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Best (and Worst) High-Def Discs of 2006

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the buyer-beware dept.

An anonymous reader writes "High-Def Digest has released their first annual 'Best (and Worst) of the Year' list of movies released on HD DVD and/or Blu-ray. Not surprisingly, the 'best' list is heavy on superheroes. Superman, Batman, and the Hulk all made the list. Not a bad cheat sheet for those of us with a Blu-ray capable PS3 or an XBox 360 HD DVD add-on on our Christmas lists."

173 comments

  1. I know this'll burn karma... by DarkHelmet · · Score: 4, Interesting
    But what would be even nicer than having a list of nice HD movies, how about a nice guide of HD sets that accept 1080p via composite input or VGA input?

    After all, what good is having a 360 HD drive when you're only going to be watching the stuff at 720p or 1080i anyhow?

    Anyone?

    --
    /^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
    1. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      1080p transmission is a farce when you're dealing with movies. There is basically no difference between transmitting in 1080i vs 1080p when viewing content at or below 30 frames/second.

      When talking about high def tv's, you're mostly talking about progressive displays (plasma, lcd, dlp, lcos, etc...) and in the US those displays are running at 60hz or 60 frames per second. Movies on the other hand are shot and encoded at 24fps. Now both an hd-dvd player and a blu-ray player, whether by component, dvi or hdmi are transmitting data to your tv at 60 fps. 1080i sends half the image on cycle 1 and half the image on cycle 2, your tv deinterlaces the image fields and shows you a progressive image for 2 frames. 1080p on the other hand sends the whole image on cycle 1, and nothing on cycle 2, and shows the progressive image for 2 frames as well. When you put down $1000 for a 1080p player, you've just paid $500 extra for a marketing term and the belief that movies will ever be shot at 60fps in the forseeable future.

      Alot of people will probably chime in and start screaming about interlace artifacts right now. The only way you get interlace artifacts on a progressive tv, is if the source material was shot as interlaced, for example http://thewebfairy.com/911/presentation/artifact.h tm, but both hd-dvd and blu-ray, and presumably network tv are all shot in a progressive format, so your deinterlacer is reassembling the same image you'd see over 1080p.

    2. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Fizzl · · Score: 0

      There is no such thing.
      HDMI is the only way. Protected video path and all that DRM shit.

      I think you can't watch even 1080i without HDMI.

      --
      "I know this'll burn my karma..." What the fuck? Fuck off wanker! I hate you assholes who add a mention of karma in nonsensical posts just to get it modded somewhere. Is this post solely for karma whoring? No-one can't be as stupid as think you can get HD through composite. Atleast no-one who actually owns a HD set. So we have two options: 1) Clueless wanker who has too much money to burn. 2) Clueless wanker who is living in his mothers basement, doesn't know anything about HDTV and posts random shit to every fucking slashdot thread.
      Ah... Damn it feels good to flame someone into oblivion when having a terrible terrible hangover.
      HAND!

      --
      Bot Assisted Blogging
    3. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by DrXym · · Score: 3, Informative
      When talking about high def tv's, you're mostly talking about progressive displays (plasma, lcd, dlp, lcos, etc...) and in the US those displays are running at 60hz or 60 frames per second. Movies on the other hand are shot and encoded at 24fps.

      Except that some TVs can output in 1080p/24. So they can show the movie at the same frame rate as it appeared in the cinema. Getting a player to output in that is another matter. The PS3 can't (at the moment), but allegedly a firmware patch will add that support (see here for details).

    4. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by iainl · · Score: 2, Informative

      1) No, 1080i and 1080p work just fine on the 360. Image Constraint Token has not been implemented on a single public disc yet, and is highly unlikely any time in the near future, given the speed at which these add-on drives are flying off the shelf. By the time it does become an issue, you'll have almost certainly got your $199 worth of fun out of the drive, and the standalone players that you'll need will have come down by that much.

      2) The grandparent is strictly off-topic. Burning karma to get his question answered is, I'd suggest, a real issue.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    5. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that some TVs can output in 1080p/24. True, but regardless of the actual rate at which the display refreshes the picture, the tv is still operating at and receiving transmitted data over hdmi and component at 60hz. Its up to your hd-dvd/blu-ray/media center as to whether to send data each cycle or not.
    6. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
      The only way you get interlace artifacts on a progressive tv, is if the source material was shot as interlaced, for example http://thewebfairy.com/911/presentation/artifact.h tm, but both hd-dvd and blu-ray, and presumably network tv are all shot in a progressive format, so your deinterlacer is reassembling the same image you'd see over 1080p.
      No, the deinterlacer is trying to reassemble the separate fields of an interlaced image to a frame. To do this, is has to guess where the 2:3 cadence falls, and detect whenever there are glitches (bad edits). While modern deinterlacers are actually quite good at guessing, none are perfect. Additionally, this makes it unneccesary hard to smoothly play movies at 24Hz, 48Hz or 72Hz to avoid the judder inherent in 60Hz playback.

      The interlacing part isn't as simple as you make it out to be. For film it's actually showing the odd lines of the first movie frame, the even lines of the same frame, then repeates the odd lines, shows the even lines of the second frame, then the odd lines of the second frame. Note that inbetween there's a video frame that is made up of odd lines of the first movie frame and the even lines of the second, so the deinterlacer has to start assembling some frames with odd fields and some with even ones. More on this in Wikipedia or secrets of home theater and hifi.
    7. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Malc · · Score: 1

      Shouldn't scenes with motion appear smoother at 1080i @ 60 FPS than 1080p @ 30 FPS?

    8. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Kjella · · Score: 1

      First off, the one that's dead wrong. Network TV is not filmed in progressive, or if they did it's not sent as telecine. Plenty interlacing artifacts there.

      Secondly, when you make 24p to 60i you get as follows (1/12th of a second):
      1A 2A
      1B 2B
      to
      1A 1A 2A 2A 2A
      1B 1B 1B 2B 2B

      You actually send half of these in 60i, but that's the result. See the interlaced frame? Each frame gets 5 half-frames, but you can't split that evenly. You could give one frame 4 half-frames and the other 6, but that'd lead to stuttering. However, all the information is preserved so you can via 3:2 pulldown show the original 24p, but not on a 60p screen (unless it does 24, 48 or 72Hz as an option).

      So 1080p24 playback does help, if your TV can play it back frame-accurate. If it needs to run at 60Hz, doesn't matter. Of course, I still hope we'll get p60 and that interlacing can die very soon. Ever notice that interlacing died in PC monitors sometime in the 1990s?

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    9. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by robbiedo · · Score: 1

      The Xbox 360 with HD-DVD player outputs 1080p over component. No difference in 1080/p or 10802 because movies are 24 frames/sec.

    10. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by twistedsymphony · · Score: 1

      well, the other argument is video games. both the Xbox 360 and PS3 can play games at 1080p and some already at 60FPS, Not to mention the Xbox 360 has an internal scaler to upscale 720p games to 1080i/p if so desired, you'd be halving your frame rate if you used this feature and neglected to

      you're absolutely right about showing low frame rate films... but I wouldn't be so sure about films NOT going to 60FPS in the future. Movie frame rates are low because back on the old film reels the lower the framerate the smaller the reel it was easier and cheaper to handle and ship. I wouldn't be surprised of 60FPS films and TV shows started popping up now that the technology is in place. if you shoot a film in digital it doesn't really change much to shoot it at 24fps or 60fps. Maybe a little more work in editing but in terms of equipment and cost... storage is cheap.

      --
      Collector's Edition
    11. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Harlockjds · · Score: 1

      >both the Xbox 360 and PS3 can play games at 1080p and some already at 60FPS,

      Really? Can you name a game doing so? i was under the impression that ps3 developers were shooting for 720p because of the FPS hit they took at 1080P.

    12. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by The-Bus · · Score: 4, Informative

      I have no mod points, so I can only respond and say you're right. The source material of HD DVDs and Blu-Ray discs is 1080P. If there's an exception, you'd note it on the back of the case. From what I understand, if the source material is 1080P but your TV is 1080i, you most likely won't see any difference unless you have a very poor deinterlacer.

      Even if your TV is 720P, you'll still see a difference between regular broadcast / DVD and HD discs. Some people (myself included) claim to see a difference between HD discs and HD broadcast; for me, this is mostly due to HD DVDs having none of the compression artifacts and color banding you find occasionally on your HD broadcast.

      --

      Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

    13. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by henryhbk · · Score: 1

      I happily watch 1080i over DVI and over component all the time. No reason you can't do this without HDMI. HDMI does offer additional advantages, but 1080i is not one of them.

    14. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by matt328 · · Score: 5, Informative

      It all depends what FPS the content was created at. If you're talking video games, its 'content' is created procedurally by a GPU at as many FPS as it can crank out. If you've got a movie that was shot at 30 FPS, viewing it at 60 FPS will cause each source frame to be displayed on the tv for 2 frames (or cycles, or whatever you want to call it). Even though the FPS on a tv is higher, it depends on the FPS of the content you're displaying.

      An example would be if in one frame of a 30 FPS source, my hand is on the left side of your screen. My hand moves so quickly to the right so that in the next frame it appears on the right side of the screen. So one frame has my hand at the left, then the very next has my hand at the right. Even if you view it at 100000 FPS (impossible, I know, but stay with me) there would be 50000 frames showing my hand at the left, followed by 50000 frames with my hand at the right. Even though you raise the FPS, there are still no frames that exist with my hand anywhere in between left and right. Unless 60 FPS TVs are able to interpolate between the two, there's just nothing available to show during the 'extra' frame so it stays the same.

