Blu-ray

Sickness and parasites

I’ve just seen The Fly.

The 1986 David Cronenberg version.

In high definition.

Yuck.

PS. Just in case anyone’s wondering, I liked it. I wouldn’t put it at the top of Cronenberg’s filmography, but I enjoyed it more than Shivers, Spider and A History of Violence, about as much as Dead Ringers and Eastern Promises, and not as much as Naked Lunch, Crash and eXistenZ.

Choice = good, waxy faces = not

I’d just like to take a minute to commend TF1 Vidéo for the subtitling options they have provided for their Blu-ray (and presumably HD DVD as well, but I bought the Blu-ray version) release of La Môme (released outside France as La Vie en Rose). Not only is it that rare beast, a French disc which caters to English speakers, it also includes two different variants of subtitle for both English and French.

The first is what the menu describes as “pour lecture sur écrans plats” (for reading on flat screens), which positions the subtitles at the bottom of the screen, overlapping on to the letterboxing. Some people like this, but I don’t, as it means my eye is drawn to the letterboxing rather than the image itself. It is also a pain in the neck for those with projection displays who routinely mask the letterboxing for 2.35/9:1 ratio discs. Unfortunately, the majority of Blu-ray and HD DVDs that I have seen deliver their subtitles in this fashion.

Luckily, TF1 has supplied a second subtitle stream, “pour lecture en vidéoprojection”, which places the subtitles (smaller than the “flat screen” ones) within the picture frame itself. This looks much more natural and avoids any masking problems, and I really wish more studios would provide this sort of choice for the consumer.

As for the transfer itself, it’s largely pleasing (an AVC encode from a digital intermediate source), but unfortunately seems to be have been subjected to the same sort of noise reduction that also affected the UK release of Pan’s Labyrinth to some degree (and the US release to a much greater degree). While the detail remains largely intact, textures, particularly the actors’ skin, tend to take on a rather waxy appearance, and sequences shot in low lighting conditions (i.e. ones that would normally appear grainier) suffer more noticeably than those taking place in broad daylight. It’s not horrible, but it’s really not the sort of thing I like to see on my HD discs (although I’m coming more and more to expect this sort of digital manipulation, sadly).

The disc, by the way, arrived last Saturday, but, in my lazy fatigue, I forgot to post about it. (I ended up sleeping for thirteen straight hours that night, so you can perhaps forgive the oversight!)

Early warnings from Warner

Source: High-Def Digest

Warner has announced some of the high profile titles forthcoming coming to Blu-ray (and DVD) over the course of the next year (covering the rest of 2008 and early 2009). These include, in Q2 2008, a Dirty Harry Ultimate Collection, a Batman Anthology in Q3, and, looking further ahead, Gone with the Wind, North by Northwest and The Wizard of Oz in 2009. You can certainly pencil me in for a copy of North by Northwest, which has been one of my most anticipated titles for high definition treatment since the possibility was initially raised at Warner’s Home Theater Forum chat in February 2007.

Obviously, don’t expect to see any of these titles on HD DVD, given that Warner is cutting its ties with the format at the end of May… although Batman Begins did see a (decidedly sub-par) HD DVD release back in 2006.

Hello, it’s me, I’m back from the sea

Well, not literally, because I wasn’t anywhere near the sea. But it is indeed me, and I am indeed back. As I mentioned previously, I was away at my gran’s funeral, which was held down in Warwick, meaning that we had to head down a day early and come back a day late. I’m not sure what I can really say about it (“I’d give this funeral a 6/10” doesn’t sound quite right), except that the cremation was set to a piece of music by Ennio Morricone, chosen by my aunt. Unfortunately, it wasn’t anything daring like the opening title theme to Four Flies on Grey Velvet, which would have been an eye-opener indeed (although I do think Come un Madrigale could have worked), but rather a piece from one of his Hollywood projects, The Mission.

