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

[JP]

Just had a thought about the Halo film.

The Halo film is produced by Fox...Fox support Blu-Ray exclusively...Halo will be a Blu-Ray disc exclusive in HD...

EDIT:
Just had another thought about the Halo film, chances are it'll be the standard game to film crap so forget about the first comment.

[Angry the Clown]

Just had a thought about the Halo film.

The Halo film is produced by Fox...Fox support Blu-Ray exclusively...Halo will be a Blu-Ray disc exclusive in HD...

EDIT:
Just had another thought about the Halo film, chances are it'll be the standard game to film crap so forget about the first comment.

The recent Fox deal is regard to the licensing of merchandise (for toys, books?etc). It wasn?t about getting the movie immediately off the ground again ? a point lost on most online gaming journalists. Besides, you don?t think that by the time they make the Halo movie, if they ever do, that we'll still have two HD formats do you? We?ll either have one, or none by then I?d wager.

[JP]

It seems that the deal covers everything apart from an actual film lol.

I wonder if we're more likely to see a Halo TV series instead as Fox have been investing in it lately and it avoids the investment that nobody seems to want to make in a full length film.

[Stuart Smith]

I realise this question almost begs a vitriol-heavy argument, but I'm gonna have to ask anyways: as an owner of both a PS3 and an Xbox HD-DVD drive, where a film has been released on both, which one should I go for? I've sorta tended towards Blu-Ray, because my PS3 has a HDMI output and obviously my 360 is only Component...but disc for disc, is there an obvious advantage to one over the other? Or is it very much film dependant? Or are they all the same at heart?

[Lyris]

Blu-ray and HD DVD are basically just optical disc systems, the biggest differences are the way the laser reads data from the disc.

It's possible for a company (Warner Bros for example) to make one video transfer and to port it onto Blu-ray - IDENTICAL video stream, just stamped onto a different type of disc. So, most of the time, the Blu-ray version will look identical to the HD DVD one.

The only exception is Paramount. Paramount doesn't seem to care about HD discs much and they have an agreement whereby Sony actually do their encoding on Blu-ray for them. This means that Paramount movies on Blu-ray are usually in MPEG-2, whereas the HD DVD versions are in VC-1 and sometimes have the edge. It's difficult to know which looks better (usually the VC-1 version) without buying both though.

A lot of people seem to think that one format "looks worse" than the other and that any video on _______ (format here) will automatically look worse - it's not true. When people say a format looks better or worse than the competitor, they're either misinformed or are talking about the differences between exclusive content.

[EJG1980]

I realise this question almost begs a vitriol-heavy argument, but I'm gonna have to ask anyways: as an owner of both a PS3 and an Xbox HD-DVD drive, where a film has been released on both, which one should I go for?

Flip a coin I'm sticking to HD DVD at the moment because I started collecting that format first and I like to try and stick with one format. So I go for HD DVD all the time unless there's a Blu Ray exclusive that I want. It's purely due to timing though, if the PS3 had come out first (or I'd bought it first) then I'd be buying everything on Blu Ray and only getting HD DVD exclusives.

[JP]

I've nearly bought the HD-DVD add on a few times now as it seems to be down to about ?80 locally but I keep resisting it!

There doesn't seem to be as much chance of me buying one now since the ratio of Blu-ray to HD-DVD films on the high street seems to be moving towards Blu-ray fairly steadily now so there does seem to be less of a choice out there now.

Also...I have, what is apparently, a top rate Blu-ray player in my PS3 which gets used almost daily and so it's sort of removed the need to pay an extra ?80 for a secondary player!!

[Angry the Clown]

I realise this question almost begs a vitriol-heavy argument, but I'm gonna have to ask anyways: as an owner of both a PS3 and an Xbox HD-DVD drive, where a film has been released on both, which one should I go for? I've sorta tended towards Blu-Ray, because my PS3 has a HDMI output and obviously my 360 is only Component...but disc for disc, is there an obvious advantage to one over the other? Or is it very much film dependant? Or are they all the same at heart?

I'll continue to harp on about this, but Blu Ray's bandwidth advantage (when made use of) is its best asset when compared to that of its competitor. I've lost hope waiting for HD DVD to prove it can compete in this respect.

If we're just talking video encodes, Lyris sums it up quite well - though Paramount has been sticking with MPEG4 encodings for their Blu Ray releases in recent months, with no sign of change back to MPEG2 – not that MPEG2 should be seen as this big bad wolf if the encoder does a good job, as they seemed to on Paramount’s MPEG releases (there are plusses and minuses with both their MPEG and VC1 encodes of the same movie if one compares).