      When it comes down to it, a movie is still a finite amount of pictures shown in rapid succession (mainly 30 of them per second). Even though a TV can be capable of displaying twice that many in a second, it's not capable of 'making stuff up' to show you every other frame. So I guess I'm trying to say its the content, not the TV that determines the 'smoothness'.

      --
      Check out the cave on the east side of lake Hylia. Strange and wonderful things live in it.
    15. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, since the original was shot in only 24fps.

    16. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by iainl · · Score: 1

      On the PS3, some games are 720p (most of the big hitters like Resistance and Motorstorm, for instance), but others (Ridge 7 for a start) are 1080p.

      Right now, I think the only 1080p-native title on the 360 is that vertical shmup that was on Live Arcade last week, because it's such a new feature, but everything else can be internally scaled from 720p because Microsoft had the foresight to put a hardware scaler in there, unlike Sony.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    17. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 2, Informative

      After all, what good is having a 360 HD drive when you're only going to be watching the stuff at 720p or 1080i anyhow?

      Anyone?

      Um, because it will still look an order of magnitude better than 480i?

    18. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by twistedsymphony · · Score: 1

      Actually there are a number of Xbox 360 titles (even launch titles) that can now do 1080p natively. Basically the games that were previously 1080i native... they all rendered to a progressive frame in the frame buffer and the interlacing was added after the fact. now that 1080p support has been added they basically just removed the interlacing step. Splinter Cell Double Agent is probably the most notable recent release that can render natively to 1080p, I know Moto GP renders to an odd resolution halfway between 720p and 1080p. It's difficult to tell with the 360 because it will scale the output to whatever you set it to, the only true way to determine natively supported resolutions is to pull screenshots directly out of the frame buffer. You are correct that MOST current games only go up to 720p...

      Even still the Xbox 360 does a much nicer job of scaling a 720p game to 1080p then your TV would because it has the luxury of doing it before the signal gets compressed for the AV output. Not to mention it does it without any lag unlike the scalers in some HDTVs.

      --
      Collector's Edition
    19. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by iainl · · Score: 1

      Ah, thanks for that. Assault thingy is the only title so far to explicitly say that it is doing 1080p, and poor little old me doesn't have access to the frame buffer on my home kit.

      I agree about the scaler, by the way, upscaling to 1360x768 for my LCD's native res is just gorgeous.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    20. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Harlockjds · · Score: 1

      and how many FPS? the post i replied to said they were running at 60 FPS... that's what i question the most (but then RR may be since they dumbed down the graphics from RR on the 360)

    21. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      accepting 1080p over COMPOSITE would be a nice feature indeed... although... i have a feeling the quality would suffer...

      now over COMPONENT on the other hand...

    22. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Serengeti · · Score: 1

      Hold on...

      1080p != 60 fps. Progressive video still delivers only 30 frames per second, just the same as interlaced, but interlaced does it so that half a frame (called a field) is sent every 1/60th of a second, while progressive doesn't divide the signal into two fields.

      IIRC, 'interlaced' was a trick that the NTSC engineers came up with to deal with technical limitations of televisions working in the North American 60hz power scheme. Interlacing also allowed television signals to be transmitted within a 6mghz package over the air, as well.

    23. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by DarkHelmet · · Score: 1
      I happen to have an Xbox 360 that does 720p perfectly fine to my HD set. The reason I was asking this, is because I actually am a clueless wanker who stayed up a little too late and ended up writing composite instead of component without proofing. Oops. Well, so much for actually getting my real question answered.

      I've been looking at my share of 1080p televisions, however, I noticed that most of the TVs that are 1080p but only accept a 1080i signal. Since I wouldn't mind having a TV that doubles as a huge living room monitor, something that does 1080p/60 would be ideal.

      Best of luck with your hangover.

      --
      /^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
    24. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by markild · · Score: 1

      I've found this picture from Wikipedia to be of great help, when trying to explain to people the differences between the myriad of resolutions out there.

      Sure it's chaotic and all, but it gets the job done ;)

      --
      Scully: Should we arrest David Copperfield?
      Mulder: Yes we should, but not for this.
    25. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, your deinterlacer does not do that during 3:2 pulldown, it does not interleave the 3rd frame like that,

      It follows the below pattern

      1A 1A 2A 2A 2A 3A 3A 4A 4A 4A
      1B 1B 2B 2B 2B 3B 3B 4B 4B 4B

      Just as is does if it were fed a progressive signal

      1 1 2 2 2 3 3 4 4 4

      More here http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_7_4/images/d vd-benchmark-part-5-main-2.jpg

    26. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by pappy97 · · Score: 0, Troll

      "But what would be even nicer than having a list of nice HD movies, how about a nice guide of HD sets that accept 1080p via composite input or VGA input?"
      ^^^^^^^^^^^

      1080p via composite....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sorry, bud, you have bigger problems than this question. Do some homework before you look stupid again.

      Composite, FYI, is the yellow cable in standard RCA cables.

      1080p over composite is the funniest thing TV related I've heard this year! Nice job!

    27. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by DarkJC · · Score: 1

      If you had actually read the thread, you'd realize he had already corrected his mistake in a reply. I normally don't mind multiple people correcting someone, but you need to calm down when someone makes a simple mistake before calling them stupid. With worthless posts like these, remind me why you still have good karma?

    28. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by TheNinjaroach · · Score: 1
      From what I understand, if the source material is 1080P but your TV is 1080i, you most likely won't see any difference unless you have a very poor deinterlacer.
      If the source material is progressive and your television can only produce an interlaced image, there is no deinterlacing going on. It's the opposite, where you have to throw out half of the data because it can't all be drawn at the same time. 1080i or 1080p content will both look exactly the same when displayed on a 1080i set.
      --
      I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
    29. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by doctor_no · · Score: 1

      You can see the difference between 1080p and 1080i, the biggest difference is that most 1080i HDTV does not display at a full 1920x1080. This is compounded with high-motion video content which progressive is far superior then interlaced (and yes you can see artifacts). Also, 1080p players are not $1,000, both HD-DVD and Blu-ray have players in the $500 range (least of which the PS3, 360+add-on and Toshiba's entry-level HD_DVD player). Also, starting next year, all 1080p sets will become the norm and are already showing up in the $1k level (Westinghouse 1080p LCD, and Vizio has 46" 1080p set for $2k)

      http://www.hometheatermag.com/hookmeup/0506halfrez /

    30. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by iainl · · Score: 1

      I don't know; the PS3 won't be here until March, so I've not seen one running myself. But Ridge wouldn't be Ridge at 30fps, so I'd imagine Namco have thrown out whatever they needed to in search of 60.

      1080p at 60fps isn't that hard; PCs do it all the time with graphics cards no more powerful than the ones in the 360 and PS3. It's just that most developers on these consoles would rather plan for 720p and push more work to each pixel.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    31. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by sahonen · · Score: 1

      Movies will probably be shot at 24 fps for ages to come, but broadcast television won't. FOX, ABC, ESPN, and many others are broadcasting at 60 fps in 720 lines. There's not enough bandwidth to produce a good-looking 1080 line picture at 60 fps, but when that limitation goes away I think we'll see all the major broadcasters moving up to it. Also, game consoles can output 60 fps progressive content.

      --
      Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
    32. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      The PS3, however, has one glaring problem as an hi-def media player - it can't output in 720p, which is the max resolution of many of the sets that are out there now. 1080p content hasn't been available for long. My PS3 was the #1 factor in my deciding to go with HD-DVD instead of Blueray; I have thousands of dollars invested in a 720p projection system, and the PS3 mashes all Blueray content down to 480p at best. The "bargain" you think you're getting for a game console plus Blueray player at $600 or so is an illusion; because as a Blueray player, it's a bust. My standard (and relatively inexpensive) DVD player puts out DVD content at 480p already. For this, I don't need Blueray, or $30 Blueray recordings.

      I don't know. I've been a Sony fan for years, but lately, it seems they can't take a single step without tripping over their own feet.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    33. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Even though a TV can be capable of displaying twice that many in a second, it's not capable of 'making stuff up' to show you every other frame.
      Ahem. Philips Natural Motion (or TrimensionDNM).

      Some people like the effect, some people don't.
    34. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by elmCitySlim · · Score: 0

      Also, 1080 does not exist on the 360. Its some weird 540 format, doubled...
      Once I switched my 360 over to 720 from 1080, it looked much better.

  2. If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Kris_J · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Let's see;
    • BATMAN BEGINS (forgive the caps, I'm copy 'n pasting). I own it on DVD and I still haven't been able to sit through it.
    • THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, which made a good friend of mine motion sick.
    • HULK, which I thought was roundly considered awful.
    • MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III, starring the recently disowned by his old studio Tom Cruise.
    Meanwhile, it looks like some good movies were completely screwed up, such as Army of Darkness.
    1. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Batman Begins is #88 on the IMDB Top 250 and is rated a solid 8.3. Do you really expect us to take you seriously when you're trashing what is arguably the best superhero movie (let alone Batman movie) in the past decade?

    2. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by jgoemat · · Score: 2, Insightful
      1. BATMAN BEGINS, the best Batman movie in my opinion
      2. THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, another excellent movie, although I didn't like the jerky camera action either, but I understand why it was necessary to hide the poor fight-work
      3. HULK, guess you missed Ebert and Roper giving it two thumbs up
      4. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III, I haven't seen this one. If someone I know owns it I may borrow it, but I'm not going to give Tom Cruise one more dollar to give to Scientology.
      What good movies (other than Army of Darkness) were the losers? Oh, I see at the bottom that "Field of Dreams", "Crash" and "A Christmas Story" are dishonorable mentions...
    3. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Army of Darkness" may be a cult classic, but that does not make it a good movie.

