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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."
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=robocop%2Bcla ssic&btnG=Google+Search
KFG
So. The major studios have finally gotten around to releasing real classics on DVD (no, not Fifth Element or Robocop) and now they want a new format. How long will it take to see a Cary Grant or Katherine Hepburn movie on Blu-Ray? The vast majority of truly good movies were made more than 30 years ago, and those are always the last movies to make it to a new format. How many film buffs are really excited about this new format? If The Fifth Element and Robocop are counted among the "classic" movies available on the new format, I'm guessing zero.
So the only early adopters will be the same gadget hungry geeks who invested in Laser Disc players. We all know how well that worked out. I'm really looking forward to watching this fall on its face.
Nothing in that list makes me want to rush out and replace my TV, my DVD player, or my DVD collection. Especially since I don't get any credit for a tradein of any old titles that I may already have in DVD format, nor for my old TV or DVD player.
And that's without considering that I live in a fairly small place; my TV is a 54 cm 4:3 job. Does HDTV come in screens that are no taller than that? Something deep inside me says "probably not".
Now, if Warner were to remaster and re-release Babylon 5 in HDTV format (remaster meaning, amongst other things, cleaning up all the obvious glitches in the existing DVD sets; redoing the CGI so it's at a resolution appropriate for HD; fixing the points where the audio and video are blatantly out of sync; and so on), I might be interested. Even then, it'd only be because of the improved quality of picture by virtue of the cleaning up -- there are times when the DVD quality is little better than a VHS tape. It's the same story: there is very little coming out of Hollywood these days (I'm lumping the TV studios in with the movie studios; the same points apply) that really interests me.
Well, while you may not want a PS3 there are a few million people thinking otherwise - and they'll all be able to view these discs.
Furthermore, even if you have a non HD TV might you not be interested in the extra exttras the additional space allows for on Blu-Ray discs?
I'm not saying there are a lot of titles on that list I'm willing to spring for... but I will probably re-buy a few selected things and I know I'll enjoy renting them on Netflix (who I assume will be format neutral in this war and rent both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have very little desire for a 60" plasma TV at home which is where I would notice any improved quality. Any new DVD standard will certainly come at an increased price. Anyways, I buy far fewer DVDs now than I used to. The prices continue to creep higher and with Comcast Digital, I wait for most movies on PayPerView. There very, very few titles that I watch more than once.
I wonder if Sony is giving kickbacks to other studios such as Fox for supporting the format early? Are there licence fees involved to make Blu-Ray discs?
That was back when blowing up a robot involved actual pyrotechnics.
People bought VHS because Sony was a dick, and Betamax died. Now, it isn't about licensing the format, its about rights management. If the early adopters refuse to adopt Blu Ray, it will die (or at least be losing Sony money).
They've picked a war with our rights on our machines, so we'll let them have it in the standards war. What do we lose if HD DVD wins?
I am serious, they will need porn. Everyone knows that the killer app for the VCR was porn. Why go to a scummy X-rated movie theater when you can watch Deep Throat at home? It was my understanding that the first two movies to come out on laser disc were Debbie Does Dallas and some famous Opera. Of course we know which title totally out sold the other. Like it or not Porn launched the VCR, it launched the internet and without it I wouldn't expect there to be much use for HD movies at home. I mean who else is going to pay a premium so that they can pretend like they are actually in the movie.
Of course I am betting that sony will be smart enough to realize that porn sells video technology -- they after all did have experience with Betamax. I am guessing that they just didn't mention the porn titles in this family oriented article. But we all know, no porn no new format! I am not making a joke or saying that I am for or against porn -- I am just stating a fact!
I have previously said that Blu-ray/HD-DVD is dead like laserdisc and that I'm hoping for HVD.
I've thought about it, and in a way I'm wrong. Hardware formats will cease to matter.
CDs were the last major hardware "format" to evolve for music since the 80s. Attempts to supercede it and succeed it in that arena have failed. There will not be another major hardware format for music because it now comes as files. People are now so accustomed to music as files, that even joe consumer will download them from various pay-for services. Perhaps a time will come when the downloaded music will be superior to CD in quality, but there will not be another hardware format war for music - it's all digital.
I don't know if we reached that point with movies - but if not with DVD, then with the next generation - the hardware the data is on will be essentially meaningless, do we fight whether SD, Sony Memorysticks, or Compact Flash Sticks or the way to store music?
In 10-15 years, definitely, the underlying hardware will stop dominating how movies are stored. Through anime torrents, porn:P, ripping DVDs and other web entertainment, people are already accustomed to storing movies as files - it's only a matter of time they want all their movies as such (for convenience).
I'm still betting HVD will gain a foothold in movies just because every computer will have a HVD-RW drive based on the storage space alone (tens of GBs for Blu-ray, HD-DVD versus 300GB to 1.5TB on HVD). But soon thees hardware formats will be meaningless other than transporting the movies if no other means exist - there will not be another king of hardware media formats like CD for music or DVD for movies.
But in the UK, I can't name one friend, or their family, or friends' of friends, or anyone I personally know that actually HAS a HD compatible TV. Furthermore, I know fifty percent of the adults (read: 30+) still mostly use video to play their movies. Us young'ins use DVDs. Now, maybe it's a different culture thing, the middle classes here are very cautious about what to buy, and what benefit it will give them, and at the moment, a HD or Blue-Ray player will give them what? A headache? A placebo of better entertainment?
