First Blu-ray Movie Titles Announced

JorgeDeLaCancha writes "Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and MGM Home Entertainment have recently announced the release of the first titles on the Blu-Ray media coinciding with the Blu-Ray hardware release in the spring. Some of the films to be released include classics such as "The Fifth Element" and "Robocop" to more modern films such as "Black Hawk Down." Other corporations, such as Fox, have announced similar plans."

Comments

"Nearly 50" HD-DVD titles also announced

[MojoStan]

I think both sides of "the war" should be represented. Among the HD-DVD titles available at launch:

• The Matrix
• Batman Begins
• The Bourne Supremacy
• Aeon Flux
• Jarhead
• U2: Rattle & Hum

There are many articles about HD DVD/Blu-ray titles on Google News.

Sadly

[hsmith]

The Sony BLU-RAY movies will require you to give your first bone as collateral to ensure you won't "file share."

nothing pissed me off more than buying the family guy dvd and having them tell me that it is bad to share movies. THANKS FUCKS, I JUST PAID $12.99 FOR THE FUCKING DVD.

Great! Now use the capacity to fit more on 1 disc!

[Hobart]

I'm more interested in hearing when they start packing full seasons of standard-definition content onto a single disc that they can sell for a reasonable price, instead of the >$100 prices that some sets have been going for. (I.e. $338 for CSI on Amazon)

With H.264 encoding allegedly taking up half the space of MPEG-4 ASP/DivX, which itself takes up roughly 1/7th the space of MPEG-2 DVDs (assuming a 650M CD DivX holds the 2hr content of a 4.5GB movie) -- that's 28 hrs of content on a 4.5G DVD, or 140 hrs of content on a 23GB BD disc!)

...and since this is Slashdot, I should mention that if you pick up a BluRay player or buy MPAA movies, you should take up Lessig's challenge and donate an equal amount of money to the EFF... </obYRO>

--
Slashcode bug # 497457 - unfixed since December 2001 - Go look it up!

By some definitions...

[SuperKendall]

I would wager that no single movie has had more digital releases than Fifth Element. From normal DVD to Bitstream to other special ediitons, it seems like a new version arrives about twice a year.

I liked it a lot but also have trouble thinking of it as a classic science fiction movie in the same way Aliens is a classic... but it is pretty unique and it has a lot of elements that show off sound and video features quite well.

Re:Screw 'em.

[agraupe]

Well, I'm not sure about DVD quality, but on television (especially football games) I notice a clear difference between regular and high-def. What do you make of that?

Though I do agree that the quality difference isn't enough to re-invest in all my movies.

Re:The vicious cycle

[Vinnie_333]

I take it that ultimate edition dealie is never gonna see the light of day?

Lot's of legal issues on that one. I'm waiting with bated breath myself. Here's a page that's tracking the (little) progress that is made on it. Guaranteed sales, don't know what their problem is.

Re:Screw 'em.

[interiot]

DVD's are not high-def. Granted, DVD's look good, but they're not high-def. Here's the number of pixels per field for each type of media:

• DVD (ntsc): 172,800 pixels (widescreen or not, it's always the same)
• 720p: 921,600 pixels
• 1080i: 1,036,800 pixels
• 1080p (though this is rarely supported in next-gen disc formats): 2,073,600 pixels

So that's at least a 5-fold increase in number of pixels per field. If you compare a DVD to a Blu-ray or HD-DVD of the same movie side by side, on a TV that can at least display 720p, you're absolutely going to be able to see a noticable difference.

Re:Picture quality of Robocop?

[Mozk]

AFAIK movie film has a much higher "resolution" than most TVs could display.

Re:Screw 'em.

[tepples]

1080p (though this is rarely supported in next-gen disc formats): 2,073,600 pixels

The vast majority of films in major motion picture studios' catalogs run at 24fps (NTSC) or 25fps (PAL). It's not unlikely that you'll get support for 1080p24 even if you don't get 1080p60. The interlaced formats are mostly for a video camera.

So that's at least a 5-fold increase in number of pixels per field.

But how much of an increase or decrease in fields/frames per second?

Re:Future problems?

[entrigant]

Three words: High Dynamic Range

No, I don't mean the lame simulated HDR in newer games. I mean the real thing.
IF this tech becomes big it'll a bigger jump in quality than standard def -> high def is.

For further reading see:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/10/04/bright side_hdr_edr/1.html
This is a review of the only HDR capable monitor in production.

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~heidrich/Projects/HDRDisplay /
This discusses two methods for creating a HDR capable display and why you would want to. The display in the earlier link uses one of these methods.

Re:The vicious cycle

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two very nice HD MPEG2 versions floating around the net. One from BSHI (japanese broadcast HDTV) with burnt-in japanese subtitles (oddly not so bad, they kind of add to the film's ambience) and another from one of the satellite or cable HD channels that aired in the early fall. The new one is of the remastered transfer. Get your hands on one of those and you can burn your own very high-quality DVD edition.