    4. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by DrXym · · Score: 1

      Batman Begins is a great movie, as is the Bourne Supremacy. Can't say I think much of the other two although MI:III was supposed to be a fairly good popcorn flick even if it did contain a diminuitive AC:DC weirdo in its lead role.

    5. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by iainl · · Score: 1

      I flat-out adored three of your list, and even Hulk was passable.

      But this isn't about quality of film, it's quality of transfer, and of the HD discs I've seen of either format, Hulk was probably the best overall; the picture is just jaw-droppingly good, with luminous colour and natural texture.

      Second best I'd place Casablanca, and if you're going to call that shit, you can step outside.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    6. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Mark+Maughan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Batman Begins was arguably the best superhero movie ever.

      Hulk was a Shakespearian, father-son conflict, tragedy shot comic book panel style. The only reason people thought it was awful was because they came wanting to see some piece of shit like Fantastic 4 and instead got a more thoughtful, artistic masterpiece. It was a highbrow movie about lowbrow subject matter.

    7. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The last few years, Ebert and Roeper don't seem to grade what they think about the movie so much but how much the intended audience will enjoy it. At least, this is what Ebert does, don't know Roeper enough to really say.

    8. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Cheetahfeathers · · Score: 1

      The Bourne Supremacy fights were disappointing after watching Bourne Identity. BI had amazingly good fights that used Krav Maga and Escrima/Kali fighting styles to great effect.

    9. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by iainl · · Score: 1

      Sorry you got modded by some idiot as a Troll. Because you're not.

      Personally, I was fairly disappointed by Hulk, because in trying to have its artistic cake and also trying to eat big CG-heavy action sequences, it fell between two stools. I thought most of the second hour could do with a serious trim, people who just wanted to see HULK SMASH!!! would want most of the first hour gone, and ultimately everyone lost. Oh well, at least he tried.

      Mind you, I'm sure that some people would say the same about Batman Begins, and I loved that.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    10. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Scudsucker · · Score: 1

      I think one reason there wasn't more action was because the CGI was ungodly expensive. IIRC Ang Lee said the dogfight scene alone cost $20-$30 mil.

      I also liked how they actually took the time to set up charachters, as opposed to X-Men and Spider-Man which felt edited to the bone. Not one extra second in any scene in those two movies.

    11. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Scudsucker · · Score: 1

      Blade 2 is the best, imo.

    12. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by iainl · · Score: 1

      That's true. It also possibly explains why so many of the big scenes (the dogs and the climax in particular) took place at night, where you can hide the rough bits in the shadows.

      Which is what really annoyed me about the film, I think - bits of it were just so dark I couldn't actually see what was going on any more.

      But yes, having some time for characters really worked with Hulk. Unlike most of the Batman sequels, where they throw so many villains at it that no-one (least of all Bruce Wayne) gets enough character time to give them some depth.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    13. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by schnooka_boy · · Score: 1

      It's not the Blu-Ray's fault most movies in the last year have been miserable.

    14. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by maximthemagnificent · · Score: 1

      Call me crazy, but aren't a lot of these movies terrible because they were high on effects,
      and low on plot/story? Isn't that the kind of movie that benefits most from HD?

      Maxim

    15. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by EvilIdler · · Score: 3, Funny

      Not just trashing it, trashing it on a geek site!

      Batman Begins is back to the darkness, not quite Burton style, but very far from
      Batman & Robin. I'm sure the original poster just got Batman titles confused..
      Give him a notice for the record, and pull his geek license next time it happens.

    16. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Kris_J · · Score: 1
      Batman Begins was arguably the best superhero movie ever.
      If you like tired cliches, unnecessarily brutal violence and a movie that doesn't really get started until half way through maybe. Oh well, at least if it's as popular as you say it should be easy to eBay.
    17. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by clickclickdrone · · Score: 4, Funny
      Hulk was a Shakespearian, father-son conflict
      I tried to get Hulk via P2P to see if it was as bad as everyone said but it turned out to be a renamed porn movie file with some seriously hot action. I was happy.
      --
      I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
    18. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      gonna have to agree here, DEVIL WEARS PRADA best movie, FIFTH ELEMENT the worse??? Ok maybe if you are gay.

    19. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by robbiedo · · Score: 1

      I bought the Xbox 360 and HD-DVD player. The first movie I watched was on a 106" screen and an native 720p projector. Just a wonderful movie and great resolution when blown up this large compared to standard dvd.

    20. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by PingSpike · · Score: 2, Funny

      In the BS fight scenes, as near as I could tell, Matt Damon rolled around on the floor with a RealDoll while the director shook the camera hard enough to give old Star Trek space ship combat scenes are run for their money.

      If Matt Damon was doing something else, I apologize...because I COULDN'T SEE A GOD DAMN THING.

    21. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by drsquare · · Score: 1

      Being the best superhero movie is like being the tallest dwarf at the circus, and imdb is infested with raving fanboys who think the film industry started in 1990.

    22. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by drsquare · · Score: 1

      I don't know if Ebert's opinion counts for anything, he seems to be going senile. Gives pretty much every film four stars no matter how average it is. I don't know anyone who thought Hulk was anything other than awful.

      And it's funny to see Ebert slam a film in the 70s/80s, then come back twenty years later and hail it as a 'Great Movie' when he realises everyone else liked it. The man's a fraud.

    23. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Ucklak · · Score: 3, Funny

      Tell that to the boom stick.

      --
      if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
    24. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by joshetc · · Score: 1, Funny

      IMO he deserves to be modded a troll. Unless I am blind he slammed Fantastic Four, which has Jessica Alba in it, which automatically makes it one of the best movies of all time.

    25. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OK, Batman Begins is admittedly the best batman movie to date and all-in-all a decent movie...(thanks mr patrick bateman)
      The Bourne Supremacy isn't as good as the first one but still a decent movie too...

      But the two other are pure bull crap, and no cinema geek with an ounce of self respect could admit to stand through those...believe me i got most of the early hd release but would rather watch a telesync-level transfer of a good '40 movie than those horrible flicks in pristine studio like quality.

    26. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by JFMulder · · Score: 2, Funny

      This reminds me of an old Penny-Arcade strip.

    27. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is she the new Natalie Portman?

    28. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by falcon5768 · · Score: 1
      I um guess you missed that whole "Batman" portion of the title there. Who DOESNT go to a batman movie and not expect to see brutal violence.... unless your into that whole 60's batman thing.

      That being said, Begins was a lot LESS violent then say the original Burton films where the death count for villans was like a rolling counter in the upper right hand corner.

      --

      "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

    29. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by maxume · · Score: 1

      I didn't like it because the ending was horrible and the effects shots were inconsistent -- the cartoonish hulk was jarring, the non cartoonish hulk was pretty cool.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    30. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hulk was a Shakespearian, father-son conflict I tried to get Hulk via P2P to see if it was as bad as everyone said but it turned out to be a renamed porn movie file with some seriously hot action. I was happy. I hope there was no father-son conflict, Shakespearian or otherwise.
    31. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by nomadic · · Score: 2, Funny

      BATMAN BEGINS (forgive the caps, I'm copy 'n pasting).

      Wouldn't it have taken less time to rewrite "Batman Begins" than it did to write "forgive the caps, I'm copy 'n pasting)?

    32. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just goes to show what a waste CGI can be when green paint would have done better.

    33. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Lord+Apathy · · Score: 1

      It's a new mpaa way to fight piracy. Instead of concentrating on new copy protection and policing the internet they figure they will make movies so horriable that nobody would want to copy them. Guess what, its working.

      --

      Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification

    34. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by heinousjay · · Score: 2, Funny

      Exactly. A real man would be rigid in his opinions for 30 years. Only the weak change their minds.

      --
      Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
    35. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by afedaken · · Score: 1

      Army of Darkness was screwed up? If that's how a bad HD-DVD looks, I can't wait to see some of the good ones. I picked this up since it was a hybrid disc, to use to compare my old setup, and my new setup. Visible differences using the 360 and 720p LCD TV.

      --
      If there's a castle floating upside down in the sky, then there's a castle floating upside down in the sky.
    36. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by CODiNE · · Score: 1

      Batman Begins was arguably the best superhero movie ever.

      Okay, I'll give you that... best EVARRRR, until Ras Al Goul showed up at his house and the plot just went screwy.

      Honestly it feels like they couldn't get the ending figured out so they hacked up a new one and said let's just get it out in time. I especially enjoyed the Batgun cable hanging below the train going through all the platforms.

      --
      Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
    37. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by drsquare · · Score: 1

      A film can't change from being horrible to brilliant. Have you seen him go back after 30 years and slam a film he used to like? He's a two-faced hack.

    38. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by npsimons · · Score: 1
      Batman Begins was arguably the best superhero movie ever.

      Really? That doesn't bode well for other superhero movies then:


      Batman Begins is all about overreaching, trying to turn kid's stuff into
      grown up's stuff. Those dumbasses want to pretend to tell a poignant and
      powerful tale when what they have is a guy who dresses like a bat and
      fights bad guys in bad Mexican wrestling masks all fancied up with
      simplistic psychobabble. Batman is a god damn comic book for kids,
      something with mail order seven-foot ghosts, X-ray goggles, Sea Monkeys
      and 132 Army Men for $1.95. But it has been clung to by legions of
      fucking freaks who would rather drag their childhood obsessions into old
      age than grow up and move on. Try some books with more words and fewer
      pictures.