/. crowd do? DRM is very much hated, and much self loathing, and possibly attempted suicides, would occur if we gave in, but if we MUST, we'd download it. Why not? Connections are getting faster and faster, and in a few years, downloading a movie won't take too long, it could be a continuous background operation. All that's needed, is a good provider, the iTunes for video. This could easily spread beyond us with the pushing of "media centre" PCs, which are in turn connected to the internet.
We can also look at the adoption of formats over time:
Film reels -> Video
Film reels were expensive to produce, difficult to set up, difficult to get working properly, difficult to display well in the home, had to be stored in certain conditions, etc. Video makes it simple, put it in the box, press play. When you're done with it, put it in the other plastic box and keep it on a shelf. Video player linked straight to the TV with minimum fuss, AND could record shows for future enjoyment.
Video -> DVD
Less obvious advantages, but there were still key points. Picture quality got a significant jump. Videos wore after plays and became faint, developed static. My little brother managed to watch Toy Story enough times to make it difficult to see anything on that tape. With DVDs, our little to wide screens were filled with wondrous bold colour and crisp images. The cases were thinner, could be more easily handled, didn't cost much more, and one of the great banes of video...nothing needed WINDING. In any direction.
DVD -> HD/BR
If you happen to own an absolutely MASSIVE television, which is also new you'll get a clearer picture, on the downside there's guaranteed "paranoid" grade DRM, and your Blue-Ray player might explode if a previous story was correct, if it thinks your copy isn't genuine. There'll be adverts I doubt you can skip in any way, and who knows what other crazy restrictions they'll impose. The only up side is, once we get burners for these formats at affordable prices, backing up will be a breeze, although, I'm sure there'll be some catch because an evil pirate might try to burn a movie onto one, and in turn make Bruce Willis a poor beggar, desperately trying to find a movie studio with enough money left to take more actors. Meanwhile, the US is devastated in nuclear attacks because the DVD tells me, explicitly, "Piracy funds terrorism."
I know fairly high tech people, I'm a geek, I hang around with a lot of other geeks, it's what I do. We all own fairly old TV sets, because we don't need anything new. The normal population also owns fairly old TVs, or new but yet not too extravagant TVs. The odd widescreen here and there, but they're happy watching their picture now, DVDs are still clear and crisp.
What will we, as the
But you know, most people, will still go out, and buy their occasional video...
Basically, they need to sell something no one I know needs. I'm sure marketting will find a way.
After all, DRM is a feature,
``Marcel
(It's 3:30 in the morning, and I blame all grammar/spelling/rant inconsistencies and mistakes on that.)
Plain old CDs from the 1980s already contain two channels of 40KHz audio, which happens to be almost exactly what a human is capable of perceiving.
In video, on the other hand, there is no such correspondence. Today's display technologies don't come close to filling your visual field, and if you try simply by blowing them up, they're hopelessly blocky. And they're still in mono (only one channel of video = no stereo vision). And they can't reproduce the full color gamut that your eye can see. Video today is about where audio was at the time of wax cylinders.
Great, now we can re-purchase all of our A/V equipment and movies so we can see all those film artifacts in High Definition. There's going to be nothing quite like having the big black blotches coming to your screen in 720P and up...as well as the original analog audio scores that are going to be giving you a high fidelity tape hiss along with that blotched up screen. Higher resolutions of cruddy productions will just give us high resolution crud!
So tell me, why did my DVD collection suddenly become obsolete just because of this blue ray thingy?
Unless the new fangled gadget of the month can also play my DVD's - they can screw off... I already have pretty much everything I want on DVD or AVI/MPEG... I'll just do what I did with music - never buy it again... Having everything I wanted on CD already, I've done pretty well thus far with that decision... and the new stuff I'm interested in isn't that top 40 dog food, it's stuff from bands that release their tunez on mp3 formats...
Fuck the mpaa and riaa...
I won't argue that artifacts can be magically fixed through manual or automated processes, but people make careers of restoring old media. Fixing thousands of frames in movies would definitely be harder than fixing faded and cracked old pictures, and fixing audio would make my head spin. The automated processes used to digitally "restore" movies have been known to occasionally blur out things that are not artifacts or leave some artifacts behind. Removing hiss from audio is likely complicated as well and may lose some (hopefully unimportant) sounds. The Criterion Collection has fabulous restorations of actual classics on DVD. With any restoration youll have errors still. If a majority of the viewing area is improved or maintained with a major increase in resolution people will prefer the new high definition format. If analog-sourced audio is converted to digital at a higher sampling frequency the sound will be reproduced more accurately than previous digital formats and people who think they can hear the difference will prefer the new high definition format.
I will agree with you, however, that improvement in audio and video quality could never make a bad movie magically turn good.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
Most people are not willing to buy a format that will only play back in specific players when they listen to CDs on a regular basis in their cars, stereos, walkmans and such. DVD Audio albums are still being made, just not on the scale of CD Audio. Super Audio CD albums are being made as well, also not on the scale of CD Audio. Both formats have DRM and do not have methods of circumvention as easy to find and use as DVD Video's DRM. The format war between these two is moot because online audiophiles seem to buy either of them and they aren't a big enough force to bully the market. But, in closing, DVD Audio didn't die. It stagnated.
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