Blu-ray

So who’s in on this HD DVD thang?

With no new HD DVD releases in the US until near the end of the month, it’s sometimes a little tempting to think that Toshiba and their buddies have forgotten about us (and this is not help by the jeering of the Blu-ray fanboys, who seem to be in high spirits about the fact that Amazon has a Blu-ray sale on, which is causing titles to fly off the shelves). Therefore, this post is for any HD DVD-only people who are currently feeling a little down in the dumps. This morning, I came across a link to a PowerPoint presentation with Toshiba’s name plastered all over it, presumably intended as a morale booster for current HD DVD partners, as well as an advertisement for any companies considering joining the party. Anyway, it gives some rather insteresting details regarding the state of the format at the moment, and what we can expect in the next year or so.

HD DVD supporting hardware manufacturers:
Toshiba
Onkyo
Meridian
Shinco
RCA
Jiankui
Liteon
Alco
Microsoft
Hewlett-Packard
Acer
LG
Fujitsu-Siemens
Samsung
Alpine
NEC
Broadcom

HD DVD encoding partners:
Toshiba
Microsoft
Memory-Tech
DTS
Dolby
Ulead
Sonic
Plasmon
Datarius
Singulus Technologies

HD DVD authoring and disc replicators:
Imagion
CMC
Digital Media Production
DVDPartners
Infinia
Deluxe Digital Studios
Technicolor
Sonopress
Cinram
MPO
QOL
Duplico

HD DVD supporting distributors:
Paramount
Universal
Warner
Eagle Rock
DVD International
Studio Canal
Pathé
France Télévisions Distribution
LCJ
Wild Side Video
2 Entertain
Imagion
EMS
Universum Film
Kinowelt
Nixbu
Opus Arte
SPV
Optimum
Momentum
Twister
ILC
PIAS
Filmax
DeAPlaneta
Sandre Metronome
Cecchi Gori
Contantin Film
Concorde
Inakustik

Projected number of titles by end of 2007:
UK/Ireland: 250
France: 270
Germany/Austria/Switzerland: 250
Spain: 180
Italy: 170
Benelux: 200
Nordic countries: 200

If you have PowerPoint, I strongly urge you to check out the full document. It’s full of lots of interesting information about available and upcoming hardware and titles, including a lot of stuff that, to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t been replicated elsewhere. For instance, did you know that Wild Side Video in France (I think) is planning to release Pan’s Labyrinth on HD DVD in April?

And yes, that’s right, Samsung are getting on board the HD DVD gravy train, at least as far as laptops are concerned. Perhaps this is a direct result of Sony throwing them under the bus last year during the whole Blu-ray image quality debacle?

HD DVD outselling Blu-ray in Europe by more than 4:1

Source: Lyris Lite

Blu-ray may be catching up and, in some cases, overtaking HD DVD sales in North America, but a look at the situation in Europe paints a very different picture. Over here, HD DVD accounts for 85% of next generation video sales (including both players and discs). Obviously, the Playstation 3 has yet to launch in this part of the world, which, in conjunction with the outrageous pricing of standalone players, is making the average customer less likely to get into high definition video playback, but the HD DVD sales are definitely heartening. Evidence, perhaps, that Europe is not going to be suckered by Sony’s pomp and empty promises.

Blu-ray review: American Psycho

Looking at this Blu-ray release of American Psycho, I am left with the unshakable feeling that Lions Gate put the least possible amount of effort into it. With a shoddy transfer that should never have been allowed through quality control, and a greatly pared-down array of extras, this disc really should not have been released in its current state.

I’ve provided a review for the transfer, audio and bonus content of Lions Gate’s recent Blu-ray release of American Psycho.

I haven’t reviewed the film itself this time round, just the technical elements of the disc. American Psycho is a film that demands an in-depth treatment which, at the moment, I don’t really have the time, inspiration or motivation to give. Therefore, rather than waffle out a couple of putrid paragraphs, I’ve skipped the film portion of the review so I can get the word out regarding this crummy-looking disc as quickly as possible. If you’re interested in reading about the film itself, I recommend D.J. Nock’s coverage of the standard definition release. It’s an appraisal that I more or less agree with 100%, and it’s better than anything I could have written within a reasonable time frame.

HD cross-contamination

A couple of interesting high definition title announcements have been made in the last few days, not because of the films themselves, but because of how they play into this whole format war. As you probably know, the rights to many films are owned by different studios depending on where you live in the world - so, for example, Paramount owns Titanic in the US, but 20th Century Fox has the rights in Europe. This, as you can probably imagine, is pretty significant as far as the HD format war is concerned, because it means that a title that might be Blu-ray or HD DVD exclusive in one region may be available in the other format (or both formats) in another, as is the case with Gangs of New York, which is owned by the Blu-ray exclusive Disney in the US, and the Blu-ray exclusive EIV in the UK, but the format-neutral Manga Films has it in Spain (and is planning to release it this month).

