More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge (1 Viewer)

[Douglas Monce]

I hadn't heard that. That is great news from my point of view. Hopefully Warners will release them on blu-ray soon and follow them with Singing in the Rain, Citizen Kane and other greats from the golden age.

And PLEASE UNIVERSAL...HITCHCOCK!!!!

Doug

 

[Douglas Monce]

Cool I didn't know about the UK release. I believe the one I was looking at was Italian.

Thanks for the info.

Doug

 

[Adam Gregorich]

If I had to "guess" I would say Robin Hood sold a little over 5800 copies. Casablance did a little better, and that doesn't take into account that it was on the 5 free HD DVD list (with player purchase) for a long time, so a lot of people (me included) took it as a freebie which doesn't count toward sales numbers. They each sold more than "newer" titles like Lethal Weapon 1 (both formats combined!) Lethal Weapon 2 (both formats combined!), Music and Lyrics (both formats combined!) Road Warrior, 16 Blocks, License to Wed, (either format, not combined).

Note all sales numbers were from title release through 2007.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Well that IS encouraging news!

Doug

 

[Rachael B]

Douglas, I have the Capricorn One BD sans any forced subtitles. The only good reason to not obtain a copy is, well, the exchange rate. Indulge yourself get 'cha one. I also got The Eagle Has Landed from ITC in the U.K.

It's just a simple that if Blu-ray does well in Japan, which there's little doubt of that, it's better for us here, no matter what. That was the case with LD.

Place your order in confidence for Capricorn......

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

RE: a few of the WB classics, I thought they had already (unofficially?) said that they planned on releasing some of those in the near term, ie. w/in a year, no? Maybe it was just unofficial-yet-reasonably-reliable rumor, but I'm sure at least The Bits mentioned that Casablanca and Robin Hood were coming soon enough. Didn't the HTF coverage of the big Warner event a couple months ago mention something about this also? I forget now.

I definitely remember getting excited about Casablanca and Robin Hood coming to BD soon enough.

_Man_

 

[Douglas Monce]

Well Warner said that they were coming to blu-ray a long time ago, before the death of HD DVD. So far they are no where to be seen.

Doug

 

[Jari K]

Yep. Another beauty of HD. No more "PAL vs NTSC" BS.

 

[Jari K]

UK -releases doesn´t have "forced subtitles". Some French (very common, actually) and German-releases might have them. There are also issues with e.g. some of these "Studio Canal" HD DVD-releases when it comes to subtitles (if you ask me, these releases are pain in the a**). French really like their language..

 

[Matt Hough]

Amen! Another vote for some Blu-ray Hitchcock!

I stumbled onto the 1956 THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH on TCM yesterday, and though it's not HD or an anamorphic broadcast, the print they were showing looked worlds better than my DVD of the film. (REAR WINDOW, which followed, looked about the same as my DVD.)

 

[PaulDA]

This would get me to jump into "blu" tomorrow morning. I know it will eventually happen, but this would have been the kind of thing to motivate me a lot sooner.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Well, Warner, for example, is trying to do as many "World Wide" discs as possible. For one, they never use region coding, and two, they are combining disc images. For example, on many WB titles, if you change the firmware menu language to Japanese, the disc will load with Japanese menus and audio/subtitle options. They simply put the Japanese disc image on the same disc as the US disc image.

So technically speaking, the only difference between the US release and the Japanese release is the packaging.

 

[Mark Butler]

I can confirm this. I rented I Am Legend last week. I have my default Menu language set to English on my PS3 (the majority of the Blu discs I have are from North America) and I was surprised when a completely English menu came up for a Japanese disc. I was frustrated because when I went to the Discs Subtitle section I couldn't find the Japanese subtitles option. It had completely different subtitles to choose from Than what was listed on the disc. I eventually figured out to change the PS3 to display Japanese menus as the default and low and behold it worked and their they were.

 

[Douglas Monce]

That would only be true of Warner films where Warner is the distributor in that particular country. In some cases they don't distribute their own films in every country. For example a particular film made by Warner and distributed in the U.S. , Canada, Mexico and Japan by Warner, might be distributed by Universal in the U.K. and Germany.

So the world wide release is something of a fallacy, although they can clearly try and maximize the release by making one pressing fit as many countries as they distribute too as possible.

The other problem is censorship. The U.S. R rated cut of a particular film may not be allowed to be distributed in a particular country with out cutting. In that case a different version of the film and there for a different pressing of the disc would be needed. It is possible for a film to need a different cut of the film for as many as half of the countries it is distributed too.

In most middle eastern countries even a PG or G rated film would need additional cutting to be allowed to be shown or sold.

Also product placement maybe different from country to country as in the example of Die Another Day where in the U.S. cut Bond is shaving with a Norelco razor and the U.K. cut has him shaving with a Philips razor.

Doug

 

[Douglas Monce]

They have been doing this with SD DVDs for years.

Doug

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

For censorship purposes, couldn't they just author the discs w/ seamless branching that triggers off of the player's region code, if they really wanted? Of course, I guess it really boils down to what they think is best for their bottomline when accounting for all these various factors -- and also, I have no idea whether Blu-ray supports such a trigger (and lock) off of the player's region code as well as multiple streams of seamlessly branched video as would be needed to accommodated all the different cuts for different markets.

_Man_

 

[Adam Gregorich]

With three region codes and multiple countires in each you would quickly offend people for not giving them the content they want or giving them the content they don't want.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Hehheh. I forgot that they reduced the region coding from DVD -- though I do wonder if folks in many other countries are quite as uptight about cuts and such things as we are here in the USA (and a few other places) and would complain much if those other regions went for lowest common denom for cuts. Actually, I'd think only cinephiles care all that much about "excessive" censorship, and in that case, they/we would probably need to import from other countries to get around censorship anyway. The rest (of the majority public) probably wouldn't complain much, if at all, about lowest common denom type of censorship (along w/ using language dubs and such instead of subtitles in many cases).

Oh well...

_Man_

 

[Nick Graham]

The possibility that Blu-Ray only hits an LD sized market concerns me - does that entail the possibility that software and hardware prices might rise instead of fall once it becomes clear it hits that point? If DVD had flopped and LD had remained king of home theater media, I never would have been able to get into home theater to begin with based on the hardware and software prices.

It was really disappointing to see Panasonic release the BD50 at such a high MSRP. I realize the dollar is weak and investors need to be coddled to, but I would think they would realize how potentially dangerous it is to the success of Blu overall to be asking $700 for a player at this stage in the game.

 

[Rachael B]

What the world needs now is a good 10 cent Cuban cigar and budjet players, say hay! That ought to be Panasonic and Sony's #1 priority as they seem to be the leaders of the pack. These 2.0 features might be worth a damn in a few year's time but right now.....no way, if it means prices above what kangaroos can/might/would pay.

The BDA might want to consider lowering the minumim standards for players? That seems more important than shoveling high-dollar 2.0 players onto the fire.

I thought it was gonna be $799. Did they drop it?