Blu-Ray Best Of The Best - for discussing releases only

[dvdmike]

The UK EIV Dark City is a direct port of the new line disc I was hoping for a get out of jail card like Golden Compass

[Lyris]

Almost makes you wish the Euro BDs were 50hz, or had some other difference to the US versions that warranted a re-encode

It WILL appear untampered-with somewhere, though...

[dvdmike]

No nothing makes me want 50hz lol
It was only £12 and it still looks good, bar the close ups of faces

[JP]

It's not exactly a surprise but Indie is officially on his way to BD in October but at the moment it's just the latest film.

Okay... first up today, our own Russell Hammond has updated the Upcoming DVD Cover Art section with all the latest DVD and Blu-ray cover scans. As always, a portion of ANYTHING (not just DVDs) that you order from Amazon after clicking over there through our links will go to help support our work here at The Bits, and we greatly appreciate it.

Now then, the big news we've all been expecting is finally here: Paramount and Lucasfilm have just officially announced that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will arrive on DVD AND Blu-ray Disc on 10/14, just as we first posted in The Rumor Mill about a month ago. Each will be a 2-disc set, and both will carry an SRP of $39.99. A single-disc DVD will also be available for $29.99. Extras on Disc One of the DVD will include the film in anamorphic widescreen video with THX Certified Dolby Digital English 5.1 audio, and 2 featurettes (The Return of a Legend and Pre-Production). Disc Two of the DVD will include the 6-part Production Diary: Making Kingdom of the Crystal Skull documentary (includes Shooting Begins: New Mexico, Back to School: New Haven, Connecticut, Welcome to the Jungle: Hilo, Hawaii, On-Set Action, Exploring Akator and Wrapping Up!), 6 additional featurettes (Warrior Makeup, The Crystal Skulls, Iconic Props, The Effects of Indy, Adventures in Post Production and Closing: Team Indy), 3 Pre-Visualization Sequences (Area 51 Escape, Jungle Chase and Ants Attack), and 5 image galleries (covering The Art Department, Stan Winston Studio, Production Photographs, Portraits and Behind-the-Scenes Photographs). The Blu-ray Disc will feature 1080p widescreen high-definition video with THX Certified English 5.1 Dolby TrueHD audio. All of the DVD special features will be included on the Blu-ray in high-definition, and you'll also get a trio of interactive Indiana Jones Timelines (including a Story Timeline, a Production Timeline and a Historical Timeline).

Note that all four Indiana Jones films will also be released together as a Complete Adventure Collection box set ON DVD ONLY for SRP $89.99. We're hearing that the other films COULD appear on Blu-ray sometime in 2009, but take that as Rumor Mill-worthy until they're officially announced. Here's a look at the cover artwork for the 2-disc DVD and Blu-ray version of Indy IV. Note that the Amazon DVD link says single-disc, but the price listed is the 2-disc SRP so we believe this is simply an error on Amazon's part...

[Brats]

Raiders and Last Crusade appeared on the BBC HD channel when they were shown on TV recently. I couldn't see a huge improvement tbh from my DVDs, so I'd assume Lucas will want to redo them before the Blu-Ray release.

Strangely Temple of Doom was shown in SD 4:3 and (I'm sure) was the US cut with the heart sequence shown in full.

[Salsa Party Animal]

I can wait as I can take advantage of raised limit for importing stuff without duty.

[JP]

Was surprised to read that Criterion's reference BD player is a PS3 and Joe Kane (D.V.E.) thinks it has the best image quality. Surely there are better quality BD players available for that type of work by now?

It's reassuring to see that these people don't go for the stupidly priced cables too.

It goes without saying that the folks who work at Criterion Collection are film buffs. And anyone who has watched one of the company's lovingly remastered DVDs can attest to the fact the company really cares about making films look as good as they can. That's why we took notice when a poster at AVS Forum pointed out an interesting tidbit in Sound & Vision's recent profile of Criterion Collection's new high-def home theater--Criterion's reference Blu-ray player is a PS3.

We're not exactly surprised. We've been using the PS3 as our reference Blu-ray player at CNET since it was released, and you'll notice that it tops our best Blu-ray players list by quite a margin. Furthermore, it's worth noting that video quality expert Joe Kane help set up Criterion's new home theater room. When we checked out Joe Kane's demo of the truly awesome SP-A800B at CES, we specifically asked what Blu-ray player he thought had the best image quality, he immediately said the PS3. So if you're worried about the image quality of a "game console" versus a high-end standalone Blu-ray player, it's worth rechecking your assumptions when CNET, Criterion and Joe Kane all vouch for the PS3's excellent performance.

Another interesting piece of gear we noted from the S&V article is a DVI Gear HDMI cable. That's right, the image quality experts at Criterion opt for the relatively cheap DVI Gear brand rather than splurge on a $275 Monster cable. Again, that's no surprise to us, as we even recommended a $2 DVI Gear cable in our Quick Guide to HDMI cables. If the image quality experts at Criterion and CNET both agree that inexpensive cables generally perform just as well as more expensive cables, we're betting those cables are okay for your home theater too.

Sources: Sound & Vision via AVS Forum

Criterion Collection's reference Blu-ray player is a PS3

[Lyris]

Another interesting piece of gear we noted from the S&V article is a DVI Gear HDMI cable. That's right, the image quality experts at Criterion opt for the relatively cheap DVI Gear brand rather than splurge on a $275 Monster cable.

And they'll use a $2 coaxial cable to transfer data from tape decks to disc. Which makes the foo-foo richer-than-you "experts" spending stupid amounts on cables to watch the compressed end result particularly hilarious

[SmokeMeAKipper]

I see Iron Man is being advertised (in my weekly HMV e-mail) - as it's a Paramount film will the Blu-ray be region free? I'll order from Movietyme if it's likely to be.

In fact, sine I'm asking what are the chances of Transformers Blu-ray and The Dark Knight Blu-ray being region free?

[Dazzyman]

They both should be. Warner and Paramount dont do region encoding on their stuff

http://bluray.liesinc.net/

[TonyDA]

The likelihood is that all three are. Transformers is on its way to me from AxelMusic, so I'd expect some confirmation to appear over the weekend/Monday.

As Iron Man is Paramount and The Dark Knight Warners, both should be region free - neither have released a locked title so far.

[Lyris]

Can't think of any reason at all why they'd be region locked, you'll be fine.

[SmokeMeAKipper]

Brilliant - thanks guys, will put my pre-orders in!

[Lyris]

So has anyone heard of the small scandal erupting over Optimum's "Escape from New York" BD?

It appears to be made from a standard-def source, something which Optimum have themselves denied. Anyone with any experience in video can tell that somewhere along the line, this has been SD, or at least SD quality.

http://lyris-lite.net/2008/escape/escape1.jpg

http://lyris-lite.net/2008/escape/escape2.jpg

The rights to this film are held by Studio Canal. Now, I don't want to lose my DVD authoring/encoding job, so I'll just say that I'm not surprised that an error like this has occurred.

[SmokeMeAKipper]

So does that mean they've just upscaled the original transfer to 1080p rather than remastering it in HD? (Sorry - my technical expertise in this area are zero!)