Recently, a Sony Pictures title, The Holiday, was announced for release on April 2nd in Europe on HD DVD by Universal (just under a month after its Blu-ray release in the US). Meanwhile, Basic Instinct, already available on HD DVD from Studio Canal in Europe, has just been announced by Lions Gate in the US for release on Blu-ray on May 29th.

It’s a confusing situation, but an exciting one all the same. It means that, in several cases, it’s wrong to call a title “exclusive”, because just because it is released on one format only in, say, North America, doesn’t mean that it won’t be released on the other elsewhere. This is made doubly fun by the lack of region coding on HD DVD releases. Blu-ray releases are more problematic, given that the format is split into three regions - although, of course, region coding is optional, and the likes of Warner and Paramount have yet to use it at all, while Sony only uses it on catalogue releases. (Fox, as usual, is region coding everything, and overcharging for the privilege of owning these booby-trapped discs.) Of course, where this really becomes interesting is when you factor in variables like image quality and extras. The Studio Canal HD DVD of Total Recall, for example, is widely regarded to feature a better transfer than its Blu-ray counterpart from Lions Gate - although, like a number of Studio Canal titles, it suffers from an audio glitch, whereby the sound is pitched a semitone too high (note that this is not PAL speed-up, which many people are mistaking it for). Additionally, Basic Instinct is presented on HD DVD without any extras: the rights to the various bonus materials from the standard definition release are presumably owned by Lions Gate, so it will be interesting to see whether any of them make it on to the upcoming Blu-ray release. I’ll also be interested to hear how the transfers compare: Basic Instinct on HD DVD looks rather poor, with a lot of DVNR artefacts and some distracting softness (of course, the Blu-ray release could end up looking even worse, if American Psycho is any indication of Lions Gate’s treatment of catalogue titles).

It’s an intriguing situation, to say the least. I intend to pick up HD DVD copies of the “Blu-ray exclusive” Gangs of New York and Underworld: Evolution from Spain, plus any other titles which catch my eye. The moral of the story is that, just because your favourite film is not available on your format of choice in one country, doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to get it elsewhere. (Of course, there are plenty of cases where the same studio owns the rights to a title throughout the world, as is the case with Disney’s animated features, and Sony’s Spider-man, and Universal’s King Kong, so don’t get your hopes up too high.)

HD DVD and Blu-ray: no winner in 2007, says expert

Source: High-Def Digest

Strong sales for both HD DVD and Blu-ray hardware and software have been reported at this year’s DisplaySearch Flat Panel Display Conference, but experts are warning that it is extremely unlikely that a winner will emerge within the year.

“Some studio chiefs have claimed to have won, but quite honestly the war continues,” said conference speaker Vito Mandato, an executive consultant to Paramount Home Entertainment.

Mandato went on to forecast that the number of high-def hardware units in homes by the end of 2007 will be a draw between the two competing formats.

More interesting snippets of informatino include Mandato’s estimate that only 22% of Playstation 3 owners buy movies on a regular basis, which, if true, quashes Sony and Fox’s attempts to count every single PS3 sold as a sale for Blu-ray.

I’m no expert, but I think Mandato’s interpretation of the situation makes a lot of sense. Certain members of the Blu-ray crowd have been using the current lack of HD DVD titles, plus the coinciding increasing Blu-ray sales, as “proof” that HD DVD is doomed, but I find these claims to be a little premature. Indeed, sales figures at DVDEmpire.com show that, for the first week of March, HD DVD software sales have once again begun to outstrip Blu-ray sales, in spite of the comparative lack of new releases. My prediction is that we’ll see the various graphs begin to level out as we draw nearer to summer. Will we see any studios breaking rank, though? To tell you the truth, I’m considerably less optimistic about that than I was a few months ago, but I don’t think we should rule anything out.

Business is booming

Blu-ray sales have just shot through the roof at Amazon.com, thanks to the site discounting over 40 titles to half price (meaning that 20th Century Fox titles now cost the same as a normal Blu-ray disc). If this is part of a concerted effort at Camp Blu-ray to boost their sales, it seems to be working. Indeed, they’ve managed to sucker me in - the opportunity to upgrade to a high definition copy of the delightful cheese-fest that is Resident Evil: Apocalypse for only $14.49 was to enticing to pass up. You may remember that I pre-ordered this title back in May 2006, when my first HD player was going to be of the Blu-ray variety, and when the title was going to be released in June. When those plans fell through, I cancelled it - as did Sony, who, in the end, didn’t actually release this title until January 16th 2007. Well, now it seems that what was originally going to be one of my first ever HD titles will be winging its way to me after all, a mere nine months later than originally planned.