Anyway, over the last three days, I’ve spent about twenty hours sitting in the back of a car, so I’m understandably not feeling entirely loquacious at the moment. Just a quick note to say that the French HD DVD release of Asterix and the Vikings and the US Blu-ray release of Volver were waiting for me when I got back this evening, so I’ll be discussing them in due course. Hopefully tomorrow, but I’ve had very little sleep over the last couple of nights, due to a variety of factors, so I’ll be hitting the hay before too long. I need to be up at 6:30 for work anyway.

PS. Thanks for all the well-wishing, people. For those who asked, no, this was not exactly an unexpected death. My gran had Dementia and had been going south for a long time. She more or less spent the last month of her life unconscious, and I think most of us would have agreed that it was better for her to go now than to hang on in there without any real quality of life.

DVDs I bought or received in the month of January

• 28 Weeks Later (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Cat People (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• Eastern Promises (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• Factory Girl (R2 UK, DVD)
• Little Children (R2 UK, DVD)
• Munich (R2 UK, DVD)
• Pan’s Labyrinth (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• The Plague Dogs (R2 UK, DVD)
• The Simpsons Movie (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Y Tu Mamá También (R2 UK, DVD)
   

What’s so bad about a little ADHD?

Perhaps I’ve been a bit hard on Michael Bay. Armageddon and Pearl Harbor may be awful excuses for films, and my brother doesn’t have a single kind word to say about Bad Boys 2, but everything else that I’ve seen from him has entertained me to some degree. The Rock is undoubtedly his best work, and Transformers, while far too long and filled with bad attempts at humour and tedious robot fights, is actually quite fun at times.

I’ve now seen the UK HD DVD release The Island, his solitary box office flop, and I have to say that I did like it, despite it being little more than a poorly disguised knock-off of Logan’s Run (hardly the best film to use as your source material in the first place). Like all of his films, it demonstrates the aesthetic sensibilities and world view of a teenager, but I’m going to buck the trend and say that I don’t think Bay is a completely incompetent filmmaker. True, he may overuse fast cutting and shakycam to an obnoxious degree, but he certainly knows how to shoot and stage a chase scene, which The Island has in abundance, and he seems to have a knack for getting nicely lit tight close-ups of the Beautiful People™ (and the not so beautiful). I can’t defend it as a great work of art or even anything particularly thought-provoking (although I’m sure you could make a case for it being Bay’s anti-stem cell research film if you put your mind to it - hey, he is a Bush supporter, after all), but I had fun, which, when all said and done, about all you can really ask from a summer blockbuster.

The HD DVD transfer (not doubt the same as what is to be found on the Blu-ray release), by the way, is pretty nice, albeit with some caveats. The look of the film is very similar to that of Transformers, but, unlike that particular HD DVD, someone was let loose with the filters of nastiness. There is a light sheen of edge enhancement at all times, particularly noticeable in wide shots and in Bay’s trademark “posing in front of the sun” money shots, not to mention some light compression artefacts in some of the more action-intensive shots - a by-product, I suspect, of capping the bit rate to ensure that it would fit on a single layer BD-25. Still, a good presentation all in all, with a solid audio mix. I’d consider picking up a copy if I found it in a sale somewhere.

The Island
(Warner, UK, VC-1, 20.6 GB)

Hangin’ on in there

Source: High-Def Digest

Universal has once again reiterated its commitment to HD DVD, claiming that it has no plans either to abandon the format or make any changes to its current strategy. This statement is not altogether surprising, and should probably be taken with a pinch of salt given that, a little as three weeks before its surprise switch to Blu-ray exclusivity, Warner was still claiming that it had no plans to alter its stance of neutrality. Still, regardless of how you feel about the situation (I’m of two minds about it, personally), it does at least sound as if we can expect to see plenty of new material from Universal in the near future, rather than them crawling into a hole and hiding till it’s all over.

Not so import proof after all

Remember the post I made last week where I said that Germany HD DVD publisher Senator Home Entertainment was going Blu-ray exclusive? Well, guess what: they’re not. That’s right, it was all a load of hooey.

