***Official Blu-ray insiders thread (1 Viewer)

[Dave Moritz]

Both Leon: The Professional and Glory are on my to get list, but I can not wait to own Glory in 1080p and a uncompressed pcm track.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

Ditto that! Great looking title, and an excellent movie.

For another great foreign title (I even prefer it over Black Book) that Sony has released on Blu-ray (that also looks excellent) I highly recommend The Lives of Others!

 

[Aaron Silverman]

RX-V995 owners unite!

Sorry.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Paidgeek,

welcome to HTF and thanks for your participation in this thread.

I'll do my plug for 2 things I've seen previously mentioned regarding BD-production strategy:

1. Use branching to provide various "cuts" of movies on BD rather than sticking us with the theatrical-cut only in high-def when the various versions are already available on DVD. Having a favorite title come out in high-def in theatrical form only, when you've got the director's cut on DVD already, is salt-in-the-wound to any film collector.

2. Provide bonus material in high-def whenever possible. HOWEVER, make a valiant attempt to at least provide the bonus material available on DVD editions, even if it's SD-only in resolution. No collector should be forced to give up content as he/she "upgrades" to a high-def disc. In cases where multi-dics DVD sets might need to exclude non-essential material to fit onto a single 50GB disc, that might be forgiveable... but when BDs come out with no bonus material and their 2-disc DVD editions are overflowing with SE content, there's a problem for the high-def consumer.

Thanks to you and the other guys at Sony for leading the way with high-quality high-def transfers and lossles audio! I'd love to see Sony print on the packaging the specific resolution of the PCM/TrueHD audio (such as "24 bit/48 kHz").

Keep up the good work!

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Agreed on both counts.


Dropping extra features = no sale for me (see The Great Raid again ).

 

[DaViD Boulet]

agreed. Branching is THE solution for every "director's cut" where it can be seamlessly delivered (ala Close Encounters). and it works both ways... providing theatrical and new cuts to all viewers who know and love each versoin of the film.

I *abhor* the new scenes added in Warner Brother's director's cut of Amadeus. I would LOVE to have that in HD and be able to watch the original theatrical version... while others enjoy the new director's cut.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

Ditto. Unfortunately, Warner hasn't shown any interest in using branching yet. They should have done so with both Alexander and Troy.

 

[Paul.S]

"Amen" and "Hallelujah" to David's post #45.

Might there be a BD of Guess Who's Coming To Dinner streeting along with the recently-announced-for-February 12, 2008 SD?

 

[JediFonger]

remember, branching doesn't work for EVERY single film that has been recut due how scoring changes and different types of dissolves used. that is why Blade Runner is 5 discs! it just simply can't be done the way we're imaging. the only way seamless works is if the edits are adding/subtracting cuts ONLY and not doing fancy additional visual fx DURING those transitions and whole new scores, etc.

either way, TroyC and Alexander FC are the best cuts. much better than the original. no reason why the originals should exist, but let's not talk about that here, that's another thread for another place.

i do have a question, when will the first profile 1.1 or 2.0 Blu-Ray discs be arriving?

 

[PaulDA]

I'm doing a research paper on historical feature films with multiple cuts and these are two of the three I'm examining (the other is Kingdom of Heaven). I haven't watched the alternate cuts of Alexander yet (I have all three versions) but I have watched Troy in both versions and it would have been impossible to "branch" them. The musical score is entirely different in the director's cut and there would be no way to integrate it into the theatrical version. It works in Gladiator, but Scott goes out of his way in the intro to explain the extended version is NOT a "director's cut" (he was happy with the theatrical release) but rather an alternative exercise (the additions are not all that extensive and they do not alter the essential story). As for Alexander, while it may have been possible to branch between the theatrical cut and the "Final Cut" (though I reserve judgement until I've actually seen the latter), from what I've read about the "Director's Cut", branching would have been impossible there as well. I agree that branching should be used when it is possible to do so, but the more extensive the alterations, the less likely it would work.

 

[Paul.S]

This is like farting and then running out of the room. Even if I agree with you, please don't make provocative statements and then say it's not an appropriate subject of discussion.