Predictably, certain Blu-ray fanboys are whooping and cheering, clearly of the belief that this is proof that HD DVD is finished. Obviously, they fail to understand the concept of a sale: the whole point is to shift more copies. What did people expect to happen? Do they not think that something similar would happen if a bunch of HD DVD titles got a 50% discount? Of course, the massive rise in sales can only be followed by an even more massive plummet as customers, having frittered away their entire movie-buying budget in the sale, hold off on the buying for the next several weeks.

DreamWorks goes fishing in the HD pond

Source: DVD Times (1, 2)

Back in February, I reported on a rumour that DreamWorks was preparing to jump into the world of high definition with HD DVD and Blu-ray releases of Dreamgirls and Flags of our Fathers. The rumours, it would seem, were true, as an official announcement was made today about both titles. They will be coming to both formats in May (the 1st for Dreamgirls, the 22nd for Flags of our Fathers). Distributed by DreamWorks’ parent company Paramount, both will be 2-disc special editions, reproducing the extras from their standard definition counterparts in 1080p or 1080i high definition (although, for some reason, Dreamgirls’ image gallery seems to have gone bye-bye). Neither film is one that I’m wild to see, but it’s great to see DreamWorks finally jumping into the fray, and with what appear to be extremely impressive releases to boot. I really hope to see HD releases of American Beauty and Gladiator before too long…

That Trojan horse never looked so wooden

According to the News of the World, Troy is “the greatest sword and sandal epic of all time”. Well, I don’t know about that (although something tells me that this is a little unlikely), but I do know that this is yet another high definition title that received rave reviews despite being, well, fairly average-looking. It’s simply not very detailed at all, and there is some ugly ringing around highly contrasted edges. Odd, then, that the Warner logo at the very start of the film basically looked flawless, and yet, as soon as the first image appeared on the screen, it immediately felt as if I was watching the thing through a dirty window.

Where did I get a hold of Troy from? Well, Lyris received a Toshiba HD-E1 (the European equivalent of the American HD-A1) HD DVD player to review today, and Toshiba were kind enough to bundle the disc with it. These companies really need to start selecting better titles to include as review samples! Panasonic, after all, included the mediocre-looking Fantastic 4 with their DMP-BD10 Blu-ray player as well. Discs like these really don’t make good first impressions - why not throw in something that’s more or less flawless like Corpse Bride, if you want that pristine digital look, or Serenity or The Descent if you want something rich and film-like? At least Microsoft had the right idea and included a copy of the magnificent-looking King Kong with the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on.

On a related note, Lyris has done a very nice rant about the underwhelming quality of so many Blu-ray releases on his new site. It’s well worth a read, and there’s even a nice picture of the hideous-looking American Psycho for you to marvel at.

Blu-ray review: Flightplan

Flightplan is one of the better-looking Blu-ray releases I’ve seen so far, with any visual flaws being inherent in the master rather than the fault of incompetent encoding. Once again, though, HD customers are being short-changed in terms of extras for no apparent reason. With an efficient codec like VC-1, and 50 GB of available space, there should be no reason to lose a few standard definition extras, but Disney have somehow managed to do so anyway. The Blu-ray exclusive extras, meanwhile, are not impressive enough in their own right to entice people to double-dip.

Jodie Foster trades one enclosed space for another, this time becoming trapped in a plane rather than a Panic Room. I’ve reviewed Disney’s Region A release of Flightplan, which, in comparison with the DVD, gains a solid transfer but loses some extras.

Blu-ray 13

My copy of the Blu-ray release of Luc Besson’s District B13 (Banlieue 13 in its native France) arrived today from Amazon.com. This is one of my few high definition blind buys so far, and I’m glad I picked it up, because, while it’s hardly a masterpiece, it really is very entertaining stuff - the sort of fast, fun, unpretentious action film Hollywood wishes it could make but can’t. I continue to be impressed with the way that Besson manages to take a Hollywoodish sense of entertainment and distil it into something decidedly European. This isn’t quite as good as the earlier Unleashed, which had more appealing characters, or Léon, which remains my favourite Besson film and the closest I’ve ever seen to an action film that is a genuine masterpiece, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, and, at 84 minutes, it’s about as unbloated as you can get.

