Blu-ray

Satan created MPEG2

So far with my HD screen captures, I’ve been selecting the best-looking titles in order to give readers an idea of what HD DVD and Blu-ray are capable of. Today, I’m going to do something slightly different, and show some captures of a title with obvious flaws. The transfer of The Devil’s Rejects on Blu-ray is basically solid in every area except encoding: the movie was shot on 16mm film, and was then encoded on a single layer 25 GB Blu-ray disc using the aged MPEG2 codec. This results, unsurprisingly, in noticeable compression artefacts. Generally speaking, it looks reasonably pleasing on motion, but there are some rather nasty moments where the lack of available space, coupled with an inefficient codec and difficult material, causes a few hiccups (the second shot being the most extreme example).

The Devil’s Rejects
(Lions Gate, USA, MPEG2, 20.4 GB)

Stay tuned later today for a comparison between the Blu-ray version and the earlier standard definition DVD release.

James Bond, Sony’s unofficial marketing agent

As promised, here are my first ever Blu-ray screen captures. I decided to start with some of the absolute best the format had to offer (Open Season is, in my opinion, the single best-looking title on Blu-ray, but we no longer have a copy of that film), so it made sense to go with the excellent-looking Casino Royale, a title which showed that Sony had well and truly learned from their past encoding mistakes.

Casino Royale
(Sony Pictures, Finland, AVC, 31.5 GB)

The actual process took me longer than I was anticipating - a combination of my laptop’s slow 5,400 RPM hard drive and the fact that I was attempting to install several Windows Updates in the background, while copying a substantial amount of data from one machine to another. I hope to follow this up with some shots of The Descent and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, the two other Blu-ray exclusives that I’ve seen which warrant 10/10 transfers, but I don’t have an ETA on them.

MC VAIO is in the hizzouse!

My Sony VAIO VGN-FZ11Z laptop arrived this morning, fresh and new, just as the description on eBay stated. After scratching my head as to where the Windows install DVD was (it turns out there isn’t one - bizarrely, the user has to create their own set of recovery discs - very stingy, Sony) and discovering that I am entitled to yet another copy of Casino Royale on Blu-ray (free this time, as a reward for registering the laptop online), I got the thing set up and ran Windows on it for the first time.

Sony’s laptops now come with Windows Vista as standard, which I’m ultimately fine with, because, although I still use Windows XP on my main system, thanks to issues with my sound card, digital TV stick and a couple of legacy programs, I can’t think of anything that I would want to do on this laptop that Vista would create problems for. It is, after all, intended primarily for word processing on the go for my PhD, and the odd bit of Blu-ray watching and screen capturing. In any event, this install of Vista comes complete with the much-needed WinDVD BD for VAIO software, which I would have to pay for separately if I did my own install of Windows XP on the machine. By the way, the laptop comes with an HDMI output, supporting full 1080p video, which is yet another point in its favour as a Blu-ray device… although the fact that the sound card only supports 2-channel audio means that it isn’t exactly viable as a home cinema system (unless you have an HDMI-compliant AV receiver, in which case it may be possible to get the whole shibbang).

Oh, and I had a brief moment of panic when, popping in my Kingdom of Heaven Blu-ray disc, I was greeted by a message telling me that my player was not a Region A device and the disc could therefore not be played, but it turns out that, as with standard definition DVDs, Blu-ray drives and playback software allow you to change the region code a handful of times before becoming permanent, so it was a simple case of heading into WinDVD’s setup screen and changing my locality from “UK” to “USA”. Blu-ray playback seems to be reasonably solid in WinDVD, although I was disappointed to discover that it suffers from the chroma upsampling error (not sure whether this is an issue with the video card or the software, or both).

Unless I run into any problems, my aim is to be able to provide a few Blu-ray screen captures later tonight.

DVDs I bought or received in the month of September

• 300 (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• Black Book (R0 UK, Blu-ray)
• Dawn of the Dead (remake) (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• House of 1000 Corpses (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• The Lives of Others (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Silent Hill (R0 Germany, HD DVD)
• Underworld (R0 Germany, HD DVD)
• Waking the Dead: Series 5 (R2 UK, DVD)
• Zodiac (R2 UK, DVD)

Another month with high definition content in a dominating position. I’ve essentially stopped buying standard definition material unless it (a) stands no chance of being released in HD or (b) wouldn’t benefit from being in HD (e.g. TV series shot and/or edited in standard definition). Zodiac, the anomaly, was a free review copy.

Death on my mind

Well, I’m back from the research students’ induction meeting - it was essentially just nibbles, drinkies and a blather - and it occurred to me that I hadn’t mentioned either of my recent acquisitions.

