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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."
I think that this might be the first time that anyone, anywhere has called Robocop a "classic."
Goo goo g'joob.
Until there is a combo hd-dvd/blu-ray player, they can take their discs and go pound salt.
Not a single lindsey lohan movie listed!
the Fifth Element is from 1997, and it's already a "classic?"
Now that everybody's re-bought their favorite movies on DVD, let's move on to the next format! Call me a cynic, but I don't think the average person wants to do this yet. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the average person has had a DVD player in their home for less than five years.
Hmm.. I can only wonder if Robocop was filmed with decent quality equipment to justify having it on blue ray disc. It's very old movie - it was made in 1989. Isn't it kinda like putting .mp3 files on DVD audio disc? It doesn't make any sense.
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.
Whaa? New discs from Sony? Sign me up!
- 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.TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
"...I'd buy that for a dollar!"
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.
Slashcode bug # 497457 - unfixed since December 2001 - Go look it up!
o/~ Join us now and share the software
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 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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think the movie studios (tv etc) are going to start hitting a wall soon.
Think about it, after hi-def what comes next? (and don't say internet distribution etc only, people want things they can actually own in their hands)
First it was video cassettes, then dvd and now hi-definition.. each with a definitive quality increase over their predecessor. Now however with high definition they've pretty much hit the wall, people don't need or won't want to buy super-high-deluxe-definition unless they've got a projector which projects the video onto a ridiculously large area.
It will reach a point where it'll be "good enough", you can already see a lot of people commenting about how they don't see the point of hi-def dvd (which people will eventually go over to) when dvd suits them fine.
The human eyeball can only see so much.
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'll wait until someone cracks the copy protections on these systems. Hopefully someone clever figures it out quickly. I'm not sure Blue-ray or HD-DVD will survive though. I'm certain the copy protection systems are going to kill the usefulness of both systems.
:-)
I read a while back about a new system much better than both Blue-ray and HD-DVD, but I cannot remember what it was called.. (the name of it started with the letter n). Anybody knows anything about this?
I suspect will see the whole DVD history all over again. First we'll get these 25GB discs, then we'll get 50GB discs and of course the first Blue-ray player won't play anything but 25GB discs so we'll need to buy a new player. Then we'll get 100GB discs and we'll need both a new player and a burner.... then there will be discs only compatible with some players and some burners etc.. then there will be discs with 2x speed, then 4x, 8x, 16x and we'll need to upgrade firmware or buy new players/burners again. In 2007 the new 8 layered Blu-ray discs will be out with 200GB capacity, and we'll need burners capable of burning these as well as players for playing these monster discs.
I'll admit I don't know much about these new formats, but I'm looking forward to making backups of my half TB of live shows in FLAC format!
Until they stop pushing DRM down our throat ....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I think Babylon 5 looks better on VHS than on DVD.
Seriously, they filmed that series with two cameras, a semi decent one that made the sets look a bit plasticy, and something they found in a dumpster. Watching the DVDs you can see the different cameras in use, scene to scene, cut to cut. Decent. Grainy. Decent. Grainy. And they always put the decent camera on the men, and the grainy character on the women. Unforgivable.
It is the last series I would have thought about putting on HD media. Indeed most TV series until the last few years probably haven't got that much resolution.
Also redoing the effects would be an act of sacrilege. You might also get killed by rabid Amiga fans. Video toaster and Lightwave man! 30,000 polygons for B5 itself. Woooo...
Sadly, 90% of the content out there isn't good enough for a bloody iPod video resolution, nevermind HD.
Why buy those movies now on Blu-ray, give it half a year and then they will come out with the directors cut, special edition, 3 Blu-ray set.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
The reason we keep having format wars is the licensing.
The people who own the DVD specs make a ton of money. Even better than a ton of money though, is a yearly stream of license revenue.
You get money from the hardware mfgs and money from the content people. The content people have to pay a license to get that little DVD logo you see on the packaging. Ditto for the hardware guys, but they also have to license whatever fancy encryption scheme you're using.
It is all about the licensing revenue. It is a long-term money maker and is pure profit.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The other truth of the matter is, for most intents and purposes, the average person has never exploited how good DVD looks in the first place. They use S-video at best. An anamaphoric-enhanced DVD release (as most theatrical DVDs have been since the 90's), on a progressive scan DVD player with component inputs on a widescreen TV looks damn good. Better than most people will ever wish to have in their home.
The big mistake all of the movie companies are making is that they think we are all itching for something new. We aren't. We don't care. Very few people care about this technology. We'll be well into the next decade before we start lamenting that Wal-Mart is carrying more Blu-Ray/HD discs than DVD. The studios and certain techies keep throwing numbers out there, telling us all what we are supposedly missing...and the joke is going to be on them when these things hit the market with a resounding thud.
After all, at any resolution, progressive looks better than interlaced because you have twice the data. Makes pans and other motion smoother, more detail, etc.
