Warner announces first Blu-ray titles with MPEG-2! The question is how long? (1 Viewer)

So we get Good Night and Good Luck, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Rumor Has It and Training Day on August 1st. It should be interesting to see if these titles are encoded with MPEG-2 or not?

Edit: Apparently these four titles will be MPEG-2 releases. See Post #41!


http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents




Crawdaddy

Cool. Here's the full press release:

July 12, 2006 03:40 PM US Eastern Timezone
Warner Home Video Announces First Wave of Blu-ray Launch Titles; Available August 1st and Featuring a Mix of Titles For All Consumers

BURBANK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 12, 2006--Warner Home Video:

-- Academy Award Winner TRAINING DAY

-- Academy Award Nominated GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK

-- Noir Comedy KISS, KISS, BANG, BANG

-- Romantic Comedy RUMOR HAS IT

Warner Home Video (WHV), which distributes the largest film library of any studio, today announced that it will launch its first wave of titles on Blu-ray Disc. On August 1, WHV will release four titles -- "Training Day"; "Good Night, and Good Luck"; "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang"; and "Rumor Has It" -- on the Blu-ray format to support the initial roll out of Blu-ray players in North America. "Training Day" and "Good Night, and Good Luck" will be available for $28.99 SRP and "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang" and "Rumor Has It" will be available for $34.99 SRP. Future waves of Blu-ray launch titles will be announced in the coming weeks.

"Warner Bros. is a leader in home entertainment and it is our ongoing mission to provide consumers with a broad choice of options for the next generation, in-home experience," said Ron Sanders, President of Warner Home Video. "These initial Blu-ray titles demonstrate the superb quality of high definition across a range of genres providing consumers with a cinema quality experience from the comfort of their homes."

Blu-ray Discs offer resolution six times higher than standard definition DVDs, extraordinarily vibrant contrast and color in addition to beautifully crisp sound. Warner Blu-ray Discs introduce instant access to extra features with the use of a seamless menu-bar that allows viewers to enjoy features and settings without leaving or interrupting the film.

The first wave of Warner titles include two new releases, a catalog favorite and a title new to the high definition format: the critically acclaimed Oscar(R) nominated drama "Good Night, and Good Luck" starring David Strathairn and George Clooney; Academy Award(R) winning, "Training Day" starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke; Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer's noir comedy caper "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang"; and Rob Reiner's clever romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner, Mark Ruffalo and Shirley MacLaine, "Rumor Has It."

About Warner Home Video:

With operations in 90 international territories, Warner Home Video commands the largest distribution infrastructure in the global video marketplace. Warner Home Video's film library is the largest of any studio, offering top quality new and vintage titles from the repertoires of Warner Bros. Pictures Inc., Turner Entertainment Company, Castle Rock Entertainment, HBO Home Video and New Line Home Entertainment.

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/...05&newsLang=en

I think it's good that everyone can FINALLY directly compare the 2 formats with the same film.

they're supposed to be. I don't know how many after this will be- or if any after this first wave will be, but I've seen many sources over the last couple of months commenting that these have been encoded with Mpeg2.

You would think that by august we would not see anymore mpeg2 releases. Its time to use the newer codex with blu-ray so we can compair the same movies and see what one looks better.

I believe DaViD said that the first 5 or so titles were authored in MPEG2.

No sound specs? Dolby Plus and/or TrueHD?

Guess we'll know in 3 weeks.

If true then I won't be buying these Blu-ray discs since I already owned two of them on HD DVD. I would like Good Night Good Luck, but I'll wait until it comes out on HD DVD with VC1.




Crawdaddy

why is Good Night Good Luck getting a blu-ray release and not a HD-DVD one ?

are warner going to be playing more games with us (i.e. let's release some films on HD-DVD and others on Blu-ray) ? that's not format neutrality is it.

i may have to send in my pitch fork for sharpening ...

Andy,
Relax, Warner hasn't announced any August HD DVD releases yet. The only reason why this title was announced yesterday is because it's the first rollout of Warner Blu-ray titles.






Crawdaddy

well i hope you're right

It's the only thing that makes sense because those other three titles are aready out on HD DVD. Also, though, Warner is supporting both formats, I have a strange feeling that HD DVD is their format preference.

Warner is so slow announcing their HD releases that it causes me to laugh at times. Case in point, they just announced the below HD release for next week. It's their only announced title for the rest of July.

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=62145

I get the feeling this is the case with Paramount too.

Wow, a last minute HD-DVD annoucement of ATL. Maybe we'll see the same for something like... ohhhhhhhhhhhhh I dunno... V FOR VENDETTA?

Does anyone know if there will be any way to tell by looking at the Blu-ray packaging if they started using VC-1 and not MPEG2? At least the audio formats are listed but I dont recall seeing anything about video codex on any jewl cases.

V for Vendetta has already been virtually confirmed by its compressionist as an HD30 disc with In-Movie-Experience and Dolby Digital TrueHD 5.1:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post7892605

Dave,

good question about knowing from the packaging which codec is being used. I wonder? Does "VC1" appear on any of the HD DVD packages?


Not if these titles are compressed in MPEG2.

Here's the deal:

There will be a handful (reportedly 5) early-release WB BD titles released in MPEG2. To make matters worse... SONY studios actually compressed these titles... not WB themselves. Given how *bad* the Sony compression jobs look on MPEG2 BD that should speak for itself.

In any case, to keep relations diplomatic with Sony WB will go ahead and release these first MPEG2 BD titles as promised (to Sony) but after that *all* BDs coming from WB will use VC1 from that point on. All of them.

There's even a good chance that one early BD may use VC1 just to help push things along.

When looking at BD as something that represents what WB can do, do NOT look at any of the (sony compressed) MPEG2 titles. Wait for their VC1 discs...

You are kidding right?
Because if both were in VC-1, they would look exactly the same. The point of comparison I think would be to do exactly that. To compare MPEG-2 HD to VC-1 to see if there is any difference and the claims that MPEG-2 could give as good as VC-1.

Sam,

comparing MPEG2 to VC1 is not comparing *blu-ray* to *HD DVD*... that's my point. It's just comparing two video codecs. Both BD and HD DVD allow for:

MPEG2, MPEG4/AVC, VC1.

If an MPEG2 HD DVD didn't look as good as a VC1 HD DVD, does that mean that "HD DVD isn't as good a format as HD DVD"?



It's important to keep clear when we're seeing differences between "BD and HD DVD" versus differences between "codecs".

You're right... VC1 on BD should look identical to VC1 on HD DVD (more or less).

Ok, yes indeed. Then you don't want to compare the video quality but the 2 formats features. In that case in what codec both discs are is not important.


If I'm not understanding correctly please explain what exactly you want to compare with having the same movie on Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

Oh, folks can compare whatever they like... I just want to keep the semantics clear in discussion because it's inevitable (just wait) that someone will look at these MPEG2 discs for WB mastered by Sony and say "See! HD DVD looks better than BD when we see the same movie on both formats" when really they're only seeing MPEG2 on 25 gigs compared to VC1 on 30 gigs... and a month later when WB releases VC1 BD those comparisons will be moot (as far as *format* comparisons go).

Sure, to compare the codecs directly it's a great opportunity. I just want to avoid the incorrect assessment that those impressions extend to each format as a whole.