On Tuesday, I received my copy of the Blu-ray release of House of 1000 Corpses from DVD Pacific. It features a decent but not outstanding transfer, with a VC-1 encode (intriguing, given that all of Lions Gate’s previous releases have been MPEG2 or AVC). Detail is very good, and the compression is well-handled (the disc is a single layer BD25), but there is noticeable edge enhancement, and the image has been quite severely noise reduced. I haven’t noticed any visible smearing, but the frozen grain in the backgrounds looks decidedly unnatural and unfilmlike, making this transfer a 7/10 for me at best. Oh, and, much to my disappointment, they haven’t maintained the hilarious menus from the DVD release, which featured various members of the Firefly family instructing the viewer on menu choices. Obviously, since this material was shot in standard definition, it would have been somewhat problematic to port over, but it’s too bad the footage couldn’t have been incorporated into a standalone reel, because a lot of it really was very funny. “Pick a feature!!!”

I also picked up a copy of the fifth series of Waking the Dead. I was originally hoping to receive a review copy, but BBC’s home video distribution division, 2 Entertain, seem to be rather inconsistent when it comes to sourcing check discs. With Casualty, I was able to get review copies of Series 1 and 3 but not 2, whereas with Waking the Dead, I got copies of Series 2 and 4 but not 1, 3 or 5. Anyway, I’m quite looking forward to seeing this series again, which aired at around this time two years ago (for some reason, there were no episodes in 2006, with the rather disappointing sixth series airing in early 2007). My memory of it is that it takes a while to find its footing, having to cope with the departure of two key cast members, but eventually turns itself around with some very strong episodes in the second half.

Incidentally, this six-disc set, just released this month, has an RRP of £34.99, but I was able to find it at DVD.co.uk for a mere £17.95 - definitely worth considering if you’re planning on picking up this title.

Anyone want some full resolution HD DVD screenshots?

At long last, I can now take full resolution 1920x1080 captures of HD DVD titles with no loss in image quality, thanks to Lyris, who figured out a way of accessing the disc contents using a bunch of programs and splitters. This is a fairly time-consuming process, so I’m not going to be able to provide captures of every single title in my collection, but I decided to dig out some of the best-looking ones to give you some idea of what the format is capable of.

King Kong
(Universal, UK, VC-1, 26.7 GB)

Serenity
(Universal, UK, VC-1, 18.3 GB)

Silent Hill
(Concorde, Germany, VC-1, 21.0 GB)

Click the images above to view them full size.

Hopefully, when my laptop arrives at some point later this week, I’ll be able to do the same with Blu-ray titles, provided the process doesn’t turn out to be too different.

Also, stay tuned for my first ever DVD-to-HD DVD image comparisons! I’m still trying to decide on an appropriate format for presenting them (given that a single high definition capture exceeds the resolution of most people’s displays, some changes will obviously have to be made as compared to the current format), so I probably won’t be posting anything along these lines for a couple of days, but it’s very exciting to finally get to the stage of being able to offer readers of the site a clear demonstration of the massive leap in quality offered by the high definition formats.

I’m a conscientious student

My return to the world of academia got off to an earlier start than I had originally been expecting, as the Theatre, Film & Television Studies’ departmental enrolment meeting was in fact held this Tuesday (the 18th) - something that I didn’t know until an email reached my inbox a couple of days beforehand. Anyway, despite the short notice, I was able to make it, and it was good to catch up with some old friends (and make a few new ones). Unfortunately, I’m in the rather unusual position of both my intended supervisors being on leave (one on maternity leave, the other doing research), which means that, at this moment in time, I’m not entirely sure how things are going to work out. I’m to make an appointment to see the course convenor at some point next week, so hopefully a solution can be reached.

Oh, and on Thursday, I had a meeting with my advisor of studies, the outcome of which was that I’m now approved to register next Thursday, at which point I will hand over a cheque in exchange for a matriculation card and some leaflets.

In the meantime, with around £1,500 still in my bank account, I’ve decided to invest in a laptop, which should make it easier to get work done on the go. I’m mindful of the fact that study space at the university is quite limited, so, if I’m on the campus, I’d rather not find myself in a situation where I have to queue for half an hour in the library to get access to a computer. Anyway, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and pick up a system that will allow me to use Microsoft Word, Excel and maybe even a bit of the old PowerPoint (useful when giving presentations, naturally), while at the same time letting me play (and screen-capture) Blu-ray discs. That’s right, I bought a Sony VAIO laptop - a VGN-FZ11Z, to be precise - and I managed to find one unused and sealed on eBay for £350 less than what it retails for direct from Sony. I’m expecting it to materialise at some point later next week (need to wait for my cheque to clear first), and I’ll be sure to post photographs and impressions once it arrives.

