Blu-ray Review HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: A Knight's Tale (1 Viewer)

[TedD]

Michael: Are you reviewing titles, or are you pushing the BD agenda? There is absolutely no reason to clutter your review with a BluRay banner and BluRay wallpaper. I know it certainly destroys any feeling that your review is an objective look at a specific disc, compared to hawking a specific vendors wares. I don't see any of the reviewers of HD DVD doing anything as blatant in their reviews.

I'm sorry, but every time I see the initial post in your reviews, it just strikes a very negative tone to me.

I do plan to pick up a BD player when Sony gets it act together. I am not a BD (or Sony) hater as I have a Sony Qualia 004 projector in my HT. But I still tend to doubt the objectivity of the review when it carries advertising for a specific format and I have to view it more as a paid commercial for BlueRay than a review for a specific disc. Your ardent defense of BD in a number of posts doesn't give me a warm feeling that objectivity is a major part of your reviews either.

I know you probably won't appreciate this, but I had to say it.....

Vern

 

[Michel_Hafner]

I watched the HBO HD at 1080i on a CRT projector. From that I'm pretty sure the aliasing is on the HD master and is due to poor sampling in the telecine.
I see aliasing issues to this day on DI work. Poseidon and Pirates 2 had both bad aliasing in the letters of the credits. I saw them on 2K DLP and that made it probably even worse. It looked like interlaced video. Embarassing how 150 million $ movies can't get their credits look as good as movies from the silent era.

 

[Jeff(R)]

It appears to me that he was distinguishing his review as a Blu-ray review in a creative manner. I imagine that if he was also writing HD DVD reviews he would have done the same for that format. Equating this with "pushing the BD agenda" is silly IMO.

Jeff

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Vern,

No you didn't have to say it.

These comments are not appropriate. Micheal's BD review is very objective, states the good with the bad, and given the context of his many (excellent) BD reviews (that also state the good with the bad) it should be obvious to any reasonable reader that he's not pushing a BD agenda. The wallpaper at the top of his review is provided out of the excitement for reviewing an HD format after years of SD media and also is meant to distinguish the look of this review from the many SD review threads. Personally, I'd appreciate it of the HD DVD reviews did something similar as well. It's nice to have a prominent visual reference to set our HD media reviews apart from the typical SD DVD review.

These points should not even need clarifying.

 

[Rob_Walton]

It would certainly be useful if HD DVD reviews had a distinguishing banner at the top of the page, and might also be a nice stylistic touch. Sorry Vern, I hope you don't take this (following the above simiar posts) as bashing, since it's all just our opinions, right. You don't like the banners: I do. Some other people do as well, apparently. Maybe others don't as well. It's all good.

One suggestion I'd make to Michael is to remove the middle of the three "Blu-ray Disc" symbols and replace it with a block of pure blue: it would afford the overlaid text a greater degree of clarity.

 

[AlexBC]

Well said Jeff and David ; )

 

[Vincent_P]

I agree that the HD-DVD reviews should have a similar banner, but since they DON'T, I don't agree with you that "these points should not need clarifying". Having a huge colorful banner above the Blu-Ray reviews and nothing above the HD-DVD reviews could be read as a certain sort of bias. Did Michael specifically make up that Blu-Ray banner himself?

Vincent

 

[Robert Crawford]

The reviewers are reviewing some of these HD discs that they bought with their own money and if they want to format that review in a certain manner, I don't see a problem. So let's not make a major issue out of a mole hill.




Crawdaddy

 

[Vincent_P]

I wasn't making a major issue, I was asking a question and pointing out why I thought the initial question re: the Blu-ray banner wasn't out of line. Good for Michael for taking the initiative and making up that attractive banner- maybe some of the HD-DVD reviewers will take a similar initiative? Come on, guys!

Vincent

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Vincent,

Michael hasn't reviewed any HD DVD titles so the lack of banners in those review threads (by other reviewers) has nothing to do with his BD reviews.

Each HTF reviewer has always and continues to use their own graphical style for their own reviews... and the look of each reviewer's reviews varies noticably from reviewer to reviewer.

Do I have a Bias for Disney because I use matching colors for the header backgrounds whereas other HTF reviews just use plain text in their WB, Sony, or Fox DVD reviews? Since I only review Disney titles... the question has no meaning.

Let's wait and see how Micheal decorates his HD DVD reviews (should he provide any) before trying to draw any conclusions about bias. Since the studio he represents is releasing BD discs, that's the reason he's chosen to focus on that format for now.

Kudos to Michael for purchasing the hardware and software to bring this great reviews to the readers at HTF!

 

[Rob_Walton]

That's one hell of a lot of reviewing!

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

How did Mike "buy" this disc if it does not come out for another 45 days or so?

It has to be a screener?

Side note to Mike ...

Can you put review priority on the films closer to their release date as opposed to a film like this that is still months away?

Of course if you don't have any of those films as Sony has not given them to you, then you are forgiven. :p

Regards

 

[Ricardo C]

Oh, good grief...

 

[Robert Crawford]

Yes, I was wrong with that information. However, how the reviewers format their reviews is up to them. The HTF is neutral in this format war and we can only hope that a final resolution between the two competing formats will occur as soon as possible without too much of a financial hit for any of our members.




Crawdaddy

 

[Neil Joseph]

Guys, I split off some of the posts within this thread that were discussing some interesting aspects of the new PCM5.1 and other "lossless" audio formats here. Please keep this review thread centered on the review of, and discussions of A Knight's Tale BR disk. All other posts dealing with off topic issues can be discussed elsewhere, in particular the link to the thread mentioned above.

Thanks

 

[Neil Joseph]

Dumb question but because this review was so early, is this the final version of the actual BR disk that will street over a month from now or will there be changes made to the final product?