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

[Matt]

So the BR TDK jumps to and from full frame? Is that "full frame" as in 4:3, or 16:9? And there's no option to turn it off / branching?

[Geoff D]

So the BR TDK jumps to and from full frame? Is that "full frame" as in 4:3, or 16:9? And there's no option to turn it off / branching?

The Imax scenes/shots are 1.78:1 - no option to turn them off.

I watched it tonight & didn't find them distracting.

[Matt]

OK, thanks. I had a nasty picture that "full frame" meant 4:3 with black bars on our widescreen TV!

Surprised there is no option though.

[Angry the Clown]

It's probably down to a few reasons. IMAX is very expensive, the cameras are very unwieldy for the film makers and it limits each shoot to around 2 minutes. An action film like this is probably the worst type of film to make using the technology.

Yes and no. Yes in terms of wielding the cameras around, no in that action scenes require little to no dialogue, which is a good thing because IMAX cameras sound like a very large lawnmower when in use…. In fact that’s probably not even a good enough description of how loud they are as I can reel off a list of smaller format 8, 16 and 35mm cameras that sound like lawnmowers.

There’s actually some insightful featurettes on disc one of The Dark Knight that give a little insight into how they adapted the cameras to be used in a similar way to the freedom 35mm cameras allow… To my delight this included showing the footage (from what are now rather infamous stories) of them mounting the camera to a stedicam only for the rig to collapse under the weight, and the footage of one of the IMAX cameras being destroyed by mistake during the truck chase.

This film is probably one of the first, if not the first of this type to be handled like this as most major IMAX films are just IMAX digital remasters rather than using IMAX cameras.

That’s correct. The sad thing is it’s liable to be one of the first and last too now that IMAX is beginning their downgrade to DLP. It’s a really painful irony to see a filmmaker suddenly start thinking large format again, and for this to suddenly get some other filmmakers and even executives intrigued (I believe Bay is shooting some of Transformers 2 in IMAX), only it’s come at a time when IMAX are already making cost cutting measures and hoodwinking the public with IMAX digital which will downgrade IMAX venues to the point where the projection won’t even be able to render the full benefits of capturing on the 65mm IMAX negative. This is why I've encouraged as many people to see Dark Knight in IMAX since it opened as there are unlikely to be many chances to see anything like it again in the years to come (and audiences literally "oooh" "ahh" and gasp when that first cityscape shot hits).

I'm fed up of cinema going backwards. I've always felt there needed to be a distinction between what one can have at home, and what we get when going out but the line is truly blurred. Decades ago when the film industry was under threat of competition form television they went out of their way to invent new photographic and presentation techniques, but now there's no such effort.

I've still not seen this film but I imagine I'll be getting it on Monday. Before seeing it I'm thinking that I'd prefer to see it in what Nolan wants me to watch it in but I suppose it's possible I'll change my mind after watching it. I'm a little surprised that they haven't given people the chance to choose on the BD though.

I wrote about this before, but found that the ratio switching worked well at home – at least as well as it could, but unless you can view in a dark enough environment for the “black bars” to effectively be rendered invisible in the darkness/against the bezel of your screen then I’d imagine it can be distracting. In a light controlled room the vertical expansion of the image size still has an impact – nothing like it did in IMAX venues, but I was happy with the effect.

If you're truly engaged by the film your brain just adapts. I found that, both in IMAX venues and at home, once the action hits Hong Kong you've been aware of it switch enough times to no longer find it distracting. Instead you just revel in how immersive those shots are, and I also think you actually appreciate just how much thought they put into which shots/scenes should be shot large format. It just works.

The ratio switching is really the least of the of Dark Knight’s problems as far as the decision making behind the disc’s transfer was concerned. The more I watch it, and I’ve watched it a few times now over the course of the last two weeks, the more unfortunate I find the decision to strike whole transfer from an IMAX source (resulting in many of the 35mms carrying over the IMAX DMR sharpening as a consequence) to have been.

I can’t rank it amongst my top five discs of the year – I knew that when I first spun the disc – though even now I still can’t side with AVS members who are branding it a complete travesty. I'm actually trying to think of precisely what my top 5 of the year would be having been asked by a friend the other day... I really don’t buy many new films as to be quite honest I dislike a great deal of them, but of live action new releases this year I must say that – having watched it this evening – Iron Man looked very good indeed.

[MJ]

why couldn't they have just kept it as the Imax print instead of changing it between frames.

Short answer: only certain scenes were filmed using IMAX cameras and not the entire film.

[C']

Sorry if this has already been asked but this thread is massive.

Is the Dark Knight blu-ray region free and if so does any region have an advantage over the others in terms of quality/extras etc?

[Daragon]

I would have thought it was RF yeah - not sure if there's been a single region locked warner release to date (BB was definately unlocked).

As for differences, the extras and PQ/SQ are the same on each version by the look of things - the only possible difference would be that the US has a limited edition release which includes a batpod collectable.

[SuperBeatBoy]

The us version also has the ipod download thingy so you can put the film on your ipod. I don't know how it works or if its even compatible with the uk or whatever. Maybe someone can make that clear.

[dvdmike]

The EE in TDK is killing my eyes in places
Why cant they leave it alone ? I have watched it 4 times on BRD now and I see more and more of it

[SuperBeatBoy]

TDK's bluray release is quite disapointing to be honest. Not just the PQ but the overall extras aswell, i would have liked to have some more indepth material. Although the 45min documentaries on the weapons and psychology are probably its only highlights. The focus points would have been better as a proper documentary instead of mostly stills.

The last film i watched on bluray was Speed Racer and the PQ on that is vastly better than the dark knight.

[MJ]

I reckon we'll see another edition of The Dark Knight next year with some Ledger material on it and possibly a better picture. It sounds quite lacklustre from all the user opinions I've read across the net, perhaps it was rushed to get it out before Christmas, so I've decided I'm not going to buy it and will wait and see what happens.

[Malc]

Most films when first released on DVD or Blu-Ray only have a few generic extras regardless of how much time they've got to compile it alltogether. Warner Bros will wait a few more months and release a new special edition version which'll have things like you described MJ, just to get another bucketload of money.

[Sane]

Despite the somewhat disappointing quality of the normal scenes the quality of the movie itself and the IMAX scenes make TDK my favourite blu-ray by far. And while I despise Warner already for probably releasing a new version of it in a few months with proper extra's I will definitely buy it again...

One thing annoyed me greatly though, I got a digital copy dvd with the bluray which you can use to put the film on your Iphone but when I tried to redeem the code in iTunes it told me it's only available for people with a US account (I imported the blu-ray). Is there any way around this? I paid for the thing haven't I? So why shouldn't I be able to use it?

[Lyris]

You could use a tool to transcode the Blu-ray version to a small format suitable for the iPhone. (Being intentionally cryptic, not sure how much we can discuss here).

Quite sad really, how America's World Wide Web is not only different, but also better than the rest of the World's World Wide Web.

[Sane]

Well the thing is, sure, I can use a dozen other ways to download or convert the movie and put it on my iPhone but I paid for the blu-ray and would like to use this digital version. I also don't see the reasoning behind this at all, they must've known in advance that the only thing they would accomplish by region locking this is annoy importers, which is silly because the bloody blu-ray itself is region free....