This will, of course, mean that I’ll also be able to get rid of the PC I’ve had in my room for the last couple of years. I’ll be keeping my primary downstairs machine, however - as impressive as the specs of this laptop are, the video card, on-board sound card and 5,400 RPM hard drive (with a mere 200 GB of disk space), not to mention the lack of upgrade options, mean that I’m not about to settle for it as my only system.

Mother of Tears sails into the Bay

Source: Bloody Disgusting

It is being reported that the North American distribution rights for Dario Argento’s Mother of Tears are to be jointly picked up by Anchor Bay and the Weinstein Company. What this means in terms of the film’s chances of getting a theatrical release are anyone’s guess, but let’s just say that they’re somewhat higher than they were previously. It’s also unclear how any potential high definition home video release would work out, given that Anchor Bay is Blu-ray exclusive while the Weinsteins are HD DVD exclusive. Oh, and, naturally, the usual fears have arisen that, given the Weinstein brothers’ track record of butchering foreign titles, the film will eventually show up in America in a form decidedly unrepresentative of Argento’s artistic intentions.

Whatever happens, though, let’s look on the bright side: a semi-major has got involved, which gives the film a better chance of some form of theatrical exhibition than any of Argento’s other projects since Opera.

Blu-ray review: Black Book

Call it a guilty pleasure if you like, but Black Book is one of the most engaging films I’ve seen in recent years, and definitely Paul Verhoeven’s best offering in a long time. Tartan’s Blu-ray release offers up an impressive transfer and audio options, alongside extras that are insightful but rather limited in quantity.

Tartan kicks off their Blu-ray support with Paul Verhoeven’s World War 2 thriller Black Book, released on the UK on September 24th. I’ve reviewed this Region 0 disc, which features an excellent transfer and boasts solid audio support.

It’s “we love Germany” day in the Land of Whimsy…

…well, not exactly, but everything I have to say in this post relates to Germany in some way.

First up, yesterday, I received a copy of The Lives of Others on Blu-ray from DVD Pacific. This German film, which won the Best Foreign Language film at the 2006 Academy Awards, is one of the few films I’ve picked up in high definition as a blind buy (so far, most of the HD DVD and Blu-ray releases I’ve received without having seen the films themselves beforehand have been free review copies), so I’m hoping the positive word of mouth doesn’t turn out to have been hot air.

I’ve had a brief look at the transfer, and it seems to be good without being exception. It’s AVC-encoded and comes on a BD-50, but, while detail is generally pretty good, there is some rather harsh edge enhancement on display, and also the tell-tale signs of noise reduction in the form of sluggish grain patterns. Don’t get me wrong, it’s by no means a bad transfer, but it certainly disproves the myth doing the rounds in certain circles that everything Sony is putting out these days is solid gold.

Luckily, I am considerably more impressed by the transfers of the German HD DVD releases of Silent Hill and the extended cut of Underworld, both of which arrived from Amazon.de today (huzzah for the Germans and their reputation for efficiency!). Actually, “more impressed” is putting it lightly because, pending a more thorough investigating during the process of watching both titles from beginning to end, both of these should be ending up in the “10/10” category on my HD Image Quality Rankings list (the most recent iteration of which can be viewed here).

Both films are VC1-encoded, and in both cases it turns out that the final releases were extremely accurately represented by the Concorde Home Entertainment promo disc that Lyris brought back from the IFA convention in Berlin. Silent Hill especially is just draw-dropping, having been minted from the same magnificent master that was used for Sony Pictures’ 2006 Blu-ray release, but, thanks to the increased efficiency of VC1 over MPEG2, exhibits none of the severe compression artefacts that plagued that release. Lyris has put up a couple of snapshots illustrating just how improved the compression is in the most problematic scenes, and, suffice to say, I urge anyone contemplating picking up this film in HD to abandon any thought of buying Sony’s version. Concorde are releasing their titles on both formats, so this improved version is also available to those restricted to Blu-ray.

Finally, Sony comes to HD DVD!

Underworld, meanwhile, doesn’t look quite as good, but that, I suspect, has more to do with the look of the film itself than the quality of the master or the encoding. Certainly, I can see no flaws at all that should prevent it from also attaining “10/10” status, and there are some moments in which the details are so pronounced, particularly in close-ups, that they practically leap off the screen. Oh, and I know it’s silly, but I did get a kick out of seeing the words “A Sony Pictures Entertainment Company” appearing on an HD DVD title, underneath the Screen Gems logo at the beginning of the film.