      Link to my favorite review of "Batman Begins".

      Don't get me wrong, I loved Chris Nolan's "Memento". I've just never been that big a fan of comic books or their movies. And yes, that includes "graphic novels". Stop being so pretentious and just call them what they are: comic books.


      --
      Nathan's blog
    39. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by evilviper · · Score: 1
      Hulk was a Shakespearian, father-son conflict, tragedy shot comic book panel style.

      No, it was a case of someone taking an action movie, and try to pretent it was serious. The end result was to watch everyone walk around for 2 hours, utterly depressed about everyone and everything, for no particular reason. As well as everyone making blindly stupid, and obviously horrible decisions, with no consistency, just to move the plot along.

      It was esentially a really crappy Batman movie, trying to also be something akin to (a really crappy) American Beauty, and failing miserably on all counts.
      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    40. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Gogo0 · · Score: 1

      Your post is so pretentious that it is astounding!
      Couldnt you think of a less-caustic way to tell people that books are better?

      When I was younger I was really into comic books. I also read real books all the time, big thick ones with fancy words and all that. What does it all mean? Its means I liked comic books and I liked regular books. Now I just read regular books. If comic books and movies interest someone, what business is it of yours? Why do you think people will care that you consider books so superior?

    41. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Kris_J · · Score: 1

      Yes, but then I copy 'n pasted a bunch of other titles too -- and I wasn't sure how many I'd be referencing when I started writing the comment.

    42. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Steve001 · · Score: 1

      Mark Maughan wrote:

      Batman Begins was arguably the best superhero movie ever.

      I agree. The movie captured the essence of Batman perfectly, and worked as good foundation for future Batman movies. It also continues the movement of comic movies in a more series direction.

      Hulk was a Shakespearian, father-son conflict, tragedy shot comic book panel style. The only reason people thought it was awful was because they came wanting to see some piece of shit like Fantastic 4 and instead got a more thoughtful, artistic masterpiece. It was a highbrow movie about lowbrow subject matter.

      I think the reason that many people did not like Hulk is that many were expecting much more action than they got. For me, I actually found the personal interactions between the characters the most interesting part of the movie, much more interesting than the "Hulk Out" part of the movie.

      The director (Ang Lee) brought much of emotional feeling of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon to the Hulk and it worked. In a way, the emotionality of the movie reminded me of The Incredible Hulk TV series, with Bruce Banner reflecting the tortured nature of David Banner.

  3. Never overestimate the loser potential of Anoracks by BristolCream · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This list seems to miss one crucial point: people watch movies for entertaiment. For the vast majority it's all about being told a good story, not studying the quality of the latest movig image to be projected onto a wall/into a box/whatever.

    Imagine having a collection that included films like hulk, mission: impossible iii and superman returns (I refuse to capitalise the titles - they're that bad). i'd rather spend the time beatig myself about the head with a dead salmon.

    The majority of films in this list are appalling.

    Which I suppose at least tells us the sort of people that are driving this insane rush to upgrade formats that simply don't need upgrading. If anyone for Sony is reading this, there's a lesson hidden in my title.

  4. You may not believe in this but by El+Lobo · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    superheroe movies/comics are just an expression about crisis times. SH comics and movies went extremely popular during the Great Depression and post WWII times. It's not a surprise that today they are more popular than ever. 9/11 made Americans (and not only americans, may I add) feel like victims . Super hero movies, allow the viewer to identify with a powerful white male defending the status quo from evil-doers. They spend the whole movie trying to prevent a war from happening. And no, that's not comunistic bullshit I'm talking about even if you may think so.

    --
    It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
  5. They all look the same... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They all look the same...when you can't watch them at all.

    Seriously, please don't buy into HD, unless the DRM madness ends. A few extra pixels are not worth our rights, nor the damage to the open source community.

    1. Re:They all look the same... by DrXym · · Score: 1
      Erk, but DVDs have DRM so what other video format are you talking about? VHS? Good luck trying to sell that to people.

      Besides, I fully expect that you'll see a flood of DVD players capable of playing high definition DIVX / AVC content from a burnt DVD before long, with tools and rippers to extract them from the source material.

    2. Re:They all look the same... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The DRM used on HD discs is on a completely different level. If enough people willingly accept it, we may be stuck with it forever, and that will mean running Windows or OSX if you want to watch movies.

      I would also advocate not buying DVDs, but in reality it is not as bad. Since the DRM has been cracked, you can still exercise your rights, wether this is watching them in Linux or backing them up.

    3. Re:They all look the same... by iainl · · Score: 4, Insightful

      VHS only doesn't have DRM because the D stands for Digital, anyway. The Analogue Rights Management of Macrovision is (if anything) worse, because it's actually affecting picture quality, unlike on a DVD or HD-DVD where it's invisible on a working machine.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    4. Re:They all look the same... by DrXym · · Score: 1
      Of course the DRM is on a completely different level. Does that mean it's uncrackable though? The problem faced by all DRM is that the key used for decryption has to be stored somewhere locally and the player still has to output video and audio so people can see / hear it. Which means that no DRM will ever prevent content from being stolen. Somebody will either find a weakly protected key, or produce an HDMI dongle that sits between the player and TV and rips the content on its way through. My understanding is that HDCP has already been cracked so that last option is already feasible if you want to back them up (or pirate them).

      Anyway, as you mention Linux, remember that very few commercial DVD players exist on Linux and it took years for DVD support to arrive. But it's here, in spite of any official support. Who's to say that sooner or later the same won't happen with HD movie content?

    5. Re:They all look the same... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It may or may not be crackable, but I am not one to gamble with our rights. In any case, the current DRM implementation will be considerably more difficult to crack. The keys are kept in hardware, and never leave the chip; this requires a hardware based attack, and few people have the resources to do it. Someone isn't going to simply happen upon the keys like in the past with DVDs. As for HDCP, even if it is cracked, that does not help if you want to watch legally purchased HD movies on Linux. You still need a standalone player, and the resources to deal with an uncompressed HD stream; aside from requiring extra hardware, this is completely unmanageable for most everyone. Why the hell should I care about commercial DVD players on Linux anyways? Aside from the fact that it defeats the purpose of free software, such software will never exist for HD playback. That would require a DRM capable Linux distribution which is fully locked down, and that simply won't happen.

    6. Re:They all look the same... by nih · · Score: 1

      A few extra pixels are not worth our rights Won't somebody think of the children?
      --
      I'm a rabbit startled by the headlights of life :(
    7. Re:They all look the same... by maxume · · Score: 1

      Drm doesn't do anything to your rights. It does something to your rights regarding the piece of plastic it is associated with, but it doesn't actually change your rights. The dmca sort of does, but that's a law, not a crappy encryption scheme.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    8. Re:They all look the same... by fotoflojoe · · Score: 1

      Seriously, please don't buy into HD, unless the DRM madness ends. A few extra pixels are not worth our rights, nor the damage to the open source community.
      If you don't buy into HD, the terrorists have won...

  6. No matter how high the resolution by rolfwind · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Hulk was utterly mediocre. Wouldn't buy it for $4.99, let alone whatever it is high def movies fetch.

    Where are the real classics that I would actually want to see in hi-def?

    1. Re:No matter how high the resolution by Sinryc · · Score: 1

      Waiting to be put out so that the winner is what format they will go on.

      --
      Yay, I have a sig.
    2. Re:No matter how high the resolution by iainl · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'd suggest you start with Casablanca, which is even better than that blurb makes it sound - the amount of texture detail and those deep shadows are just stunning. I can't believe this film looks better than I've seen far more recent movies look when projected from actual 35mm film, when watching on an 8ft screen.

      Next up, and almost as good (the larger grain of the original print being pretty much about it) is The Searchers. Finish off an initial purchase run with Forbidden Planet, and you'll be very happy.

      Blu-Ray has suffered quite a bit, if you ask me, from a studio perception that it's going to be almost entirely for people with PS3s, rather than standalone players. So the movies are being picked to appeal to that sector of the market, and pretty much only that.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  7. Re:Never overestimate the loser potential of Anora by Duds · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Oh I think they know, but it's not hard to find reviews of these movies on an entertainment basis. It's surprisingly difficult to find reviews of "Let's assume you like this movie, here's how pretty this version is".

  8. "High-Def Digest" by Doug+Neal · · Score: 0

    Say it 20 times quickly... bet you can't.

  9. They might be good HD by clickety6 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But most of these aren't good films.

    Sorry, but I'd rather watch a good film with a good plot and good acting on VHS any day over a whizz-bang technical film with crappy pretty-boy/barbie-girl actors and a script written by a committee...

    I'll pass on this one

    --
    ----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
    1. Re:They might be good HD by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sorry, but I'd rather watch a good film with a good plot and good acting on VHS any day over a whizz-bang technical film with crappy pretty-boy/barbie-girl actors and a script written by a committee...

      Spoken like someone without an HDTV.

      When most people first get an HDTV set, they will watch anything in HD, no matter how inane, just for the visual quality. The wow-factor tends to wear off after 6-9 months, but just about everyone with an HDTV set still remembers those first few months where the only thing that mattered was picture quality.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    2. Re:They might be good HD by the_womble · · Score: 3, Funny

      You are clearly an eccentric.

      What has good plot and good acting got to do with making a good film?

      The measure of a good film is how much money is spent on making it: especilly how much is spent on marketing.