Paramount actually do what I’d be rather interested in seeing Warner do, and maximise their encodes to suit the different bandwidth restrictions of the two formats. Now greater bandwidth I think aids aspects beyond a decent video encode, so to focus on video alone might no yield such an obvious advantage. One could take Flags of our Fathers as an example. The MPEG4 Blu Ray encode is seen to be that teeny tiny bit more detailed than the HD DVDs VC1 version, but the fact it is so close is testament to how good VC1 can be in the right hands, and Paramount have perhaps made the most consistent use of VC1 on HD DVD. I worry now and then that Warner and Universal might begin take such an infant codec for granted, occasionally pushing the bitrates lower than it might be able to realistically stand at this point in time. From those I know who have worked with it, it requires a lot of TLC, and that can take time, and time means money, and some times things might be rushed. Taking me back to the bandwidth issue, the lower rate on HD DVD I feel dictates the need for that level of tender loving care spent on most releases.

[Jebus]

I realise this question almost begs a vitriol-heavy argument, but I'm gonna have to ask anyways: as an owner of both a PS3 and an Xbox HD-DVD drive, where a film has been released on both, which one should I go for? I've sorta tended towards Blu-Ray, because my PS3 has a HDMI output and obviously my 360 is only Component...but disc for disc, is there an obvious advantage to one over the other? Or is it very much film dependant? Or are they all the same at heart?

I try to buy one of each...for example, I bought 2 Pirates films for Blu-ray, so because I had some Blu-Ray coming I bought the Iwo Jima/Flags of our Fathers discs on HD-DVD...trying to keep my collection level

[Strider]

I've got a ps3 and HD DVD add-on. At the end of the day I love movies, and with no clear winner just yet, I've got both systems so I can have the best of both worlds. I tend to choose Bluray over HD DVD, but that's only because the HDMI lead appears to give a stronger image than the 360's component and VGA outputs.

I think I will get that LG player when it's eventually released though...

[Lyris]

Taking me back to the bandwidth issue, the lower rate on HD DVD I feel dictates the need for that level of tender loving care spent on most releases.

And yet, TLC is not what we're getting, instead we're getting pre-blurring seemingly to get things out the door in record time. Angry, did you see "Lost In Translation"? It's a festival of mediocrity. Someone on AVS Forum (that doesn't do the accuracy many favours, I know) said that the D-VHS looked better - why should it!

It's ridiculous that we still have to put up with filtering on the HD formats. What part of "HIGH DEFINITION" did they not get!

[Angry the Clown]

I’ve not seen the Lost in Translation disc no. I only read your blog entry and some comments from others about it which was disheartening. I’ve looked at some direct full resolution screencaps though comparing it to an HDTV broadcast and the VC1 job was better than that at least. What’s the bitrate like on the disc?

It’s disappointing that a) mastering anomalies are present on a lot of masters and that b) studios don’t seek to rectify these problems by striking new masters with a fresh telecine. At least after Full Metal Jacket, Lethal Weapon…etc Warner went “oops” and rushed to check what others masters of theirs were riddled with DNR, vowing to create new ones for titles not yet released (though not to re-issue the ones already on the market sadly). I’m hoping 2001 comes from a new master as the existing one has some edge enhancement.

Should Blu Ray win, we might as well accept Universal will just port their existing encodes of course, the great and the questionable ones. With them heading the HD DVD PR Group it strikes me that in their desperation to feel like in that position they have to be the number one studio putting titles out they are rushing through a lot of catalogue titles sparing little time to check the masters and give the encodes the utmost attention.

I'm amazed Disney is doing such a decent job with their HD releases given their questionable and inconsistent history with DVD encodes.

[Salsa Party Animal]

I've just ordered Bridge to Terabithia. I bet New Zealand looks amazing in High definition

Never heard of this film ? What kind of film it is and which format ?

[Jebus]

Isn't it a kiddie film in the style of the lion the witch and the wardrobe?

[Lyris]

Just came home to find my brother watching the French release of THE ROCK (or just "ROCK" as its known there). It looks wonderful. A worthy heir to the Criterion DVD (which itself was excellent).



The opening studio logos look awful, and the credits sequence is merely OK, but don't let that fool you - it instantly improves. There is a smidge of edge enhancement as well but once again, the level of detail is so high that you forget all about it 95% of the time.

Overall, it is wunderbar. More fantastic stuff from Blu-ray if I say so myself.