Audio-wise, German and English tracks are offered, the German variant in DTS-HD Master Audio, and the English in the lower bit rate DTS-HD Hi-Resoltion format (on Silent Hill, the German track is 6.1 discrete while the English track is plain old 5.1, while on Underworld, both tracks are 5.1). While it’s a little disappointing to see preferential treatment given to dubbed versions, it’s somewhat moot at the moment given the lack of hardware that can decode the high definition content of the DTS-HD audio codec (instead, current hardware falls back on a legacy DTS 1.5 Mbps stream). In any event, the English tracks on both films sound magnificent, although I’ll have to do a comparison between the Dolby Digital track on the Sony Pictures BD of Silent Hill and the DTS-HD variant on the Concorde HD DVD to see just how much of a difference there is. (It’s a real shame I don’t currently have the means to play the PCM 5.1 track on the BD, thanks to my PS3’s lack of analogue outputs and my audio receiver’s lack of HDMI support.)

Sprechen Sie Englisch?

As with Warner’s HD DVDs and BDs, these titles go straight to the film itself after playing the company logo and the usual copyright warnings. They default to German audio with no subtitles, but a quick press of the Menu button brings up the main menu, allowing you to switch to English audio. Doing so automatically turns on German subtitles, but worry not, for they can easily be disabled via the menu or using the Subtitles button on your remote.

As has been reported elsewhere, there are no extras on either title. In the case of Silent Hill, the same was true of Sony’s release, so this can’t exactly be considered a downgrade, but for Underworld, Sony’s standard definition DVD of the extended edition, plus their upcoming Blu-ray release, are quite feature-packed. Myself, I’m not too bothered as I’ll be hanging on to my standard definition copy anyway for the included comic and concept art booklet, but for others not in this situation, the Sony Blu-ray version will probably be a more attractive choice for those who can play it

LA Times: “Warner’s next”

Source: Film Talk

I don’t make a habit of reporting on every rumour that crops up in the high definition format war, because, frankly, the vast majority of it is complete nonsense. However, this particular article, which comes from the Los Angeles Times, caught my eye, as it quotes “Hollywood insiders” as saying that

[t]he brinkmanship is intensifying. Another major studio, Warner Bros., is being courted by both camps and believed to be mulling over a lucrative offer that could bring such popular titles as “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” into the HD DVD camp, according to Hollywood insiders who requested anonymity because the talks were confidential.

(Full article here.)

Were this to come to pass, it would be huge. It should be no secret that both sides are likely to be actively courting the studios and making very lucrative offers in exchange for exclusivity deals - it’s a business, after all - so it stands to reason that there is a hint of truth in the article, whatever its source. After Paramount’s shock decision to support only HD DVD, both sides will have upped their game substantially. If Warner is actually actively considering renouncing their neutrality, then I honestly believe the writing could be on the wall for Blu-ray: as one forum poster put it, Warner, despite their neutrality, are basically Blu-ray’s biggest supporter. True, many of their releases are HD DVD-only, but they have given a massive number of titles to the Blu camp, and their back catalogue is arguably the most impressive of all the majors.

The gloves are well and truly off. The next few months are going to be very interesting.

PS. Have a look at how the Blu-ray die-hards (or “Smurfs”, as they are coming to be known with increasing regularity), are coping with these latest rumours, in this handy collation of posts over at High Def Forum.

HD DVD now bigger than Blu-ray

Source: AV Science Forum

In addition to having the lion’s share of studio support (something which now seems rather dubious given Paramount’s recent decision), the Blu-ray camp’s main reason to cheer has long been the higher capacity of their discs (50 GB for a dual-layer BD versus 30 GB for a dual-layer HD DVD). Well, as of now, that would appear to have changed, as the DVD Forum have just approved triple-layer 51 GB HD DVDs as part of the format’s spec. These new discs, which are believed to be fully compatible with current hardware, have effectively negated (and more besides - but who’s counting a gigabyte?) one of Blu-ray’s main selling points.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether any studios begin using them commercially (Paramount, at least, seem to be happy with 30 GB discs, at least judging by CTO Alan Bell’s recent comments on the issue), but the good news is that the technology are now there. I wonder how Disney, who helped develop the format’s HDi technology, only to jump ship in favour of Blu-ray because its increased capacity allowed them to cram more “Virtual Magic Carpet Tour”-type games on each disc, are now feeling.

Thanks to Lyris for drawing this to my attention.