    3. Re:They might be good HD by fermion · · Score: 1
      It seems to me that any product will mold itself to the technological capabilities of the time, and a skilled producer will maximize the value of the technology, even if the use is gratuitous.

      That said, many of these films, even though they are trite and in 5 years will seem dated, do appear to make every use of the technological innovation. Since the innovations are largely visual, the improvements are largely visual as well, which leads to the issue that money is spent on fx rather than writing dialog. This is probably similir to when entertainemnt went from radio to film and the dialog was depreciated, see for instance Metropolis. OTOH, it is completely different from when we went to talkies and dialog was the big thing, see Casablanca.

      And these innovations also effect the necessary features of actors. What type of face and body will be needed to fill the screen? Will there be lots of closeup? It delivery important, or will the movie be carried by the body motion? Can we use the lighting excuse to cast most light complexioned people, or do we have the ability to film darker people? Do we need large or small features?

      What is interesting, and what was started by Lucas, is that every movie is essentially becoming a computer generated animated feature. This makes sense because the new formats are perfectly designed for computer generated content, in which the fuzzy featured of real life, automatically averaged out on film, do not appear in animation, but the level of modeling is good enough to deliver significant fidelity. This is different from the similar Spielberg that were, in some sense, much more practical. As LOTR has shown, a combination of the practical and the animated can be very effective, and the digital, though in some ways inferior, provides significant benefits. Another good example of this is the completely practical film, 'Once Upon a Time in Mexico'.

      So, while I agree that many of the films are not interesting to me, i appreciate that they are a product of the times. We can't just sit in 1950 and pretend that everything is perfect.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    4. Re:They might be good HD by GrayCalx · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but I'd rather watch a good film with a good plot and good acting on VHS any day over a whizz-bang technical film with crappy pretty-boy/barbie-girl actors and a script written by a committee...

      The silliness in your elitist comment is that the two are not mutually exclusive. You can get most films on dvd now and if you're saying you'd rather watch a film on vhs than a 480p version on dvd and that over a true HD disc; you're either stuck in the past, or horribly ignorant on the differences between the three.

      Now if you're only commenting on their selection, then all you've done is state what everyone knows. Of course someone would rather watch a good movie than a bad movie... so bravo to you Captain Obvious.

    5. Re:They might be good HD by MikeBabcock · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do you have any idea how much PBS I've watched since having an HDTV for a year now? PBS in HD can be a truly beautiful experience. The stories were always informative I suppose, but from cooking shows to tours of aquariums to scenic vistas in nature or travel shows, HDTV really maximizes what they're trying to do with TV.

      As for regular content, almost every show I watch is in HD these days (scroll to the very bottom for the list). I don't watch many shows just for their being in HD, but going from 1080i back down to 480i on a wide CRT is quite the unappealing adjustment, visually.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
    6. Re:They might be good HD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One word: Godzilla

    7. Re:They might be good HD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And of course the size, quality, and quantity of the boobs shown therein.

  10. How could they screw up 'Fifth Element'? by MisterSquiddy · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It is utterly bewildering that 'Fifth Element' could end up looking so poor. I have the Superbits version on DVD and through an average CRT telly and Toshiba DVD player this looks absolutely fantastic. But then this happened with a lot of early DVDs. The early transfer of 'Blade Runner' is truly shocking, looking little better than those bootleg made by people in cinemas with camcorders. I can't wait for the remastered version, even at SD.

    1. Re:How could they screw up 'Fifth Element'? by PoconoPCDoctor · · Score: 1

      I'm awaiting delivery of my new techie toy - a 50" Vizio HD Plasma tv. I was looking forward to finding some great sci-fi flicks to check it out - I'm off the next week. The Fifth Element is one of my favorite movies - the DVD I played on my old tv set looked pretty good. So the HD version isn't any good?

      Dang it!

      I don't have an HD DVD player anyway, so am limited to watching it on a regular DVD player anyway. I hope the best format wins.

      --
      "Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair" - George Washington
    2. Re:How could they screw up 'Fifth Element'? by Overzeetop · · Score: 1

      Don't worry. A good transfer on DVD on such a "small" screen as 50" will be nearly indistinguishable from HD unless you have a controlled environment, good eyes, and an A-B setup to test. I have a good CRT set which is calibrated (professional alignment, enthusiast calibrated) and the difference between HD broadcasts and DVD is minimal to the point that the recently aired ROTK did not look noticably better in 1080i than in 480p off my DVD. I will admit that the HDMI input has not been calibrated with an HD source, but if you're really expecting a wow with the resolution, you'll need a TV at least half again as big, or be sitting abnormally close to your TV.

      FWIW, I have had a 119" HD front projector, and it does make a difference at that level, but well transferred DVDs still look spectacular to 80-90% of the population.

      --
      Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    3. Re:How could they screw up 'Fifth Element'? by lotsotech · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What CRT are you projecting onto a 119" screen? Maybe they look the same because the picture is so incredibly dim. On a Sony Qualia 004 (which only takes a 1080i input) the difference between Blu-Ray and DVD was very noticable to the people in the room. Standard DVDs look great, but nobody was saying that they looked close.

    4. Re:How could they screw up 'Fifth Element'? by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 1

      It is utterly bewildering that 'Fifth Element' could end up looking so poor.

      Sony basically botched its early releases on BluRay, one of which was "The Fifth Element". Across the board everyone was underwhelmed with the whole lot of first releases. Sony couldn't get anything but MPEG-2 working by release time (that is not true now, but it was true this summer), so they had to encode all the first BluRay discs with MPEG-2 at high bitrates. I've seen MPEG-2 in high definition and it can look great with a high bit rate, but based on the reviews I read, it seems that Sony didn't encode these first releases as well as they could have.

    5. Re:How could they screw up 'Fifth Element'? by Vegeta99 · · Score: 1

      Man, I don't know about your projector, but with my Sanyo 30" 1080i CRT machine, the difference between a DVD and even cable's HD channels is /glorious/.

    6. Re:How could they screw up 'Fifth Element'? by Overzeetop · · Score: 1

      I mentioned that at 119 it did make a difference. FWIW, this was several years ago, and it was a Sony 10HT, 1366x768 LCD panel display with a retroreflective screen. Brightness was not a problem. It mattered there. HD is good on my 51" RP, but having seen both HD and DVD on it, I really don't feel like I'm missing anything at DVD on 90+% of my material.

      I'm curious...what would the reaction be for material like The Sting, or The Dark Crystal, or Amadeus? Sure, there are films out there that certainly will benefit from HD, but many - especially those in back catalogs - just don't until you get a really big image.

      --
      Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
  11. Why High-Def anyway? by Mogster · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I for one have to admit I fail to see the point in HD.

    As a kid I saw movies every chance I could get if they appealed to me. There's nothing like seeing a great movie on the big screen (and in those days they were big, not the piddly little things they have at multiplexes these days).

    Today with the cost of going to the cinema I keep an eye on the up-coming trailers. On the rare occasion I see a movie that appears to have a good story line + good SFX I'll spring for the ticket. If it has good story line but SFX are not major part of the film I'll wait for the DVD.

    Even on the largest wide-screen TV SFX can't match that of the cinema screen. I'd personally prefer a decent audio system giving cinematic quality reproduction. Audio atmospherics enhance the experience to a far greater degree than visual.

    Just my $0.02

    --
    ACK NAK RST
    1. Re:Why High-Def anyway? by fodder69 · · Score: 1


      What if you have a projector and a ten foot wide screen? And a 7.1 audio system?

      Another thing about hd-dvd you might be interested in is the much higher bitrates and better fidelity formats for audio.

      Size does matter.

  12. What happened to movies? by hsa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What happened to movies themselves. I honestly couldn't care less if I get video commentary with my HD movie or not. I watch movies for movies sake. Extras are something I watch if I liked the movie and have extra time to see how it was made. They are worth nothing if the movie sucks.

    The worst movies in list are lacking in extra HD content. So what? Couldn't care less. The winning movies have all sorts of cool extra content, but it still doesn't make the movie good. I will never buy World Trade Centre, even if had best extras and good transfer.

    Video quality and soundtrack are the only things I care about. Please remove the extras and put these in with higher quality.

    1. Re:What happened to movies? by iainl · · Score: 1

      I know it's a completely shit film, but watching a demo of Tokyo Drift projected onto a 8 foot screen by a 1920x1080 projector looked completely stunning; no sign of anything I could possibly criticize the image for at all, nor the audio.

      Given that it was also tricked out to the nines with the kind of ludicrous in-movie bonus features as any disc on the market, there's nothing to worry about on that front; even a 30Gb HD-DVD can happily get 4 hours or so of top quality 1080p video and lossless audio now, and a 50Gb Blu-Ray could obviously go even longer if Sony would only use VC1 like HD-DVD does (it's in the spec, but MPEG-2 is quicker to encode).

      The discs that look rubbish are either early titles, or mastered badly; it's not the extras' fault.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  13. whatever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, So Im posting AC, I cant get the account I want so I don't care.. also, this is targeted not to the people who are discussing films on merit, but rather those that are judging them on quality.

    I ask you this - Have you really sat down, and watched anything in HD (that is - on a superior screen, from the current superior format ?) - If not, then shut the fuck up, I'm a video professional, I watch HD video all day long .. And thus, when I sit down to one of the hundreds of DVD's I own, I cringe because SD video just doesn't cut it anymore.

    HD - 2 Formats, 2 codecs - only one is really worth it.

