Has ther been any talk of special features on HDDVD and BluRay??? (1 Viewer)

[Ryan Peddle]

Both High Def sides have announced their respective launch titles and dates as well as pricing but is there any website that is discussing the specs of each title and if there are ANY special features on these title.

Or are we back to the days of movie only dvd's?

 

[Mark Lucas]

I haven't heard anything of special features besides vague descriptions of interactive content and other useless stuff.

I'd imagine some titles will be barebones but others will have extras ported over from the dvd release. I really hope we'll at least get HD trailers.

 

[Paul.S]

This could get messy. It's gonna be interesting to see what, for instance, Sony does. We started seeing MGM deleting special features on rereleases with the same SKU a while back. Will those supps resurface?

And yeah, spec sheets indicating rez and supp content would sure be nice. Reviews for HD releases are gonna be crucial. And of course it's looking liek there will be no advance copies.

 

[TravisR]

If I was a betting man, I'd say that most early high def titles will only have the same features as their SD counterparts or they'll be completely devoid of special features just like early SD titles. If they're movie-only HD discs, eventually they'll re-release them with their features.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

How can we go "back" to a time that never existed? From Day One of the DVD format some discs came with special features, some didn't. Some of the very earliest releases had commentary tracks and documentaries. Some studios were better about this than others, and not all of them were consistent, but there was simply never a time when all DVDs were "movie only".

One reason that a lot of films didn't have many extra early on was that the studios were still figuring out the market. Some of them saw it simply as an extension of the VHS market, and often didn't even bother with widescreen releases or enhancing such widescreen films as they did release for 16:9 TVs. Others recognized that at least most of the early-adopters of the format were going to come from the laserdisc world and would insist on things like commentary tracks and support anamorphic transfers. The second group proved to be right, so extras and special editions soon became the de facto standard for DVD. As the format went mainstream, people weren't total film geeks came to appreciate these features and they were kept in.

Hi-def DVD is not being introduced in a vacuum. This is what drives me so crazy about much of the discussion. People talk about HD and BD as though their introduction was in some way going to be analagous to the introduction of DVD - which it isn't going to be, not remotely. For one thing, DVD already exists. This is a bigger factor than a lot of people give it credit for. Before DVD there was no format like it.

DVD was exactly the right format at exactly the right moment. It was not a new thing that came out of nowhere, it was the culmination of 20 years of trends and developments. It was the answer to a question that a lot of people were starting to ask. And, after a long learning curve, it established a new baseline for home video entertainment.

The hi-def DVD formats are an evolutionary improvement over a well-established technology, not a revolutionary leap over everything that had come before. The number of households with HDTVs is certainly growing, but it is still a very small percentage of the market. And the number of HD households actually receiving HD programming is lagging. So the thing that would most drive widespread demand for hi-def DVD (the experience of HD broadcasts) isn't going to be there. Instead hi-def DVD will, perforce, be marketed primarily to early-adopter film-geeks, the same people who forced the studios to include extras in the first place. So I'd say there will be extras. (Yes, this is one way in which hi-def DVD is analgous to SD DVD. One place where it isn't: Another reason some studios were slow to release DVDs with extras is that they couldn't afford to license them back from Criterion, and they didn't want to spend the money to produce new extras that would inevitably be compared to Criterion's extras. That no longer applies, since the studios now produce their own extras. There is nothing to prevent their remastering the extras from existing SD DVDs and slapping them on the hi-def versions.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[Ryan Peddle]

OK, so here's a question for you. One of the HDDVD titles that I am very much looking forward to and have not picked up on DVD due to this is Batman Begins.

There is absolutely no info on the specs or possible special features.

Check these two links out. The first is for the SE DVD version, and the second is for the HDDVD version.

Batman Begins 2 Disc Deluxe Edition

Batman Begins HDDVD

You say that we, the HT Geeks and film buffs demanded special features in SDDVD that HDDVD will have special features, but it doesn't look like that so far.

 

[Chad Ferguson]

Well I think we all know whats coming, double dipping has worked for studios so far why would they change? First releases Barebones. Then when more of the general public starts buying in and blockbuster carries a lot they will double dip. I must admit though I am personally impressed with the launch titles though, very nice list. So maybe that launch list shows that studios are going full out, but I doubt it.

 

[John H Ross]

Indeed. The lure of HD content will be enough to secure purchases for a while. Why play your joker on the first go round?

Second round will be "special editions" containing supposedly improved special features (20% from old SD editions but 80% new stuff)

Third round will be "ultimate editions" featuring all the HD extras plus the old SD extras (except valuable but controversial features like isolated scores) much like we're seeing now with Jaws and The Frighteners porting over stuff from their laserdisc counterparts.

Get ready to double/triple dip folks. Hollywood's just so predictable!

JR

 

[Ryan Peddle]

And man are we suckers for buying into the format...LIKE WE WILL!

 

[Ryan Peddle]

That is so ridiculous for studios to think this way. I am certainly not a videophile, but I definitely consider home theater and DVD/movies to be a serious hobby. Considering I have 300+ dvd's and many of them I have waited beyond the first release simply to avoid double dipping. So when it comes to having bare bones HDDVD/Bluray discs, ESPECIALLY when there are dvd versions already out that have extras...that ticks me right off. Perfect example is Batman Begins. It is a recently released title on DVD which had simultaneous releases of 1 disc and 2 disc version. Now why can't they either do the same of the new formats or just take the supps on the dvd release and port it over to the new format. My blood is boiling at all these easy to solve issues.

 

[Paul.S]

[Delete.]

 

[Sean Bryan]

As far as I understand, there is basically NO information about the scheduled releases other than the titles.

No info about if a release is single or dual layer, which codec, which audio formats, etc...

There may very well not be any extras on these early releases, but I don't think that the lack of information about that right now should be taken as an assumption of anything.

There's no good info out there yet period. Which is lame considering today's date and the release date.

 

[Ryan Peddle]

Exactly...we are three weeks away and we barely have any information about the product in general.

And the worst part is, the studios don't care because people like me will buy it up regardless. Man I need HD therapy.