Tarantan films presents…

Today I received my first ever high definition check disc - a review copy of the upcoming UK Blu-ray release of Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book from Tartan Films… or “Tarantan Films”, as the label misspells it. I already have the US version from Sony Pictures, due out on September 25th, on pre-order at DVD Pacific, and I intend to keep the order open in order to get the US-exclusive Verhoeven commentary plus other assorted extras, but the UK version, due out a day earlier, on September 24th, is a rather impressive package in terms of image quality, and one that Sony will have to work hard to better (if indeed they don’t just use the same encode).

For a start, Tartan have clearly decided to go the whole hog, delivering the film on a dual-layer BD50 disc with a 1080p AVC encode (no repeats of their early days with the DVD format here). The transfer, which hovers consistently around the 30 Mbit/sec rate, is very impressive, slightly pre-filtered and as a result exhibiting some mild ringing and not quite hitting the heights of, say, Open Season or King Kong in terms of fine detail, but otherwise absolutely magnificent.

For audio, as seems to be Tartan’s custom, the default track is a stereo affair (at 224 Kbps), with Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 Kbps) and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks also included. Unfortunately, neither the Playstation 3 nor any other currently available player can decode the high definition audio content of such tracks, so it falls back on a legacy DTS 1.5 Mbit/sec stream, but to my ears it sounds very good in its own right and constitutes an improvement on its 768 Kbps predecessor from the DVD. I’ll have to do a more in-depth comparison between the two before offering my final verdict, however. Annoyingly, despite the bulk of the film being in Dutch and German, English subtitles are not enabled by default, making a pit-stop at the Setup menu (or a few button presses on the remote control) necessary before beginning the movie.

Tartan have also chosen to approach the presentation of their bonus content in a rather unusual manner, and this is likely to attract some consternation from certain parties. Whereas every other distributor I know either upscales their legacy 480i content or has the player itself switch to standard definition to play it, Tartan have embedded the material in a small window on the Extras menu. While this has the effect of making the quality look better (because it’s smaller, natch), it’s also going to be a bit of a pain in the neck for people with smaller displays. On a 40” screen viewed at fairly close range, it’s not that big a deal, but I wouldn’t like to watch it on my 20” monitor, or even on our older 32” TV.

Expect a full review at DVD Times in the near future. After a fairly lengthy period of what I can only term writer’s block, I’m finally getting back into the sway of penning regular reviews.

Soon on this screen…

The good news is that the HD DVD releases of Silent Hill and Underworld are now shipping from Amazon.de… at least for some of us. My copies went out just before midday, but the official word from Concorde Home Entertainment is that Friday is the target date for availability.

It would also appear that there will be no extras on either of these discs. Supposedly, if they sell well, future titles from Concorde will include bonus materials. For Silent Hill, which was bare-bones in its Blu-ray incarnation too, this isn’t that much of a big deal, but Underworld in its standard definition incarnation (and, presumably, the US Blu-ray version due to be released on September 25th as well) was quite feature-packed, so that’s a bit of a shame. Oh well - provided the image quality is excellent, I won’t be complaining too much.

The latest HD image quality rankings

I have a new favourite HD demo disc: it’s Sony’s Blu-ray release of Open Season. Sony gave Lyris a stack of free Blu-ray discs when he went to make his reportings on their format in Berlin last week, and this was one of them (one of the others, unfortunately, was Black Hawk Down, which looks horrendous). While the film itself is doing my tits in, it’s hard to deny that the visual presentation is absolutely stellar - the sort of quality you can get when you feed a pristine source into an advanced codec like AVC.

I’ve taken the opportunity to update my HD image quality rankings chart, and have also included the codecs used for each release.

10/10

• Open Season (Sony Pictures, UK, Blu-ray) - AVC
• Corpse Bride (Warner, USA, HD DVD/Blu-ray) - VC1
• King Kong (Universal, UK, HD DVD) - VC1
• Casino Royale (Sony Pictures, USA, Blu-ray) - AVC
• The Descent (Lions Gate, USA, Blu-ray) - AVC
• Serenity (Universal, UK, HD DVD) - VC1
• Serenity (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Black Snake Moan (Paramount, USA, HD DVD/Blu-ray) - AVC
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Warner, UK, HD DVD) - VC1
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Buena Vista, USA, Blu-ray) - AVC