    Look with your eyes, not your "I am /. I hate M$" preconceptions

    1. Re:whatever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you really were a 'video professional' you'd know that there's NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE AT ALL between BD and HD-DVD in terms of "quality" as they use the same CODECs. The only potential difference is that of BD's larger capacity, which MAY mean higher average bit rates are possible. One thing's for damn sure - 18Mbps MPEG2 is not where BD should be aiming - >20Mbps VC-1 or, especially, H.264 is the way forward.

      And yes, fuck MS, and use H.264 (encoders are better already).

  14. looking for a few good movies by Adult+film+producer · · Score: 1

    Is Cannibal Holocaust or The Dreamers on high-def discs yet? I'd prefer the latter but either might be worth upgrading the television equipment for.

  15. Re:Never overestimate the loser potential of Anora by DrXym · · Score: 1
    The reason the list is decidedly anorak-ish is because those are who the early adopters are. They are technophiles who absolutely must absolutely new gadgets even if it costs 3 times as much to buy 1st gen bugged hardware. While these people have very questionable judgement skills, the likes of Sony, Toshiba etc. still want to attract them to their platform in the hopes that Blu-Ray or HD-DVD will win more converts. Hence the reason for all of the crappy discs released so far.

    Normal people wait for the prices to drop to reasonable levels. I expect players will cost half as much in 6 months. Once HD players enter the mainstream you might even see a broader selection of titles come out.

  16. No Adam Sandler? by antifoidulus · · Score: 2, Funny

    But I heard fart jokes are so much better in HD!

    --
    Monstar L
    1. Re:No Adam Sandler? by clickclickdrone · · Score: 1
      But I heard fart jokes are so much better in HD!
      Sounds like (smells like?) you want Smellyvision.
      --
      I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
  17. Re:Never overestimate the loser potential of Anora by xav_jones · · Score: 1

    A good, comprehensive review site, that includes "how pretty this version is", is http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/ -- at least for Region 4 DVDs.

  18. HD DVD Advert by dimer0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Man, that page sure makes it seem that Blu-Ray sucks ass. I'm not sure what they based their selections off of...

    If you want some better lists to work form, the guys over at avsforum are a much better information source, if you ask me:

    HD DVD Picture Quality Tiers List

    Blu-Ray Picture Quality Tiers List

    1. Re:HD DVD Advert by Danga · · Score: 1

      Man, that page sure makes it seem that Blu-Ray sucks ass.

      Blu-ray does suck ass and will die. It is more restrictive, has more DRM, requires java virtual machines to be implemented on all players (ugggh), requires the current DVD manufacturing plants to do serious upgrades because the surface layer is much thinner and also requires a special hard coating to be applied, and in turn is more expensive. Sure, it can theoretically hold more data but I think that will really only make a big difference for people who want to use blank discs to store data on them. Also, Sony doesn't have a very good record as far as having the public pick their formats.

      Read more here:

      http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1982533,00.as p
      and
      http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/19/blu-ray-vs-hd-d vd-state-of-the-s-union-s-division/

      --
      Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
    2. Re:HD DVD Advert by kalidasa · · Score: 1

      There was one format that Sony pioneered with one other company, Phillips, that was relatively successful. You may even have heard of it: the Audio Compact Disk, or CD. Sure, Phillips did most of the technical work (PDF) on it, but Sony was there from the start.

    3. Re:HD DVD Advert by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That would likely be because Blu-ray does suck ass. Blu-ray discs only hold 20GB compared to HD-DVDs 30GB.

      Yes, theoretically, Blu-ray discs can have more layers added to increase their storage capacity. However, those discs can't actually be made yet. So Blu-ray effectively has 20GB while HD-DVD has 30GB.

      Plus the links you gave have absolutely nothing to do with Blu-ray compared to HD-DVD. They compare quality within the format, not across formats. HD-DVD is simply the superior format.

    4. Re:HD DVD Advert by Danga · · Score: 1

      I said they had a horrible track record with thier formats, not that absolutely none were ever successful. I knew someone would bring up the CD, but like you said they didn't develop it themselves and it was not propietary like all of their other COMPLETE FAILURES. Just a few of their world class failures that I can remember off the top of my head are:

      Betamax, ATRAC, ATRAC3 (knocked out by MP3), MemoryStick, MiniDisc, Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (knocked out by DTS), MultiMedia Compact Disc, SACD (also jointly developed by Phillips), and the recently killed UMD. I think Blu-Ray is the next one to be added to the failure list.

      While they were involved in one hugely successful format, the CD, I think one big reason it won out was because it was not proprietary. As I just showed you and originally stated their track record with the public adopting their formats is horrible. Prove me wrong.

      I also don't like them because of their shady business practices so I don't want to support them at all. Here are a few examples that may interest you:

      Have you heard of the Sony Rootkit? How about the bullshit lawsuits against Lik-Sang or Bleem? How about their viral marketing campaign "All I want for Xmas is a PSP"? How about the fictitious movie reviewer they created called David Manning who always gave glowing reviews for Sony subsidiary Columbia Pictures, while real critics gave the same movies extremely poor reviews?

      --
      Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
    5. Re:HD DVD Advert by Troed · · Score: 1

      (The amount of misinformation regarding Blu-ray on Slashdot has reached levels where I strongly believe at least parts of it must be paid Microsoft astroturfing. Microsoft, scared of the fact that Blu-ray in the living room means Java in the living room which is a huge problem for the only future Microsoft has - .NET)

      Anyway. Blu-ray holds 25Gb per side, and dual layer discs have been made for a while now. That's 50Gb.

      HD DVD dual layer is 30Gb.

      --
      it's in my head
    6. Re:HD DVD Advert by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, I know - technically, a dual-layer Blu-ray disc can hold 50GB.

      Too bad they DON'T EXIST YET.

      So, again, HD-DVD: 30GB. Blu-ray: 25GB.

      Gee, imagine that, picture quality on HD-DVD is superior. (It also helps that HD-DVD supports superior codecs while Blu-ray is stuck using the same crappy DVD codec.)

    7. Re:HD DVD Advert by Troed · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry if my previous post was unclear. Everything released today, and since several months, is on dual layer Blu-ray.

      (... and, since those same several months, movies released on Blu-ray also use the VC-1 codec)

      The question is - why do you keep posting when you clearly don't know what you're talking about?

      --
      it's in my head
    8. Re:HD DVD Advert by kalidasa · · Score: 1

      Have you heard of the Sony Rootkit? How about the bullshit lawsuits against Lik-Sang or Bleem? How about their viral marketing campaign "All I want for Xmas is a PSP"? How about the fictitious movie reviewer they created called David Manning who always gave glowing reviews for Sony subsidiary Columbia Pictures, while real critics gave the same movies extremely poor reviews?

      Well, this is a tad overwrought. Don't you think that it would be a better argument for you to prove that Toshiba has a long track record of creating successful industry standards?

  19. Too many knockers on here. by EL+Malloc · · Score: 1

    I have the Toshiba HD-DVD A1 (from day 1), and I have it in a "properly setup" environment. Dolby True HD (lossless audio) and Dolby DD+ (slightly lossy audio) are as big a jump in audio as 480p to 1080i is for video. It's too bad there's a format war right now, but with HDMI video and Dolby True HD - it's definitely worth the money. Now I can see som earguing the price of the HD-DVDs, I am with you there, it does hurt to pay $30 for a movie. I've seen them bundle both the DVD and HD-DVD versions for a whopping $43...why? Just saying most of the posts here seem to be knocking HD-DVD, but with the audio/video quality it provides - and there are a handful of good HD-DVDs out, I'm with it.

    1. Re:Too many knockers on here. by danpsmith · · Score: 1
      Just saying most of the posts here seem to be knocking HD-DVD, but with the audio/video quality it provides - and there are a handful of good HD-DVDs out, I'm with it.

      There's a lot of knockers on here because hollywood and its respective industries spend too much time developing better visual and audio reproduction technologies when they make no more movies worth reproducing. You show me the most crystal clear version of some comic book knockoff/video game knockoff/remake and I'll show you one guy that isn't interested, whether I can see clearly enough into Vinn Diesel's nose that I can see the boogers hanging in his nostrils or not.

      The original King Kong was filmed in black and white with claymation and such. Don't you think if the writers of that original script had the technology we have today, they would be able to do something better than it than make explosions and effects take over acting and a decent script? This generation of script writers needs to be beaten over the head with a blu-ray player until they can figure out something worth writing.

      --
      Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
    2. Re:Too many knockers on here. by iainl · · Score: 1

      It feels like a big difference to you when the DVD version gets heavily discounted (due to volume numbers) in Walmart and Best-Buy.

      Ordering these things for import to the UK, I found I can get the "overpriced" dual-format discs for only £2 to £3 more than the 2-disc standard-def releases. As I've not been able to find an HD-DVD player yet, these are great.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  20. Waiting for winner. by s31523 · · Score: 1

    " Not a bad cheat sheet for those of us with a Blu-ray capable PS3 or an XBox 360 HD DVD"

    Or those who might have burning hardware in their PCs... In my search of DVD burning/authoring software I found software by RocketDivision called Grab & Burn which claims it can, "Duplicate CD/DVD/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD media in 1:1 mode", and, "supports all types of optical storage media (including CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, BD-R/RE, HD-DVD-R/RW and DVD-RAM) as well as a wide variety of burning hardware", and best of all, "Grab&Burn is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/Longhorn and various Linux distributions ."

    Now, I have no idea how the DRM business would impact any plans of copying a LEGAL copy to my hard disc, but this software looks worth a look.