Apparently, Cinefacts, who first reported the false story, got the “news” direct from the Blu-ray Disc Association (the BDA), but have now retracted the announcement. So, once again, the BDA have been caught lying. Well I never! Unfortunately, whoever said that cheaters never prosper clearly never bore witness to a format war.

This is hardly going to save HD DVD, but it does mean that we should be able to get region free HD releases of the likes of Death Proof and Planet Terror.

The DVNR bandits strike again

The other day, I ordered a copy of the soon-to-be-OOP US HD DVD release of Pan’s Labyrinth from New Line. I did this fully aware of the controversy surrounding the noise reduction that had been applied to the transfer, sucking out much of the grain and fine detail. My reasoning behind this was that the UK release, which I reviewed late last year, also showed signs of noise reduction, so I figured that both would feature the same decent but flawed transfer, with the US release having the added benefits of lossless 7.1 audio, picture-in-picture and other additional extras.

Unfortunately, it looks as if I was wrong. Screen captures have surfaced at the AV Science Forum showing, in their full 1920x1080 resolution, the same frame from both releases (as well as the French HD DVD and EU H.264 broadcast versions), and to say that the US release makes the UK version look stellar would be an understatement. This is probably the worst example of grain-sucking I’ve seen on an HD release this side of Cat People or American Psycho, and while many people are predictably praising the US release for looking “smooth” and “clean” (words which always put the fear of Pazuzu in me when used in reference to material shot on film), the more informed among us are justifiably outraged.

I’m now really sorry I ordered this release, and at this rate I won’t even be bothering to unwrap the cellophane. It also makes me slightly suspicious of the rave reviews that New Line’s other HD releases have been receiving, and I have a feeling I’ll need to pick up one or two of them to get to the truth of the matter. The problem is that none of the titles they’ve put out so far appeal to me, least of all Rush Hour 3.

Import proof

Apparently, German distributor Senator Home Entertainment, currently an HD DVD distributor, will be following in Warner’s footsteps and dropping support for the format to concentrate exclusively on Blu-ray.

Among the various titles the format owned the rights to and planned to release on HD DVD were the two halves of Grindhouse, Planet Terror and Death Proof, the latter of which was even listed on Amazon.de and which I had pre-ordered. With it now unlikely to see the light of day, I’ve cancelled my order.

The sad part of this is that, so far, Senator’s Blu-ray releases have apparently been region coded, which means that, unless I supplement my Region A Playstation 3 with a Region B model, I probably won’t be able to play any eventual Blu-ray releases of these two films. Aren’t you just loving this new Blu future?

What edge enhancement is and why not to use it

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, which is why I’m going to keep this post brief. The screen captures below are taken from Lions Gate’s Blu-ray release of Crank, a disc that has been praised by many reviewers but gives me a headache every time I look at it for more than a few minutes. Why? Because it is riddled with edge enhancement, and I suspect that seeing this sort of ringing at a resolution of 1920x1080 will give you some idea of why I am so against this practice.

The weirdest part is that this video vandalism appears to have been intentional, added during the film’s post production phase, presumably as a means of adding “intensity” to the scenes that have been affected. A number of shots and even some entire sequences are unmolested, a good example of which can be found in the sixth screen capture below. In this scene, a split-screen effect has been employed, with the shot of Jason Statham manipulated to buggery but the shot of Amy Smart seemingly unmolested. It really beggars belief.

