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Back from Hollywood: A brief summary of our trip, plus: CLONES, SPIDER-MAN and MORE! (1 Viewer)

TheBat

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Jacob
we should start seeing review for spidey about the 18..two weeks before november 1.

JACOB
 

Dharmesh C

Supporting Actor
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Jul 25, 2000
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994
Nice one, looking forward to these reviews very much. Can't believe the Holiday season is just around the corner :emoji_thumbsup:
 

Dan Hitchman

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Jun 11, 1999
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Has there been any more word as to what video and audio specs. the Blue-Ray Consortium has come up with? They seem to be saying the format will be ready to go sometime in the 2003/2004 window.

I hope it is at least a dual layered disc (50+ GB storage) since their single layered version holds even less than the Toshiba/NEC blue laser disc.

Looking at the large list of manufacturers lined up behind Blue-Ray (besides on the movie studio front Sony Pictures, which includes Columbia & TriStar, backing it; obviously, not a surprise there since Sony is a major player), does anyone feel there will be more of a push to Blue-Ray rather than WB's short sighted red-laser uber-compressed idea?

Comments?

Dan
 

Larry P

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Jan 14, 2002
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Everybody needs to stop blaming "Joe 6 pack" for not wanting half of their screen space wasted with the "black bars", and start blaming the television makers and television studios for having not instituted years ago that 16 x 9 wide screen sets become mandatory.

There is no excuse whatsoever that todays sets are the same aspect ratio they were in the 1950's.

And most people aren't as rich as the average person on this forum seems to be, who seems to be able to afford all of the cutting edge technology as soon as it is made available.

When one is watching a film in its original aspect ratio on a 4 x 3 set, one is getting an obstructed, distorted picture, because the medium they are watching the film in is that of the 4 x 3 television medium.

These sets are built for watching television shows, not motion pictures. It's like trying to fit the rectangular peg into the square whole. It doesn't work. Especially on smaller tv screens, which is what most "Wal Mart shopping beer drinking losers" are able to afford.

Everyone is getting upset with a system that has been in place for 50 years. It's not going to change overnight. The DVD market now belongs to the television industry. An industry that has been around far longer than the DVD market, the laser disc market, the VHS market, the home theater system market.

The picture won't change until the television set changes. I don't blame people for fighting to try to get a few OAR DVD's that they will be able to enjoy here and now. But we all see that the studios are gradually weeding out OAR on DVD. This is an industry that has been set in motion long before most people here were even born.

People enjoy watching television. Motion pictures are meant to be seen in a movie theater. Two different mediums. Yes, they are getting closer to each other. But as of now they are still separate. No matter how much money some of you have to spend on the greatest television and sound system money can buy, the movie studios are selling their product in a different medium than what you want. They are selling their product to television viewers.

And televisions are what most people have. It's the canvas most people are working with.

People won't change until the sets do.
 

Glenn Overholt

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Wow! Scathing, but I liked it. What you said basically rings true, but..

Going out to see a movie only works for new releases. I cannot go out and see any movie that isn't new - except for a few select places, of course.

If the studios know that I'm going to watch a movie on my TV, then why aren't all DVD releases all P&S only? That is the clincher, I think.

Movies are made in OAR because there is a demand for them. The studios know that, otherwise they'd all be P&S. You can say that what they have done is to spoil OAR fans, but now they've changed their minds. Is there another way to spell hypocrite? Oh, Money!?

They are just being lazy for not releasing OAR DVD's on some movies. I have yet to hear an excuse that makes any sense to me.

Glenn
 

Glenn_Jn

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I wasn't aware that the studios were "weeding out OAR".The vast majority of dvd's that I see in stores are not only widescreen but also a lot more of them tend to be anamorphic (unlike 4/5 years ago). I don't usually shop at Wal-Mart but I thought I'd check it out to see if what people were saying was true. It seems to me that Wal-Marts DVD stock is not much different to anyone else's. They had far more widescreen movies than they did P & S.
I really can't see what all the fuss is about.It's always been obvious to me and Ron confirmed it, that the studios are big fans of dvd and OAR etc. They want DVDs to be as good as we do. The P&S OPTION that some are now taking is just a concecion to those who have not woken up to the widescreen EXPERIENCE....yet. I don't see any sign that OAR is disappearing. I can't remember the last time a movie I wanted to buy was only available in P&S only.
 

AaronMK

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It's always been obvious to me and Ron confirmed it, that the studios are big fans of dvd and OAR etc. They want DVDs to be as good as we do.
I don't think many of the studios as a whole are big fans of OAR. If they were, P&S only releases would not exist. I have a hard time believing that OAR releases of Muppets Treasure Island, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, etc. would not have been profitable. Even if Wal-Mart only ordered P&S of these, there are plenty of other customers who would seek out the OAR versions, and plenty of retailers who would cater to them. The only reason I can think of that they didn't have OAR releases of these is that they just didn't care.

Unfortunately, I get the impression that many of the execs and others responsible for the bottom line really don't care about OAR.

I think it is more the people who are more on the technical side of things at the studios who are fans of OAR (ie, people creating the movies and the DVDs).
 