    1. Re:Waiting for winner. by b.burl · · Score: 1

      I highly doubt their proggie is designed to defeat the next generation drm in anyway. I think we'll be waiting a long time before "Hdvdecryper" comes out (if ever).

  21. What I want santa to bring me by edittard · · Score: 0

    Can we have a section just for these lists? Because ... er, I totally like them so much I want to be able to find them among all the boring real news.

    --
    At the bottom of the /. main page it says 'Yesterday's News'. Well they got that right.
  22. Guilty! by LibertineR · · Score: 1

    Dude, when I got my first HD set, I started watching PBS because they had these incredible wildlife and wilderness images on their HD channel. PB-fucking-S! I hate those wankers, but I could not get over the picture quality. If not for DirecTV-HD (who is just now shipping their HD-DVR) I would still be watching cheetahs drag racing antelope over desert tundra.

  23. Bah- people will buy because of the JVM by acomj · · Score: 1

    Bewjewled on your 50 inch plasma!..

    Heh it might help get the spose on board for Blu-Ray

    I'm still not buying anything till I can rip to my notebook.

    -A

  24. What? No Serenity? WTF? by RiffRafff · · Score: 1

    Not even a mention of Universal's very first HD offering, "Serenity?" What's up with that?

    --
    "I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
  25. The Network Stars know this already by speedlaw · · Score: 1

    What is the surprise ? HD shows all, flaws and benefits. The rush to plastic surgeons by the news media should have been a clue to the studios that putting the film in a player, running the transfer camera and going to lunch would no longer cut it. Since the new screens don't allow the blur and color shift we are all used to, and which hides a lot of errors, the studios will have to spend some money on transfers. Now, since they can't take that from an artist's "cut", they will try to cheap out, but they can't. The worst DVD I ever saw was a 1st gen transfer of 2010-even on SD they got a lot better. Give it time...this is still all in beta rollout. And, no Mr. Content Provider, I'm not buying either system till there is a "winner".

  26. Missing the point by denebian+devil · · Score: 1

    All nonsensical rantings and ravings about Batman Begins aside, you seem to have missed the point. If you read the descriptions in TFA, you would note that very rarely did the article talk about whether the movie itself was good (with the possible exception of his reference to Army of Darkness as a cult flick). The article was specifically rating the DVDs on the HD advantages they provided: better sound and video quality, extras that utilize HD-only features, etc. Things like storyline, plot, dialog, etc. were never an issue for the reviewer. So it was entirely possible for a "bad" movie to be a "good" HD movie, or vice versa, based on the reviewer's rubric.

    And I really hope you were confusing Batman Begins with one of the other movies, because if not, that just kills any slashdot-based geek cred you may have.

  27. PAL TV System handles film much better by readerr0 · · Score: 0

    The PAL TV System actually does a much better job at handling interlaced and progressive content than NTSC. This is because PAL is 25FPS. So when 24FPS films, HD Shows and such are transferred to PAL, the film is sped up by 3% to 25FPS. While it may sound like a bad thing, it means the full progressive image is preserved when transmitted over ANY PAL system, interlaced or progressive. This means that basicly all non-live footage seen on HD PAL 1080i Channels is actually 1080p. The same goes for 576i (which is much better than NTSC's 480i, but thats another story). So the push for 1080p is even more useless in PAL countries.

    1. Re:PAL TV System handles film much better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      he film is sped up by 3% to 25FPS. While it may sound like a bad thing

      It is a bad thing because all the music sounds like shit to anyone who has an ear for that sort of thing.

  28. HD had better be more than just Cinerama. by dpbsmith · · Score: 2, Informative

    For you youngsters here: Cinerama was to 35mm movies as HD is to NTSC. It used three synchronized projectors on a deeply-curved screen subtending a 146-degree arc. Everyone who has ever seen it was bowled over by it. It is still shown on rare occasions when fans arrange it. It is universally acknowledged to be better than the later wide-screen processes such as CinemaScope, VistaVision, etc. all of which were pretty much acknowledged to be ways to get something sorta-kinda-not-quite-almost like Cinerama, but on the cheap. Many who have had an opportunity to compare it with present-day IMAX have judged it to be superior, too, although that's trickier. IMAX suffers by having too much height and not enough width; when presented on a flat screen, it's flat, and when presented on a dome screen, it's hopeless washed out by cross-reflection (unlike Cinerama, which was always pitch-black in the shadows). Of course CInerama had those awful panel joints... but I digress. Here's the point:

    Cinerama was never more than a footnote, because it was only suited to spectacle, not to storytelling. Only two Cinerama features were made with a conventional storyline: "How the West was Won," and "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm." The rest were pastiches of spectacle: travelogues, ride-film-like experiences, and so forth.

    It bodes very ill for high-definition that most of the "best" films are special-effects sci-fi extravaganzas.

    I'm glad to see they have Casablanca on their list, but it's not clear that they're saying the actual experience of watching the movie is any better than on DVD. They seems to like the many extras bundled in. Is Rick more world-weary in high-definition? Is Ilsa lovelier? Do the heartrending scenes rend your heart any more? I haven't seen it... but I doubt it.

    I like seeing superheros hurtle through space and things blow up as much as the next guy, but these are not enough to carry an expensive video format.

    How, exactly, is high-definition going to help directors evoke emotion and tell a story?

    --

    "How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!

    1. Re:HD had better be more than just Cinerama. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is Rick more world-weary in high-definition? Is Ilsa lovelier? Do the heartrending scenes rend your heart any more? I haven't seen it... but I doubt it.

      I doubt it too. After all, HD will never be more 'high-def' than the original film footage.

    2. Re:HD had better be more than just Cinerama. by iainl · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Bogart's performance doesn't change, but Casablanca is stunning on HD-DVD because it looks so much more like film; the detail of the lighting, set design and indeed subtle details of the performances show up with a stunning clarity that does the film justice.

      And yes, the way the light catches Ilsa's hair is pretty damn lovely, since you ask.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    3. Re:HD had better be more than just Cinerama. by GrayCalx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You sir are confusing content with delivery method.

    4. Re:HD had better be more than just Cinerama. by geekzapoppin · · Score: 0

      I was lucky enough to see HTWWW twice in Cinerama and you're right that it was a better experience than any film process I've seen since.

      When it comes to the question of whether or not HD makes the movie better than DVD as far as emotional response, my answer is: sometimes. Higher resolution means that more detail is perceptible in the picture. Now with a film like VAN WILDER, having the actors performing directly in front of you wouldn't make a difference, but with a film like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, the viewer becomes even more aware of the genius of the film and is drawn in to the film in a way that can only be bested by seeing it from a pristine print in a theater. I look at HD video like I look at CG animation. It's a tool that can be put to great use but isn't an end unto itself.

    5. Re:HD had better be more than just Cinerama. by b.burl · · Score: 1

      Thanks, that was quite interesting.

      The whole HD thing is over rated. It's kinda like having the deluxe hardcover special edition of a really good (or bad) book. Sure, its nice for a little while, but before long your attention gets pulled into the story, the characters, etc and what kind of paper or what the font is just dosen't matter. Unless its It's crap. Then your attention is on everything but the story. the same applies to movies, imho.

      Although, like IMAX, some docs are waaaay better on a huge screen with unbelieveable resolution.

    6. Re:HD had better be more than just Cinerama. by dirkin · · Score: 1

      Bah Cinerama. If you want to get into a format pissing war. SHOWSCAN was it. glorious 70mm print, at 60 frames per second. Want to talk about stunning? Dude who designed showscan sat down and figured out how much information it takes to saturate the optic nerve. showscan looks so real it seems almost 3D. Virtually no flicker, perfect motion smoothness, and detail to spare (think HD times 10).

      As for what HD does for directors stories? it creates a more immersive environment. SD shows nothing. All those little details in the sets, nuances of movement, realism in makeup, etc are lost in SD. go to a theatre, watch a good print. Then watch it projected in the same theatre in SD. Tell me the experiences are anywhere near the same, and you sir, need a pair of glasses. HD works better for viewing because it is closer to the director's ideal - a good 35mm print.

      Cheers,
      -ben

      --
      Some people are only alive because it's illegal to kill them.
  29. Classics like Cassablanca, Searchers, Robin Hood? by Fezmid · · Score: 1

    I see people bashing the title selections, but there are a lot of very good movies available that havn't been made in the last ten years (none on Blu-Ray yet, only HD-DVD). I'm not sure everyone actually knows about these.

    Searchers (Wayne):
    http://www.amazon.com/The-Searchers-HD-DVD/dp/B000 HEVZ8K/sr=11-1/qid=1166798118/ref=sr_11_1/102-7175 168-2871323

    Casablanca:
    http://www.amazon.com/Casablanca-HD-DVD/dp/B000I0R R7Q/sr=11-1/qid=1166798133/ref=sr_11_1/102-7175168 -2871323

    Robin Hood (classic):
    http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Robin-Hood-HD-DVD /dp/B000I0RR76/sr=1-1/qid=1166798143/ref=pd_bbs_sr _1/102-7175168-2871323?ie=UTF8&s=dvd

    And to a lesser extent, the original Willy Wonka:
    http://www.amazon.com/Willy-Wonka-Chocolate-Factor y-HD-DVD/dp/B000IXZ7M0/sr=11-1/qid=1166798273/ref= sr_11_1/102-7175168-2871323

    So let's not jump to conclusions that the only movies available on the new formats suck. There are plenty of great movies available for HD-DVD.

  30. Re:What? No Serenity? WTF? by iainl · · Score: 1

    Serenity is a great movie, but the US release doesn't offer video quite as good as some of the titles on that list.