9/10

• Babel (Paramount, USA, HD DVD) - AVC
• Looney Tunes: Rabbit Hood (Warner, USA, HD DVD)* - VC1
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Buena Vista, USA, Blu-ray) - AVC
• Mr. Bean’s Holiday (Universal, UK, HD DVD) - VC1
• Children of Men (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• The Bourne Supremacy (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• The Adventures of Robin Hood (Warner, USA) - VC1
• Miami Vice (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Resident Evil: Apocalypse (Sony Pictures, USA, Blu-ray) - MPEG2
• Layer Cake (Sony Pictures, UK, Blu-ray) - MPEG2
• Dawn of the Dead (remake) (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Blood Diamond (Warner, USA, HD DVD/Blu-ray) - VC1
• Reign Over Me (Sony Pictures, UK, Blu-ray) - AVC
• Casablanca (Warner, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Warner, UK, HD DVD/Blu-ray) - VC1
• A Scanner Darkly (Universal, USA, HD DVD/Blu-ray) - VC1

8/10

• Silent Hill (Sony Pictures, USA, Blu-ray) - MPEG2
• Kingdom of Heaven (20th Century Fox, USA, Blu-ray) - MPEG2
• The Bourne Identity (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Ghost Rider (Sony Pictures, UK, Blu-ray) - AVC
• Mulholland Drive (Studio Canal, France, HD DVD) - VC1
• Constantine (Warner, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• The Matrix (Warner, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Paramount, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• The Matrix Revolutions (Warner, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• The Matrix Reloaded (Warner, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• The Devil’s Rejects (Lions Gate, USA, Blu-ray) - MPEG2
• Unleashed (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Red Dragon (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Looney Tunes: Robin Hood Daffy (Warner, USA, HD DVD)* - VC1
• The Skeleton Key (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Land of the Dead (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Syriana (Warner, USA, HD DVD/Blu-ray) - VC1
• V for Vendetta (Warner, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• The Machinist (Toshiba, Japan, HD DVD) - AVC
• Sleepy Hollow (Paramount, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Million Dollar Baby (Warner, USA, HD DVD/Blu-ray) - VC1
• Flightplan (Buena Vista, USA, Blu-ray) - VC1
• Batman Begins (Warner, UK, HD DVD) - VC1
• Van Helsing (Universal, UK, HD DVD) - VC1
• Wolf Creek (The Weinstein Company, USA, HD DVD) - AVC

7/10

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Warner, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Arlington Road (Sony Pictures, USA, Blu-ray) - MPEG2
• The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Sony Pictures, UK, Blu-ray) - MPEG2
• Tears of the Sun (Sony Pictures, UK, Blu-ray) - MPEG2
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• The Mummy Returns (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• King Arthur (Buena Vista, USA, Blu-ray) - AVC
• Paprika (Sony Pictures, France, Blu-ray) - MPEG2
• Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Constantin Film, Germany, HD DVD) - VC1
• The Fifth Element (remastered) (Sony Pictures, USA, Blu-ray) - AVC

6/10

• Chicago (Buena Vista, USA, Blu-ray) - AVC
• Enemy of the State (Buena Vista, USA, Blu-ray) - MPEG2
• Fantastic Four (20th Century Fox, UK, Blu-ray) - MPEG2
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Lost in Translation (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (Paramount, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Hostel (Sony Pictures, UK, Blu-ray) - MPEG2
• The Fountain (Warner, USA, HD DVD/Blu-ray) - VC1
• An American Werewolf in London (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Troy (Warner, UK, HD DVD) - VC1
• Being John Malkovich (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Brokeback Mountain (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• The Game (Universal, USA, HD DVD) - VC1
• Basic Instinct (Studio Canal, France, HD DVD) - VC1

5/10

• District B13 (Magnolia, USA, Blu-ray) - MPEG2
• Crank (Lions Gate, USA, Blu-ray) - MPEG2
• Black Hawk Down (Sony Pictures, UK, Blu-ray) - MPEG2

4/10

• Brotherhood of the Wolf (Studio Canal, France, HD DVD) - VC1
• La Haine (Studio Canal, UK, HD DVD) - VC1
• American Psycho (Lions Gate, USA, Blu-ray) - MPEG2

* Found on the The Adventures of Robin Hood HD DVD.

Ach ja! HD DVD ist wunderbar!

Tomorrow sees the release of the HD DVD versions of Silent Hill and Underworld in Germany, and I have extremely high expectations.

These two are fairly high-profile Sony-owned films, and as such are Blu-ray exclusives in the US, but, thanks to the magic of no region coding, viewers from around the world can enjoy these titles, owned in Germany by Concorde Home Entertainment, on HD DVD. Silent Hill was one of the earliest films to be released on Blu-ray in the US, and while it clearly came from an impeccable master, demonstrating eye-popping detail and unmolested film grain, the combination of MPEG2 encoding and a single-layer BD-25 proved to be too much for it to handle, resulting in noticeable compression artefacts in several scenes.