Re: "when will the first profile 1.1 or 2.0 Blu-Ray discs be arriving?"

Sony, Fox and Lionsgate have already announced Resident Evil: Extinction, Sunshine and 3:10 To Yuma, respectively.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...n_Blu-ray/1165

 

[Dave Moritz]

Is there any news on when the Denon blu-ray will be in retail stores here in the US? My first priority is to buy the Denon receiver first and then the Denon Blu-ray. If I really had the money I would buy an extra full ht setup and buy the matching Pioneer Elite receiver & blu-ray.

 

[JediFonger]

i happen to do the former quite often

anyways, thx for the announcements. i think i read those here:
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...Explained/1186

is Blu-Ray capable of having the same types of smooth menu animations that HD DVD does like in WB titles? the WB titles on both Blu-Ray and HD DVD are not the same.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

paidgeek,

Nice to see you back in action!

Please, please, please continue on this trend of 24 bit lossless audio without dial. norm. from the master original language tracks.

Also, I really need to stress that those people who have (or want) scope front projection setups desperately need to be able to manipulate the subtitles (size, position, color, etc.) so that they stay within the picture frame and don't get cut off. From what I understand, the disc must have the codes necessary to do this onboard and the player can't adjust the subtitle data by itself as Samsung's DVD players could do with DVD subtitles (that feature was a godsend for constant height home theater systems).

Most of your Blu-ray's have been good about keeping the subtitles within the picture just as with commercial prints, but lately the subtitles are straying back into the lower (and sometimes upper) black letterbox band. Don't drop the ball now.

This request goes out to ALL studios.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Good point.

EVERY high-def title sold on HD DVD or BD should be "Constant Height Friendly" and allow for people with native 2.35:1 projection screens to see/do all that they can without needing remove masking or shrink down to 1.78:1 mode.

If it's possible for someone to build a player that can manipulate the placement of all subtitles and menu items to accomplish that regardless of software encoding, we'd love to know!

 

[JediFonger]

dan,

i believe it's upto the player to adjust the caption/subtitles. on my PowerDVD, there are settings that designate where the subtitles should go

 

[fleishher]

Will PS3 one day have the capability to upgrade firmware to output DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby True HD? Deciding factor in buying a stand-alone dvd player. PAIDGEEK, if you have the answer to this one i'll be your best friend.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

It already does Dolby TrueHD several firmware update ago.

DTS-HD MA decoding is expected early '08 (according to Paidgeek and other insiders as mentioned on other forums already).

 

[RobertSiegel]

Thanks Paid for answering our questions, it's very nice to have someone available for this. My first question is this..being a huge fan of classic films, I understand that Sony needs to concentrate on newer titles with limited shelf space as you mentioned, but wouldn't the release of some classics like Lawrence of Arabia, Kwai, Funny Girl or Oliver attract a classic audience that might not have purchased a hd player yet? I know I would buy many of these instantly and am sure there are many more.

My 2nd question is more of a statement but also a question. When these older films come out, do they plan to continue the wonderful tradition of the PCM (or any uncompressed format) sound? This is very important to me, as we have been dealing with compressed Dolby Digital for far too long. Heck, even older mono films would provide some benefit with uncompressed sound, but I am more concerned about the stereo releases.

My third and final question mirrors David's. Will the PS3 be upgraded anytime soon for DTS Master? All of Fox's films, now New Line and even a Sony release (Close Encounters) has it. It would be great if that could be sent at least converted to PCM.


(added later: sorry I didn't see David's post about early '08 for DTS HD).

 

[DaViD Boulet]

p.s.

if you mean will the PS3 be able to *bitstream* advanced audio over HDMI 1.3 for external decoding, so far the word from Paidgeek and other insider sources is "no" because of hardware limitations with the early version of the HDMI 1.3 chipset in the PS3. We all hope that's an overstatement that might change with time... but that's been the consistent word thus far.

Sorry for jumping in, it's just that Paidgeek has been hammered with these same questions on AVS and Blu-ray.com and provided consistent answers so I figured I'd just reiterate what he's said elsewhere since he's tied up with CES preparations and probably won't have a chance to get into this thread for a little while...

dave