HD DVD Releases (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

Am I wrong to assume that most of the HD DVD releases so far have little bonus material or the same material from a previously released standard dvd? Also, is any of the bonus material in HD?

Something tells me that most of these releases will be released again with more bonus material if this format survives.

Also, it might be nice to use this thread to track the different HD DVD releases with whatever bonus material they do have and if it's in HD.




Crawdaddy

 

[Steve Tannehill]

From what I've seen, the features mirror the last SE DVD release (examples, Goodfellas, Blazing Saddles) and have also included the content of the 2-disc limited editions as opposed to 1-disc regular editions (examples, Jarhead, Cinderella Man). Rumor Has It... only had a trailer (is this the same as the DVD)?

Jarhead had some content in 720p, but most of the content is standard definition--occasionally 480p widescreen enhanced, often not.

Of course, there is no comparison to the "In Movie Experience" featured with The Bourne Supremacy. That is unique to the HD-DVD.

- Steve

 

[Sean Bryan]

I haven't seen either, but the HD DVD is a hybrid and only uses a single layer (15gb) for the HD DVD side. At least I think that is the case.

I thought that the hybrids were going to use the dual layer (30gb) HD DVD side, but then I read that this only used one 15gb layer. So maybe that is why there are no extras (or are the extras just on the DVD side and they expect you to flip)?

Can anyone clarify?

 

[JohnS]

Isn't Constantine HD DVD have extras made specially for HD DVD?

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Right, it has the iHD mode, where it weaves materials into a visual commentary track. I'm not sure, however, whether those are all taken from material on the existing disc---there's a lot of material and I'm not sure it's worth my time to try to figure it out.

 

[Manus]

Theres a pretty thorough review of 'Constantine (HD-DVD) on this site :

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/constantine.html

I foresee a lot of similar problems with HD-Dvd and Bluray to those of SD. Multiple releases I dont think is going to go away ; would you like the 25, 50 or 100 edition of that title sir ? Or the 25 th or 30 th anniversary edition ?

Some aspects of SD were never fully realised either. I'm not a huge fan of dts (ducks). I think of it as a sideways technology that is DIFFERENT to Dolby but essentially exists to achieve the same end result. Accomodating 2 similarly purposed soundtracks on a disc where space is an issue is not the best use of that space.

Also , Seamless Branching should have at least reduced the need for multiple releases of some titles but the likes of Sony dont seem to have heard of this technology. I was amazed when going through my collection on dvdprofiler to discover just how few titles actually used it.

Surely, when expecting potential customers to upgrade their display , their player, and their surround processor at the same (ish) time it shouldn't be asking too much to expect the bonus content to be upgraded to HD too ???? Unless , of course , there's an ultimate deluxe omigod didnt see that coming edition to follow later , perhaps ??

One other thing , the stupidity that is Region Coding will also preserve the likelihood that one region may get a lossless soundtrack over all others for example , thereby leading to it being circumvented AGAIN ! Abolishing this would enable the worldwide launch not just of the new HD formats but the subsequent software .

If you think back to , say, 1997 in terms of Sd- Dvd and compare it to now , its obvious that both of the 2 new formats are going to have a painful evolution ahead of them.

Enjoy it all any way you can ,

~M~

 

[Steve Schaffer]

Gee, I'm enjoying HD DVD on a nearly 5 year old set (the wow factor is back!)
and don't plan on upgrading my HK AVR 635 until little puffs of smoke come out of it.

I havent heard a whole lot of fuss about the fact that the special features on SD dvds are almost universally 4/3, requiring us to change aspect ratios on our sets to watch them. At least we don't have to do that for the SD special features on the new formats--they're windowboxed on the disc.

The upconversion of the special features is quite good on these discs. Source video for special features has never matched the picture quality of the feature film anyway.

In short, nobody's fussed much if any about poorer sound and pq on special features on SD dvd, so I don't see it as much of a factor on the HD formats.

I think that as the HD formats mature we will start to see special features done in HD for new releases.

 

[Bruce Hedtke]

I would think so, as well. It's the same as when we first started hearing of directors, as they were shooting the film, were also making decisions on special features for the DVD. It's a matter of shifting their perception from SD-DVD to HD.

Bruce

 

[Robert Crawford]

Steve,
How much of improvement are you going to see on your television, once the studios start to downconvert the signal into your component input?






Crawdaddy

 

[Manus]

"
Gee, I'm enjoying HD DVD on a nearly 5 year old set (the wow factor is back!)
and don't plan on upgrading my HK AVR 635 until little puffs of smoke come out of it"

Steve, well I did say 'Enjoy'
I think you'll agree that the best results are to be got (eventually) by using HDMI connection and Dolby True Lossless which none of the current players can deliver.

My point , being, the studios have already risked diluting the market by presenting 2 formats instead of 1 so why not deliver extras with proper AR and in HD from the off ? Does it really bode well for HD that we are already cynical enough to be contemplating the prospect of multiple releases of the same titles ??

I would have preferred if they'd got their act together before launch.

Regards,
~M~

 

[Steve Tannehill]

Ah, back to that.

We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

- Steve

 

[Robert Crawford]

Steve,
It is a legitimate concern to me and one of the reasons that's keeping me from crossing over. Also, I'm in no way saying that you or somebody else needs to follow my caution on this matter.





Crawdaddy

 

[Robert Saccone]

It seems to me that analog hi-def inputs are pretty much doomed into becoming obsolete given the trend by the Hollywood and the Consumer Electronics folks. So for me I'd rather take advantage of the only hi-def inputs available on my set (which are analog only) until I'm forced to buy a new set down the road. At least I'll have enjoyed hi-def discs for a few years and by the time the analog inputs are supposed to stop working the set will be ~9 years old anyway. I'm not happy about the situation but I think that it's probably impossible to stall off the inevitable (planned or not) obsolescence of the first couple of generations of analog only HD sets.