Crank
(Lions Gate, USA, MPEG-2, 19.8 GB)

Universal still loves you

Source: High-Def Digest

After almost a week of ominous silence, Universal has finally made a public statement regarding its HD DVD support. As some of you will know, the studio’s exclusivity deal with the format expired recently and has, as yet, not been renewed, prompting rumours ranging from it going format neutral to going Blu-ray exclusive and abandoning HD DVD completely à la Warner. While I don’t think anyone in their right mind would doubt that we’ll be seeing Universal titles on Blu-ray be the end of the year (if not the end of the month), those who are currently HD DVD-only will probably be quite relieved to hear that

“Contrary to unsubstantiated rumors from unnamed sources, Universal’s current plan is to continue to support the HD DVD format,” said Ken Graffeo, executive vice president of HD strategic marketing for Universal Studios Home Entertainment and co-president of the HD DVD Promotional Group.

In addition,

A Universal spokesperson told us this afternoon that the studio plans to issue new upcoming HD DVD title announcements in the near future.

We shall see…

There’s life in this old Bolshevik yet

Well, the news of Warner’s switch to Blu-ray’s exclusivity and expected demise of HD DVD may have stolen the headlines, but the format certainly isn’t going to vanish overnight. Before Universal and Paramount move over to Blu-ray as well, hammering the final nail into HD DVD’s coffin, I will continue to buy new releases that are exclusive to the format.

One of these is Eastern Promises, which arrived this morning. I wasn’t too taken by David Cronenberg’s previous two films, Spider and A History of Violence, but this one, while very much a companion piece to them, for some reason appealed to me much more. Maybe it’s the excellent cast, including Naomi Watts, Viggo Mortensen, Sinéad Cusack and Vincent Cassel, but the other two films had stellar talent in front of the camera as well (including Mortensen, in the case of A History of Violence). Maybe it’s the fact that the London location resonates with me more than Violence’s small-town America - but then again, Spider was also set in London. It’s not even the subject matter, since gangster movies generally irritate me. (Not that this is a typical gangster movie in any sense: for one thing, the gangsters in this film don’t say “fuck” in every sentence and call each other “faggots” every five minutes. For another, it’s not shot in near-black and white, headache-inducing shakeycam.) I don’t know why, but this one really clicked for me, and I’m sorry I didn’t get to see it before the end of 2007, because, if I had, it would have garnered a pretty high position in my annual Top 10.

Oh, and the HD DVD transfer is also solid, proving once again that Universal’s standard for DI-sourced material is among the best (the less said about their track record for catalogue releases, though, the better). It looks to have been slightly degrained, and it isn’t as razor sharp as something like Resident Evil: Extinction or The Bourne Ultimatum, but it is a pleasant, rich, detailed image with no visible compression problems. And Naomi Watts doesn’t look half bad occupying 130” of my wall.

Eastern Promises
(Universal, USA, VC-1. 15.7 GB)

New Line in the deep Blu sea

In a move that is sure to have surprised precisely no people, New Line Cinema have announced their plans to follow parent company Warner and support Blu-ray exclusively. Charitably described as a “transition” by High-Def Digest, this move is more of the “jump cut” variety, as the move is effective immediately, making the studio’s first HD DVD release, Pan’s Labyrinth, also its last. New Line’s stance towards HD DVD was always more lukewarm than Warner’s, with its non-catalogue releases Hairspray and Rush Hour 3 delayed on HD DVD due to cited concerns over the format’s lack of region coding. Therefore, despite announcing that these titles would be arriving on the red format at a later date, this will no longer be the case. Good things, it would seem, don’t always come to those who wait. Or bad things, in the case of Rush Hour 3.

In other news, Paramount and Universal are remaining tight-lipped about the situation, with the usually garrulous Universal declining to comment, while Paramount, despite reaffirming its support for HD DVD, has decided to make no new release announcements at the present time, stating that the titles they had planned to unveil at CES are now “up in the air”.

Them zombies is bustin’ through the screen, ma!

