibility' was on the launch list which will make my wife more willing to get a player.

Other than those two I'd like the usual suspects of Star Wars, Indy, and their ilk, but most especially:

JAWS

Blade Runner!

It would be worth buying the entire setup for just that movie.

Shame only crappy versions exists on DVD.

I can wait.

Once the price goes down, for me it'll be:
Star Wars (All 6)
LOTR Trilogy (Extended version)
Indiana Jones Trilogy
Star Trek Movies (All of them)

Nils, I agree a lot with your post. I find the quality of DVD to be at a point where it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the movie (unlike VHS). So whereas HD will be a vast improvement in quality, my enjoyment isn't going to be as improved as the picture is. I mean, VHS was so horrible, that I only owned less than a dozen VHS tapes. It wasn't until DVD came along, that I got into movies and started buying them by the hundreds.

In other words, my enjoyment scale would go like this:

-VHS quality = 3 / Enjoyment = 4
-DVD quality = 7 / Enjoyment = 9
-HD quality = 9 / Enjoyment = 9.5 (even 10)

So where the jump from VHS to DVD (quality wise) is going to be somewhat similar to the jump from DVD to HD, my enjoyment of movies on DVD jumped SO high, that I can't see much more enjoyment coming from HD. Obviously there will be more enjoyment, but not a drastic one.



But in looking over my collection, I only have 1 (or 6) titles that would entice me into HD.

- Star Wars

I posted in the other thread that I am not willing to jump
into HD anytime soon, but if there is an announcement that
Star Wars episodes 4-6 will be released IN THEIR ORIGINAL
THEATRICAL VERSIONS in HD, then I would be forced to think
about getting an HD player (I refuse to buy the current
versions on DVD- I'll just stay with my laserdiscs).
The extended cut of It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World is
another good suggestion (I still kick myself in the ass
for getting rid of my laserdisc of that cut).

I won't be 'caving in' no matter which film favorites are released, I can wait 3-4 years until everything's sorted and than start my bulk buying.

But a better topic header might be 'which films would you first want to start your HD collection with', assuming there'll be hundreds of titles to choose from, my first bunch will probably be, in no particular order:

2001 A Space Odyssey
Ben-Hur (1959)
Lawrence of Arabia
Jaws
Enter the Dragon
North by Northwest
Spartacus
Lord of the Rings Trilogy EE
Star Wars Saga I-VI
Alien/Aliens
Singin' in the Rain
Brazil
The James Bond Series
Fantasia
Akira

That'll do for a start, I don't see myself buying every single film I have on SD-DVD again on HD-DVD, no chance, just my top 300-400 favorites, which by then would still leave about 1500 of my films happily and permanently residing on good old SD-DVD.

Of course, EE.

Which raises an interesting point. There's very little (none!) chance they'll release the 1977 version, and that's bad enough, but even if they release the DVD version in HD it's still a seriously FLAWED product as long as the music channels are flipped.

So why have sparkling 1080p picture if the sound sucks ass?

John