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

Film Buffs unite! to ignore Blu-Ray

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Wow.

[timeOday]

Robocop is a classic... "Don't worry Sir, I'm sure it's just a glitch!"

That was back when blowing up a robot involved actual pyrotechnics.

Artifacts? Restoration.

[TheStonepedo]

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.