Ditto. The second place I tried had it in stock and held it for me til I showed up to buy it.
As for the HD-DVD, it stuttered a few times during the movie, including at the very beginning when young Bruce is getting swarmed by the bats in the cave. I'm not sure if this is due to the Dolby TrueHD track since it's the first disc I own with that type of audio. Also, the gunshots seemed a lot quieter than in every other presentation of the film I've seen.
Ok, with the minor nitpicks out of the way, now I can comment on the positives. The transfer put the SD-DVD to shame. Wait til you see Batman in his suit for the first time. The blacks on this disc blew me away. And the early scenes in Iceland were also impressive.
I thought T3's crane chase would be my new demo piece, but that lasted all of 6 days. The Batmobile chase in Dolby TrueHD raised the bar another notch or two. I'm almost afraid to play it again out of fear of pissing off the neighbors.
The only real disappointment(aside from the skipping which could become a non-issue with the next firmware upgrade) is the IME feature. I sampled a few minutes of it, but there are a lot of gaps. And most of the footage shown looked like it was taken from the featurettes on the 2-disc SD-DVD(and which are included on this version). Oh well, maybe with the inevitable double-dip, Chris Nolan will finally have more to say.
Like others, I read/post over at AVS, had also seen interesting info on BB, found not only that title but also Cinderella Man (passed) and The Fast And The Furious (purchased along w/ BB). MNF will have my attention tonight, hoping for a shootout because it's fun and also for fantasy football reasons, so BB will have to wait a night.... Exciting to have it, though!
My copy also stuttered on 2 occasions. The first time occurred when Flass got into the squad car in Chapter 16. The second time was when Gordon used the Tumbler to blow up the support beams for the monorail.
I think my neighbors all hate me because of the chase scene in the Tumbler.
Picked up my copy of BB today at Target. Just got done watching it, this is my new reference HD DVD. The Dolby TrueHD soundtrack blew my living room walls out! No freeze up/stutters or sound drop-outs.
Just finished watching it. PURE REFERENCE! This is my new demo hd dvd I had no stuttering on the True Hd track and the PQ is excellent. This is just an absolute HD showcase and should be played whenever you have someone over you want to impress!
I called my local Target and gave them the DCPI# from the AVS thread, they have BB in stock and I almost got them to hold it for me to pick up later today but they soon realized that it doesn't street until next week and shut me down.
That's ok, I'm going in there tomorrow and try again.
this hd dvd is truly superb, but the crane truck chase on T3 is still my sound ddemo choice,just for one scene. overall the true hd track on batman begins is IT !
I know, but when I was in there just 2 hours earlier I was told by the same guy that answered the phone they won't even be selling HD-DVDs, only Blu-ray.
My local store didn't have any HD-DVDs or BDs tonight either. It would have been nice to check out Batman Begins a little early, but it'll have to wait until next week.