Lyris, returning from the IFA 2007 consumer electronics show, brought back a promotional disc featuring excerpts from several Concorde releases, including these two, and let’s just say that, unless something goes seriously wrong, they could both be 10/10 discs. In particular, Silent Hill appears to be from the same master as the Blu-ray release, demonstrating comparable detail and the same quality of grain reproduction, but, with the added benefit of more efficient VC-1 encoding, should blow away its Sony counterpart. Underworld looks equally incredible, although, not having seen the soon-to-released US Blu-ray version, I’ve no idea how it compares. Luckily, both versions will feature the extended unrated cut.

When Lyris bought the Blu-ray release of Silent Hill earlier this year, we both agreed that, with improved encoding, it would basically have been a perfect transfer. Now, fingers crossed, we’re actually going to get that perfect transfer. Cue cries of “It’s so grainy! I thought this was supposed to be HD!”

Click the images above for larger versions.

Update, September 4th, 2007 10:43 PM: It looks as if these titles may have been delayed. Amazon is now saying that they will be dispatched within “1 to 3 weeks”, while an AV Science Forum member living in Germany is reporting that none of the electronic stores seem to have copies yet.

DVDs I bought or received in the month of August

• Angel-A (R2 UK, DVD)
• Arlington Road (R0 USA, Blu-ray)
• Mr. Bean’s Holiday (R0 UK, HD DVD)
• Red Road (R2 UK, DVD)
• Spooks: Season 5 (R2 UK, DVD)
• Trafico de Menores (R2 Spain, DVD)

A relatively quiet month, but I did get a free DVD out of it, and another for the price of a review.

Today Berlin, tomorrow the world

Lyris is currently in Berlin to report on the ongoing IFA 2007 consumer electronics show. The Blu-ray Disc Association paid for him to be flown out there and put him in an exclusive suite in a swanky hotel, all expenses covered, so he could be indoctrinated… erm, I mean, so he could report on their format. DVD Times has ongoing, up to the minute coverage of the show, including a summary of this afternoon’s BDA Press Conference, which he blogged live for the benefit of the rest of us who didn’t get to go and pow-wow with executives from Sony, Fox, Disney and Warner.

At the end of the conferences, a question and answer session was held, and the most interesting part in fact turned out to be a non-answer: namely, the refusal of everyone present to confirm or deny, even when asked repeatedly, whether or not they had been given any (how shall I put this?) incentives to back Blu-ray exclusively. Now, personally I don’t see what the big deal is about one company paying another for brand loyalty - it’s a business, after all. This is rather funny, though, in light of all the mud-slinging that has gone on following Paramount and DreamWorks’ decision to abandon Blu-ray and support HD DVD exclusively, with many Blu-ray (how shall I put this?) aficionados berating the HD DVD camp for effectively buying the studios’ exclusivity. It comes as no surprise, but it’s rather amusing to see the competition effectively admitting to doing exactly what they have had their mouthpieces attack the HD DVD Promotion Group for (allegedly) doing. (What, you think they would have said “No comment” if the answer had been “No”?)

Question to BDA: it’s about Paramount/Dreamworks. People speculated that Paramount were given ‘sweeteners”. The person asking wants a Yes or No answer from all of the studios - have you been ‘sweetened’ to stick exclusively with Blu-ray?

Answer: (Nobody wants to answer this).

The FOX exec is given the mic: “We were given very good content protection” (smiles).

(They continue passing the mic around).

Question to BDA: The guy who originally asked the question wants a definite confirmation that NO studio has received any sweetener to stay with Blu-ray.

Answer from Buena Vista: “That’s not what I said. I said no comment”.

Anyway, you can visit Lyris’ site for some pictures of the incentives that have been sent his way by the BDA. Now, obviously I’m sure Disney and Fox got slightly more in exchange for their exclusivity, but this is turning out to be into an interesting exposé into how the BDA does business, nonetheless. Not that I’m accusing anyone of trying to encourage the press to give them favourable coverage, heavens no!

DVD debacle

I got my hands on a few DVDs over the last couple of days. First of all, I received check discs of Spooks Season 5 for my upcoming review of the soon-to-be-released set for DVD Times. The only problem was that the public relations company responsible for supplying review samples neglected to send me a copy of Disc 1, instead providing an apology note to the tune that they didn’t have any left. All well and good, but unfortunately it’s rather difficult to review only part of the package and still feel that you’re providing readers with something approaching an authoritative perspective. Luckily, though, Disc 1 did turn up on Thursday, putting me somewhat behind schedule but thankfully now in a position to get the review done.