Too bad you have to buy a very expensive (right now) TV to watch 1080p. But Sony is pushing it with the PS3. 1080p Video games (if they deliver that) and 1080p video.
I still think Blu-ray will win. While this is a definite plus for them (I assume HD-DVD could do this, but I haven't heard of any of the movies or players being able to), if you combine this with the increased storage capacity, the soon to be massive installed base (the PS3), and the availability (within a few months of HD-DVD, and more importantly: before Christmas)... I think things are getting better and better for Blu-ray to win.
It is too bad the NIH syndrome is so big that the two groups couldn't suck it up and make one format. They didn't learn from Beta, I guess. And now that they have a VERY popular entrenched format (DVD) to compete against where Beta didn't (no previous home-video recording equipment), things don't look good on the whole.
Blu-ray will win. It will be a hollow victory. They will beat HD-DVD, but they will only beat DVDs because the studios will stop producing them/selling them. I don't think ANY high-def format is strong enough to take over DVD without resorting to cheating within the next 5 years, at least.
But that depends on the price of HDTVs. If they stay too expensive, then there is no point. If prices crash, then bring on the high-def movies at home.
And kiss theaters further goodbye.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
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?
are still bad, no matter how high the resolution and it is funny to note that the converse is also true. Most people don't give a damn about the resolution. What people are interested in is the thickness of the panels. Most prefer a panel TV over a CRT TV, simply because they take up less space and don't really care about the rest.
Oh well, what the hell...
I think Blu-Ray will win the end for two reasons:
1. Most of the Hollywood studios back Blu-Ray.
2. Blu-Ray's native resolution in 1920x1080 progressive scan, with players currently capable of 720p/1080i video output through HDMI now and 1080p output through HDMI within the next year of so.
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!
There are degrees of apparent privacy. Before home video, there were theaters, and therefore home video market when available was greatly influenced by porn availability. You have to go to a public store and be relatively public or receive a potentially conspicuous package, but have to wait and still risk embarassment. The home video market exploded, decreasing the theater market to nil and growing the overall market for porn in general.
Nowadays, how sizable is the home porn video market compared to the more anonymous, the more instantly 'gratifying' internet porn market that has presumably overwhelmed DVD/VHS distribution due to the immediacy and anonymity the computer offers. If nothing else, seeing all the computers I've dealt with where people stick porn in places they perceive as obscure suggests they have higher confidence in hiding files on a computer than hiding tapes or discs in their home. Even for the television channels, I would wager people feel safer buying some porn network/pay-per-view and hiding the charges on their credit card they find easier than hiding discs/tapes.
In essence, as amusing it is to think of porn as a huge market force in such a context, it probably isn't realistic to consider it a 'killer app' this time around. However, I doubt Sony will be so prudish this time compared to the Betamax fiasco, just to be on the safe side.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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.)
Now when you upconvert an interlace source (which film is not) to progressive you can get terrible artifacts, but this also depends on the quality of the upconvert hardware/software. Some HDTVs are un-watchable trying to view NTSC, others actually improve the image HUGELY, it all depends on the upconvert algorithms and horsepower assigned.
If you have ever seen 1080I shot live like some of the BRAVO performances you will see that that the image is stunning fluid and better quality than 24fps film. 1080p will be even better when there is a lot of rapid motion of the whole scene. 1080I looks great when filming plays on BRAVO because they avoid exactly this sort of camera motion. 24fps stutters when you scroll and interlace breaks up into a nasty comb effect. 1080P avoids both. And yes this is why gamers are obsessed with frame-rate. Games tend to be nothing but fast motion and pans. Even 120fps isn't overkill for rapid motion. Granted your eye can't see changes at 120fps, BUT -- and this is a big but -- when you have large field rapid motion your eyes will track the apparent motion. The edges will blur as your eye tries to smoothly track a moving image that is actually a series of stills at the frame rate. The only way it could look un-blurred is if your eyes actually tracked them in with a motion that was a series of skips at the frame rate (not even vaguely humanly possible).
For 24fps film 1080I is much better than 720p. 720p is probably a good choice for sports however for all the reasons listed above. OTA transmission doesn't have the bandwidth for 1080p however (at least not with mpeg2). 1080p if pretty close to nirvana for me, past here the gains are so insignificant as to be pointless. But you can always go higher on the frame rate. Shooting stuff in 60fps or higher would likely lead to new filming styles as current ones purposely avoid things that make 24fps look bad.
The film industry should film everything in 60fps whether film or video (and progressive scan only for video). 1080P will look glorious once there is actually material available. This may be the ace in the hole that put Blu-Ray over HD-DVD in a couple of years. But only if content providers wise up and start making 60fps content.
Letter To Iran
Yeah, but Blu-ray discs comes in a shiny blue box!
(Seriously, as much as I despise this "format war" and especially Sony, I think Blu-Ray has a much better marketing catch.