Yesterday evening, Lyris and I ransacked our self-dignity by watching the Blu-ray release of Resident Evil: Extinction. This franchise is probably our joint favourite cinematic guilty pleasure, and, while I can’t respond to criticisms that the scripts are guff, the acting often dreadful and direction somewhere between frenetic and incompetent with anything other than a nod of my head, these films have given me hours of pleasure and haven’t bored me for a second. This third (and, it would seem, final) outing isn’t as good as the first, but is definitely better than the second, and is highly entertaining for its sprightly 95-minute duration. No, Milla Jovovich can’t really act and yes, the characters are dumber than dog-do, but if you’re critiquing these aspects, I suspect you’re not really getting into the spirit of it. The film is unabashedly stupid, loud and bloody, and in all honesty, sometimes there’s nothing wrong with that.

I want to leave the film itself by the wayside now and talk about the transfer, which is a thing of beauty. Certain ill-informed (or just plain vision-impaired) reviewers have predictably been underrating it and complaining about non-existent flaws, but rest assured that this is as close to a flawless transfer as you are going to get with lossy compression, and one of the absolute finest presentations I’ve ever seen of a film. Detail is impeccable, grain is lovingly reproduced and compression is handled expertly. It sticks in my craw that reviewers who don’t seem to know what they’re talking about criticise marvellous efforts like these while lavishing praise over second rate offerings, but I suppose I should be used to it by now.

Don’t take my word for it, though: take a look at the screen captures below.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse
(Sony Pictures, USA, AVC)

The Warner shopping list

With Warner’s HD DVD support on the way out, it no doubt stands to reason that the titles they have already released on at format will now only be on store shelves for a limited time. With that in mind, I thought it would be useful to put together this little post together, cataloguing Warner titles that are either not (yet) available on Blu-ray, or are available on Blu-ray in inferior versions, therefore giving people the opportunity to pick up any titles they want before it’s too late.

Please note that this list is not complete by any means, so if you spot any missing titles, or title that are there but shouldn’t be, then please leave me a comment and I’ll make the necessary changes.

Titles which feature superior audio on HD DVD:

- The Ant Bully (TrueHD)
- Happy Feet (TrueHD)
- Lady in the Water (TrueHD)
- Nip/Tuck: The Complete Fourth Season (1.5 Mbps on HD DVD, 640 Kbps on BD)
- The Phantom of the Opera (TrueHD)
- Superman Returns (TrueHD)
- Training Day (TrueHD)
- The Wicker Man [remake] (TrueHD)

Titles which feature VC-1 encodes on HD DVD but MPEG-2 on BD:

- The Fugitive
- Good Night, and Good Luck
- Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
- Rumor Has It
- Space Cowboys
- Training Day

Titles which are limited to 1080i output on BD:

- Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (replacement programme expected)

Titles which feature more extras on HD DVD:

- 300
- Blood Diamond
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Pan’s Labyrinth (New Line)
- Troy: Director’s Cut

Titles which are currently only available on HD DVD:

- The Adventures of Robin Hood
- Batman Begins
- Caddyshack
- Casablanca
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- Constantine
- The Dukes of Hazzard
- Excalibur
- Forbidden Planet
- Grand Prix
- The Matrix Trilogy
- Mutiny on the Bounty
- The Perfect Storm
- Poseidon
- Troy (theatrical cut)
- V for Vendetta
- Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

It stands to reason that, with PiP now working on Profile 1.1 Blu-ray players, Warner will begin to release titles originally delayed on Blu-ray because the functionality wasn’t there, including Batman Begins and The Matrix Trilogy. Older catalogue titles such as Casablanca and Mutiny on the Bounty reportedly sold poorly on HD DVD, and have no technological reason not to have been released on Blu-ray, so it may be that Warner will simply write them off as expensive mistakes until high definition media has a larger market hold.

Update, January 7th, 2007 02:25 PM: Added Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which on BD is limited to 1080i output rather than full 1080p (thanks to Jayson for pointing this one out).

Update, January 7th, 2007 08:01 PM: Added Training Day to the audio section and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to the “not available on BD” section. Thanks again, Jayson.

Update, January 10th, 2007 06:51 PM: Removed Million Dollar Baby from the “Titles which feature VC-1 encodes on HD DVD but MPEG-2 on BD” section, as it is in fact a VC-1 encode on both formats (thanks, Anthony).