I also inherited a copy of Red Road, the Glasgow-based feature directing debut from Oscar-winning short director Andrea Arnold. I know next to nothing about the film, other than that the plot makes heavy use of CCTV, and that, when I saw a preview for it last year on Film 2006 (or a similar cinema television series), I thought it looked quite interesting. So, I’m looking forward to sitting down and watching it.

Oh, and, yesterday, while I was on my lunch break (I work Saturdays, remember), I decided to kill some time by wandering around Borders and looking at their overpriced books and DVDs. In addition to the discovery that they have a Blu-ray section (£24.99 per disc - as if!) but no HD DVDs, I came across the rather more reasonably-priced DVD release of Angel-A, which, when released in 2005, was the first film Luc Besson had directed in over seven years (after the debacle of The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc in 1999 he, somewhat wisely, some people might say, decided to concentrate on writing and producing). I’d been meaning to pick it up for some time but never got round to it.

Anyway, I’m exceedingly glad I did, because I watched it last night and enjoyed it immensely. I originally only popped it in to get some idea of how the transfer measured up (reasonably good, as it happens, although I’m increasingly finding it difficult to say anything positive about standard definition transfers unless I lower my expectations tremendously), but after watching the first five minutes, I found myself completely hooked. The plot, which involves a leggy angel (Ria Rasmussen) descending on high to help a hapless immigrant living in Paris (Jamel Debbouze of Amelie) overcome his debts and insecurities, is a bit hokey, but the whole thing is beautifully shot in breathtaking black and white (stylistically, this is a major departure for Besson), and it manages to be both funny and touching in its portrayal of this decidedly unconventional “odd couple”. It may be a little too obviously influenced by Patrice Leconte’s excellent La Fille sur le Pont (another French-language love story shot in black and white with an attempted suicide on a Parisian bridge as its inciting incident), but originality is overrated these days, and in any event the execution is hard to criticise. Highly recommended.

Can a leopard change its spots?

Following Paramount’s shock decision to back HD DVD exclusively, the web is abuzz with speculation as to what will be the next major development in high definition land. Undoubtedly, the entire landscape has been reshaped in the last few days, but I very much doubt that this is the end of the story. The biggest rumblings surround the news that Warner Home Video’s Steve Nickerson is to exit his position as senior vice president of the division. Nickerson was the key architect for Warner’s high definition programme, including the decision to back both formats instead of just HD DVD, as well as the development of the now-delayed TotalHD dual format. His departure has prompted a whole lot of theorising, and what this news means depends on who you ask.

Many desperate Blu-ray owners, still reeling from the kick in the balls that was the loss of Paramount, hope that the departure of this “pro-HD DVD” executive means that Warner could be going exclusive to Blu-ray… which I personally think is highly unlikely, given Warner’s stake in the HD DVD format, not to mention the fact that they already seem to favour it over Blu-ray, with many exclusive titles such as Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood.

By the same token, many HD DVD owners, gloating over the Paramount scoop and with morale higher than it has been at any other point in 2007 so far, will tell you that the departure of one of the main individuals responsible for Warner becoming involved with Blu-ray in the first place could be a good omen for them pulling a Paramount.

I personally think the second is the more likely of these two scenarios, and, if you were to ask me to make a prediction, I’d say that Warner will eventually go HD DVD-only. Not necessarily within the next few days as some have suggested, but at some point in the not too distant future. If this happens, then HD DVD, by my reckoning, will have the upper hand in terms of content. No other studio has made as much money from HD sales as Warner, and their back catalogue is by far the most impressive in terms of sheer number of titles. If it comes to an all-out battle with Universal, Warner and Paramount on one side and Sony, Disney and Fox on the other (as would have been the case had Warner and Paramount not decided to back both formats at the last minute), then my gut reaction is that the Universal/Warner/Paramount triumvirate (which, let’s not forget, also includes subsidiaries New Line and Dreamworks) would wipe the floor with the boys in Blu.

But that’s all rather academic at the moment. The other possibility is simply that nothing will change at all. Universal and Paramount will continue to shack up with HD DVD; Sony, Disney and Fox will stay wed to Blu-ray; and Warner will continue to play the bigamy game. In my view, that already makes the situation considerably more positive for HD DVD than it was as recently as last Sunday, and has ensured the format’s survival for the foreseeable future.

What’s needed now is for the HD DVD Promotion Group to make Lions Gate and Anchor Bay an offer they can’t refuse. Lions Gate is already bleeding money due to their decision to back Blu-ray, and a nice deal with the HD DVD gang could soften that blow (as well as allow them to hawk their wares to more customers).