{ - Generic Guy - }
I'd put Pulp Fiction and Die Hard on my list of classics, even a pretty short list. They both fail your Bruce WIllis Litmus Test.
I'm a filmmaker, and I can't say that I look forward to shooting at 60P. Actually you can already (most economically at 720, but if you're willing to spend the $ and put up with a 2-piece camera system you can at 1080), but for dramatic films higher frame rates are only used for slow motion.
There have been film-based higher frame-rate systems in the past as well, but they never caught on. The problem, as I see it, is that frame rates above about 40fps or so look TOO real. Sets, even well built ones, look like sets -- your brain isn't as easily fooled at 60fps. Even acting tends to look worse -- it's strange, but all the visual cues that are used to convey action and emotion work differently. I suspect that it's possible to develop new film making techniques that would work for high frame rate cinema, but I doubt that it will become universal any time soon. Perhaps eventually when the current generation with its conditioned responses to 24fps drama passes on...
Where I definitely DO see 60fps HD fitting in beautifully is for "experience" kind of things -- rides and simulations and such. It really gives that "looking through a window" feeling that can become really transparent in that situation.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
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!
(warning, minor speculative rambling follows)
It could happen that way, it depends on how they price the discs and the players. The problem with LD was that the cheapest players were $300-400 (and that was in 1990 dollars). If they can get an affordable Blu-ray *or* HD DVD player (that is, one that sells for a little over $100) available within a year or so of launch, they'll have people lining up to buy them.
Also, keep in mind that unlike VHS/LD, a Blu-ray (or HD DVD) player will also play DVD (so you get your backwards compatibility) and likely CD as well. With LD you had to own both players (so if you were just looking to upgrade your VCR, you couldn't just buy a LD player and get both out of the box).
Moving pricing will affect this as well, but to a lesser extent (especially if the players are affordable as mentioned above; people won't have a reason not to get one if they can continue to play their DVDs on it). Hopefully the actual street prices (NOT MSRP) aren't more than $30-40 per title. And from what I've heard, many studios plan to do simultaneous day-and-date releases of new movies in Blu-ray/HD DVD (so they'll likely be sitting on the shelf alongside eachother at your local Best Buy/Circuit City).
Anyways, LD/VHS is not a fair comparison methinks. It's possible, but the variables are very different this time around. (And don't forget the copy-protection aspect; studios aren't exactly pleased we can copy DVDs using our PC, and are likely eager to get something better protected to market to curb so-called casual piracy. If nothing else, they could force these new formats onto the market by cutting prices on players/media to speed adoption).
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
I actually loved LD, but the hard facts of the matter are that it didn't catch on with the mass market because they were satisified with VHS.
That's actually a pretty interesting analysis, but wrong for two reasons:
1) Blu-Ray is going to be embedded in a very popular game system, which will in turn mean a lot more owners of players much more quickly and thus more people buying discs. With a greater market acceleration it will pick up fast enough to live unlike LD where it was hard for a long time to convince people to buy players. In fact this same reason (DVD drives in two of the major game systems, XBox and PS2) were part of the reason DVD did not suffer the LD fate.
2) The industry is moving on without you. ALL of the major players, movie studios and electronics makers alike are behind the new format. That means in a few years the only players you'll be able to buy will be BluRay, and likewise for new discs. So people will basically shift because they have to. Unless online video takes off in that timespan and leaves HD media languishing, but I don't think bandwidth providers in the US can get their acts together enough to make that a real possibility.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
Screw the new formats, and screw the DRM that comes with it. I get my HD movies off usenet just fine, thanks. I _usually_ own the DVDs, too. (Sometimes I just want to check something out, and can't be bollocksed to traipse to the video store through a foot of snow.) But then, DVDs don't look as impressive and 'secksiful' on a ten foot screen anyway.
:P Between that and my unlimited download, unlimited speed, 70+ day multipart binary retention, premium usenet feed... I COULD DOWNLOAD ENTIRE INTERNETS!
I have to agree with what someone above said, there's not going to be any more 'formats'... It's all about portability and access of the 'files'. We're at a point now, where sooner rather than later, buying movies and music is really going to be a matter of licensing rather than owning something tangible.
This will be both good and bad. There are some people, me included, who aren't really going to notice the difference... I've actually downloaded DVD ISOs of discs I own, because I couldn't find the damned thing, or downloaded anime preformatted for my PSP. (Or at least, a DVD rip I can transcode.) So, with that becoming sort of the norm, I won't lose much sleep over it. (Besides, I treat physical media terribly to begin with.) But for some people, this will just break them, on a fundamental level. Sucks to be them, but they're simply not fit for the digital world. And I won't lose much sleep over them, either.
Now if only I had Verizon FIOS, and its 15mbps downstram for $40 a month.
No wait, better yet... If only I lived in Japan and could share a 1gbit fiber line with twenty other people for $50 a month....damn, the very thought brings a tears to my eyes... *wrings out his eyepatch*
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*