Update, January 11th, 2007 08:59 AM: Added various titles to the audio section (thanks, Anthony).

DVD debacle

It’s funny, all this hoo-ha over the Warner Blu-ray announcement, and what did I end up doing yesterday? I went out during my lunch break and bought some standard definition DVDs. In my defence, they were practically giving them away, with the bulk of them £3.99 and several included in a “Buy two, get a third free” deal. I ended up with Y Tu Mamá También, Little Children, Munich and Factory Girl, with these titles chosen for a combination of reasons, ranging from “I’ve wanted to see this but never had the opportunity” to “People said this one was good” to “I can’t think of another title to get, so I’ll pick one at random.” Care to guess which was which?

Run Blu-ray run

I’m a bit behind with reporting this, but, as the saying goes, “better late than never”. Run Lola Run, one of my favourite films, is to get the high definition treatment courtesy of Sony Pictures’ Blu-ray release on February 19th. As High-Def Digest reports, it will come on a single layer BD-25 disc with an AVC encode, German (and English, pfff) Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio and the main extras from the standard definition DVD, including the excellent commentary by Tom Tykwer and Franka Potente. It also features the hilariously bad tag-line of “Fast cash, crazy fate & true love”… although, given the recent hilarity of the blurb on the Resident Evil: The High Definition Trilogy box set, which Lyris received yesterday, I’m now more convinced than ever that someone at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s marketing department is taking the piss.

Consider this, one of the few HD discs announced so far this year that I’m actually interested in, pre-ordered.

The fat lady sings

It’s all over:

Warner to go Blu-ray exclusive from June 2008

In response to consumer demand, Warner Bros. Entertainment will release its high-definition DVD titles exclusively in the Blu-ray disc format beginning later this year, it was announced today by Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros. and Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.

“Warner Bros.’ move to exclusively release in the Blu-ray disc format is a strategic decision focused on the long term and the most direct way to give consumers what they want,” said Meyer. “The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers.”

Warner Home Video will continue to release its titles in standard DVD format and Blu-ray. After a short window following their standard DVD and Blu-ray releases, all new titles will continue to be released in HD DVD until the end of May 2008.

At this stage, unless HD DVD somehow manages to pull something miraculous out of the bag, the writing is on the wall for the format. On the plus side, it’s a positive thing, I suppose, that someone has taken a stance and decided to help steer the “war” towards an end. The only major regrets I have are that we’ll now have to endure months of squealing from fanboys on both sides of the fence, and that we’ll have to look forward to a future in which the dominating format is the one that supports region coding and more stringent DRM than the competition.

Personally, I’ll continue to enjoy my Universal and Paramount (and Studio Canal, Concorde, etc.) HD DVDs, as well as all the Warner HD DVDs I’ve bought so far. I suppose this means I’ll now move to buying Blu-ray versions of future Warner titles, but my existing collection ain’t going anywhere, and I think that’s what all the HD DVD customers who are feeling burned right now have to remember.

The funny this is that although, as a format neutral customer, this decision doesn’t really affect me one way or the other, it’s hard not to feel a little disappointed. The whole affair leaves a sour taste in my mouth, particularly given that, as little as a month ago, Warner was still giving customers assurances that it wasn’t changing its format neutral stance. This is quite an about-face, and I feel really sorry anyone who got an HD DVD player for Christmas.

Feature: Top 10 HD Transfers of 2007

In years gone by, I’ve done articles, either for DVD Times or for this site, to celebrate the best (and sometimes worst) DVD releases of the year. For reasons too complex to get into (translation: I can’t remember them), I didn’t do one last year, but I decided that I couldn’t repeat this oversight again. So, with that in mind, I’ve taken a break from complaining about edge enhancement, filtering and dodgy standards conversions to say nothing but nice things. Be amazed at my coverage of the Top 10 HD Transfers of 2007.