Martin Fontaine

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Aug 15, 2001
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The problem is that now, movies are released in P&S and if someone can't enjoy "The same film" if the "Unimportant Information" is cut-off, then they release a Widescreen version for them. That is why that movies that appeal to J6Ps or Kids are if they can weasel it, in P&S only, because it's not that kids don't want black bars or even that many J6Ps won't watch a movie with black bars, it's that kids or J6P won't boycott a movie if it's P&S only so therefore there is no need for Widescreen if they know that they won't lose too many sales due to having it P&S only.

That is why, NEVER will I ever buy a P&S DVD if it's the only version, because not having to release Widescreen versions is all the studios are waiting for. If there are more people who will boycott a movie because it's P&S only than there are that will boycott a movie that's OAR only, then Widescreen will survive.

Just like in Quebec, english versions (OSL for 95+% of movies) are only meant for those who don't understand french!
 

Seth Paxton

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I'm sorry to say Larry that the idea that 16x9 only sets solves the LBX problem has been shot down a million times already.

In fact, 16x9 sets only make the problem worse because then you will have 2 different ways for a film to not fit your TV.

Casablanca can have the top and bottom chopped and Ben-Hur can have the sides cut. AND all your old TV programming will also not fit.

Of course, 16x9 owners already deal with this WITHOUT the studio having to hold their hands like little babies. They even manage to make a 4x3 LBX film fit with the use of a ZOOM function.

AND, worst of all, P&S on the fly from an anamorphic film already exists and remains unused. That could have been being used right from the start (they didn't stick it in the spec for no reason) but no studio would step up to the plate and do so.

IMMEDIATELY a studio could totally eliminate ALL of the complaints (minus the small technical explanation that would need to be inserted with the first discs - telling people to turn their player to the P&S 4x3 setting). We wouldn't complain, black bar haters wouldn't complain.

Films of today are still released in at least 2 different MAJOR aspect ratios, one of which doesn't fit EITHER type of TV. Trying to do a fix with the projection/video hardware is impossible. People CAN NOT use all of their screen every time without modifying the AR (barring VERY sophisticated front projection modification on the user end, and even then the AR changes though the total screen area can be kept the same).


I used to work for a major CE manufacturer. Other engineers in the company would often ask "Why are there black bars on this W/S TV? I thought 16x9 sets were supposed to fix that." If they didn't get 2.35 vs 1.85 do you really think the current LBX complainers will?
 

Sean Aaron

Second Unit
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Sean Aaron
Affordable 16:9 sets exist in the UK and I very rarely see anything broadcast exclusively 4:3. Most films are also broadcast 16:9 anamorphic or at least letterboxed.

As a result the majority of DVD releases are lbx/anamorphic only without fullscreen counterparts -- I think that's left for video (as it should be) -- heck even the Star Wars box set is going to be anamorphic widescreen in R2 (I understand that isn't the case in R1?).

In any event I cannot imagine that anamorphic releases would be made to ROW and not made in R1. Clearly something is wrong with the distribution/marketing of widescreen sets. While we haven't seen 4:3 sets totally phased out here yet, you can now buy smaller "kitchen-counter" size widescreen sets (well, maybe not as small as 20cm, but getting there) and I fully expect 4:3 sets to go away by the time analog tv broadcasts cease (planned for 2005, I think) as there will be little need for them.

Keep up hope! Maybe try asking your local shopping behemoth if they have widescreen tube sets? Really, you'd think the manufacturers would be pushing widescreen sets if only to try to get everyone to replace their TVs...too bad it's only HD-TV that's being associated with widescreen. If the networks were supporting the 16:9 standard I think you'd see more adoption of widescreen in the States.

Sorry fellas.
 

Chris

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OK Brief review :)
Spiderman set is one of the worst two discs sets I have picked up; the movie is good.. but the features disc is completely worthless. Nothing of real value, and I can't understand how these few features couldn't have fit on a single disc with the movie.
 

Ken_F

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Nov 13, 1998
Messages
136
Ron,
The good news is that the studios are indeed
gearing up toward HD-DVD. While we do hope that
all the studios pick one format, Sony has promised
us that their players will be backward compatible.
It is estimated that by year's end 2003, we will
be seeing the first High-definition DVD titles
hit the shelves.
I assume that's a typo, but if not, you might want to double-check your source for that info. Mr. Ando over at Sony has said repeatedly that they expect to support a HD-DVD standard based on next-generation laser technology (Blue-ray) by year's end 2004.
Of course, several other consumer electronics vendors, Toshiba included, have suggested that we could have a red-laser based HD-DVD standard by the end of this year, if that is what the studios want. But nobody is suggesting that we will have a blue-laser or blue-ray HD-DVD standard by the end of this year. And I think that's what most of us want for quality reasons (1080p, quality audio, etc).
I sure am looking forward to all the Star Wars films in HDTV, upcoming on HBO HDTV later this year....I'm hoping Lucas insisted on OAR in his new HBO contract...
 

Ronald Epstein

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Ken,

I'll update that information right here.

I do have witnesses that sat in a meeting
with me while we talked with a particular studio
who (at the time) was estimating a 2003 HD launch
date.

That, of course, has now changed.
 

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