    It had to have a new encode for Europe, to make room for a couple of extra languages, and the updated VC-1 encoder means it's actually slightly better over here, apparently.

    So buy it because you like the film by all means, but I think they're right to leave it off the list of best transfers.

    --
    "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  31. Will theaters ever change? by 9Nails · · Score: 1

    With "digital film" and digital projectors in the theater, will interlacing, deinterlacing and progressive scan become words that we used in the past? (Like UHF or B&W)

    I long for the day when I can just buy a TV Set and not have to consider these technical arguments inside my head.

  32. Good films by Fezmid · · Score: 1

    I put this reply in a different thread, but I think it belongs here as well. There ARE good films out there. Here's a few:

    Searchers (Wayne):
    http://www.amazon.com/The-Searchers-HD-DVD/dp/B000 HEVZ8K/sr=11-1/qid=1166798118/ref=sr_11_1/102-7175 168-2871323

    Casablanca:
    http://www.amazon.com/Casablanca-HD-DVD/dp/B000I0R R7Q/sr=11-1/qid=1166798133/ref=sr_11_1/102-7175168 -2871323

    Robin Hood (classic):
    http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Robin-Hood-HD-DVD /dp/B000I0RR76/sr=1-1/qid=1166798143/ref=pd_bbs_sr _1/102-7175168-2871323?ie=UTF8&s=dvd

    And to a lesser extent, the original Willy Wonka:
    http://www.amazon.com/Willy-Wonka-Chocolate-Factor y-HD-DVD/dp/B000IXZ7M0/sr=11-1/qid=1166798273/ref= sr_11_1/102-7175168-2871323

  33. odd list by Dzimas · · Score: 1

    I read over the HD DVD list, and noticed something quite odd. One of their criteria for 'Tier 1' is that the film features "many examples of 3D." They're using '3D' to refer to CG special effects. This is only a useful way to judge and categorize films if you're looking for action-filled sequences to show off your new HD system to friends.

    1. Re:odd list by hansamurai · · Score: 1

      3D is not necessarily CG. In the Blu-ray article it is described as:

      "3D as I refer to it here, are examples where an item is so detailed and sharp that it jumps off the screen. The opening pull-out of Marcus' eye in Underworld: Evolution is a good example."

      and in the HD-DVD article is described as:

      "3D as I refer to it here, are examples where an item is so detailed and sharp that it jumps off the screen. The shot of Crematoria in Riddick is a prime example."

      Sure, there may be CG in these shots but they need not be action sequences.

      --
      Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
  34. Re:Best Shakespearian Superhero by b.burl · · Score: 1

    best superhero movie--kinda like the sweetest tasting trash? Hulk--shakespeare...ohh my gut hurts!

    Interesting tidbit...my cgi friend at ILM said the director filmed actual dog fights in mexico etc, and made the animators sit through the hours of footage. And he kept saying, "no more real more violent." And he would replay the most god awful video over and over again. It was quite upsetting for the more sensitive/dog loving artists. And thats the reason I refuse to sit through that abomination.

    All this money & tech & artistic talent to create a story about a green man and fighting dogs. It's a strange world.

  35. True but... by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    It's true that there's no real visual difference between 1080i and 1080p - on a 1080p display at 1920 × 1080...

    However I've found generally that a 1080p display will usually offer the full HD resolution, while there are many displays that accept a 1080i signal but the actual resolution is somewhat lower. Thus looking for a 1080P display can be good from a resolution standpoint.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  36. There ARE movies that need/use HD... just not many by dpbsmith · · Score: 1

    I saw 2001 on its first run. I'm not sure what the exact process used was. I think the credits read "Cinerama" but it was in a theatre named "Todd-AO." In any case, it was a single strip of 70mm film. They handed out little leaflets in which Arthur C. Clarke used several paragraphs explaining that the scene in which the astronauts survive the short trip through vacuum was possible.

    I loved it. It blew me away. I thought it was a great film. In many scenes, you had some huge spacecraft moving slowly past you, but because there was so much detail it took that long to absorb it. And of course the "light show" sequence at the end was stunning.

    Subsequently, I've seen it in ordinary movie theatres (anamorphic 35mm). It was awful. Slow and boring. You couldn't read any of the hundreds of little legends on the spacecraft controls, they were all slightly blurred. On television, it was even worse. My kids think it's a pointless, unwatchable film. I tell them, "yeah, but you haven't really _seen_ it." And they don't believe me when I say the format made a difference.

    So, yes, I agree completely. 2001 is a perfect example of a movie that needed, used, and worked as a movie in a huge, detailed format. Watching it on a TV set is like trying to appreciate a symphony from an Edison cylinder recording.

    But that's my point. Just how many 2001's are there?

    If there were enough movies that truly needed high-definition to make HD successful, then why aren't there full-length feature movies being made and exhibited now in IMAX? I don't mean clever enhanced blowups of regular films into IMAX, I mean movies like 2001 or, I dunno, Ryan's Daughter or Lawrence of Arabia? Movies which need high definition in order to work cinematically?

    There were never enough to keep Cinerama afloat. Indeed, there don't seem to have ever been enough to keep Hollywood providing 70 mm prints to the (decreasing) number of theatres that have 70 mm projectors.

    --

    "How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!

  37. Re:THE BOURNE SUPREMACY by thewils · · Score: 1

    If you were lucky enough not to have read the books, the movie was probably a pretty good ride. For those unfortunate sods who read a ripping (and I use that term in the old sense) book, similarities between the two stopped after the "THE" in the movie title.

    --
    Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
  38. lossless audio...riiiiight! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dolby True HD (lossless audio) Is it an analog signal? No? Then it's not lossless.
  39. Re:I know this'll burn karma (BAD MODS-NO COOKIE!) by evilviper · · Score: 0, Troll
    There is basically no difference between transmitting in 1080i vs 1080p when viewing content at or below 30 frames/second.

    That is just utterly wrong. No matter what the framerate, with an interlaced display you have artifacts like spacial and temporal aliasing, twitter, etc.

    With 24fps material on a 60fps interlaced display, you have to put up with things like judder as well, which can look really terrible in panning scenes.

    When talking about high def tv's, you're mostly talking about progressive displays

    The vast majority of HDTVs are interlaced. Plasmas, LCD, etc., are in the minority.

    Direct-view and projection CRTs are still the standard, because of the higher resolution, response-time, contrast, and price.

    1080i sends half the image on cycle 1 and half the image on cycle 2, your tv deinterlaces the image fields and shows you a progressive image for 2 frames. 1080p on the other hand sends the whole image on cycle 1, and nothing on cycle 2, and shows the progressive image for 2 frames as well.

    This shows a complete and utter lack of understand of any relevant video concepts.

    Film is converted to interlaced with 3:2 pulldown (aka telecine), and you need significant processing power to reverse it (IVTC) to return it to the original progressive image. Even with unlimited processing power, there has never been an IVTC process divised which does a perfect job. You will always get some artifacts. Plus, I'm willing to bet that the under-powered processors in most HDTVs aren't good enough to even keep those to a minimum.
    .

    For some reason though, ignorant idiots like yourself (Toshiba shills, perhaps?) repeatedly spout-off on stuff like this whenever HDTV comes up on slashdot, and manage to trick some unsuspecting mods into giving them points for their misinformation.

    Perhaps now you can jump to the next one, and say that people can't possibly see any improvement of HDTV over standard definition, or that the DRM on HD-DVD/Blu-ray is so much worse than CSS on DVDs...
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  40. Re:Never overestimate the loser potential of Anora by Gogo0 · · Score: 1

    www.dvdbeaver.com is my favorite site for side-by-side dvd release comparisons.

  41. Summary by heli0 · · Score: 1

    Best
    HD-DVD: 6
    Blu-Ray: 1
    Both: 3

    Worst
    HD-DVD: 1
    Blu-Ray: 3
    Both: 1

    It appears that most in the 'Best' category use VC-1 while most in the 'Worst' category use MPEG-2.

    --
    Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
  42. Re:Best Shakespearian Superhero by MechaStreisand · · Score: 1

    "no more real more violent"? What the hell does that mean?

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  43. Waiting for starwars of course by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So George Lucas can rape my childhood at 1080p.

  44. Showscan by dpbsmith · · Score: 1

    I would love to see or have seen Showscan. I remember how exciting it was to show our 8 mm home movies at 54 fps. In the days before flat-panel screens I was always the guy who insisted on goosing up everyone's display settings from default 60 fps to 75 or 90.

    Temporal resolution is as important as spatial resolution, and if I recall correctly Edison or Dickson actually said in so in essence that chose 16 fps for economic reasons--it was the slowest frame rate that was tolerable. 24 fps is way too slow. Even the difference between 24 fps and Todd-AO's 30 fps was meaningful.

    I remember the first time I saw jugglers live, and realized how exciting it was, and how much is lost in juggling--and doubtless dance and athletic events--by the coarse temporal resolution of movies and television.

    Showscan sounds as if it must be yummy. I'd love to see it. I have no doubt that the rollercoaster sequence of "This Is Cinerama" would be even more exciting in Showscan.

    But as far as I know, very, very, very few movies were ever produced in it, and it wasn't or isn't successful enough for them to have shown up even in a major city like Boston.

    And IMHO it has the same problem HD has and Cinerama had: it only adds value to a limited range of subject matter, which is not the storytelling mainstream of cinema.

    (Parenthetically: I wonder whether the electronics for HDTV would lend themselves to being used at half the resolution and double the frame rate?)

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