Magnolia Home Entertainment’s transfer, meanwhile, is another matter. It’s an MPEG2 encode, and the source seems to have been a 1080i master. Like Lethal Weapon, Full Metal Jacket and a handful of other Warner releases, it’s “bobbed”, resulting in jagged diagonal lines and some noticeable moiré. There’s also a fair amount of edge enhancement on display, and the level of detail is decidedly inconsistent. Some shots are razor-sharp, others look like upconverted standard definition. It’s nice to see one of the smaller players getting involved with HD, but I hope they’re able to step up their game, because transfers like this go some way towards negating the whole point of a format that’s supposed to be all about delivering optimal image quality in the first place.

Of course, the less said about the cover art, the better.

DVDs I bought or received in the month of February

• American Psycho (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Babel (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• Beatrice Cenci (R2 France, SD DVD)
• The Descent (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Enemy of the State (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Kingdom of Heaven (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Masters of Horror: Pelts (R1 USA, SD DVD)
• Perversion Story (R0 USA, SD DVD)
• This Film is Not Yet Rated (R1 USA, SD DVD)

As you can see, a rather blue month for me - put that down to the giddy thrills of a new format to play around with. I suspect that, in future months, as the HD DVD side continues to ramp up production, there will be a more even split between the two formats as far as purchases are concerned.

Warner talks HD

Source: Home Theater Forum

On Monday night, in a live chat with Home Theater Forum, Warner Home Video unveiled some of its plans for the next year, including a considerable amount of material pertaining to HD DVD and Blu-ray. I’ve selected a few of what I consider the most important announcements:

• Warner’s intention, wherever possible, seems to be to keep bonus content the same across the board for DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray (although, obviously, DVD releases won’t be able to have In-Movie Experience features).
   
• Warner isn’t commenting on New Line’s releases, as they only handle distribution, not content.
   
• North by Northwest will not be released until 2009, its 50th anniversary. A new master will be created, since the one used for the DVD release is 1080i only. (Hopefully they won’t go overboard with the DVNR this time, then.)
   
• Michael Mann’s Heat is due to be released in 2008.
   
• A deluxe Blade Runner box set will be coming out later this year, with comparable extras to the standard definition release (presumably this also means that it will feature an extravaganza of different cuts of the film).
   
• Deliverance, Poltergeist and LA Confidential will all be coming out this year, the former as a 35th anniversary edition and the latter as a 10th anniversary edition.
   
• Many Kubrick titles, originally expected in 2006, will see the light of day this year.
   
• The studio is considering new high definition masters of Hammer films for DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray.
   
• There will be many further high definition announcements in the next few weeks.

By the very nature of these web chats, it’s all still a little sketchy at this stage. Most glaring is the fact that the ongoing Blu-ray interactivity issues (which apparently are causing Warner to hold back a lot of titles with the In-Movie Experience, on both Blu-ray and HD DVD, in order to avoid accusations of “favouritism”) are not discussed, so we’re still no closer to knowing when the big guns like the Matrix trilogy will be seeing the light of day (although a tentative schedule does exist for France, where the local Warner division presumably couldn’t give two hoots about the people whining about “favouritism”). Still, some good titles have been confirmed, and I for one look forward to seeing what else gets announced in the coming weeks.

HD DVD extravaganza

After a slow start in 2007, the HD DVD ball seems finally to be starting to roll with the announcement of some of highly anticipated titles being added to the schedule. First of all, Warner has finally broken their silence and added A Scanner Darkly and Dog Day Afternoon to their slate, both announced for both HD DVD and Blu-ray with a street date of April 10th. The former is one that I purposefully held off buying in standard definition because I suspected that an HD release couldn’t be too far off. The latter… well, I must confess I’ve never seen it, but Sidney Lumet and Al Pacino sounds like a solid combination, and I’m aware of how highly it’s regarded.

Perhaps even more significant, however, is the appearance on the HD DVD Promotion Group’s site, www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com, of a banner announcing the song and dance razzmatazz extravaganza Dreamgirls as “coming soon to HD DVD”. Why is this big news? Why, because this would be the first DreamWorks title to appear on either high definition format. Because DreamWorks is owned by the format-neutral Paramount, a Blu-ray release is presumably on the cards too, with a March 20th release date being rumoured but not confirmed.

It’s all good news as far as I’m concerned. It’s always great to see a new studio jumping into the HD arena, especially a heavyweight like DreamWorks (sign me up for HD American Beauty and Gladiator).

Update, February 21st, 2007 11:24 PM: Better add Clint Eastwood’s Flags of our Fathers to the DreamWorks list too.

District Blu-ray

I’ve ordered a copy of the US Blu-ray release of Luc Besson’s District B13 (also known as District 13 and Banlieue 13, depending on where you live in the world) from Amazon.com. You may remember me mentioning back in August that it was coming to HD DVD in September courtesy of Magnolia Home Entertainment. Well, surprise surprise, it failed to materialise, despite Magnolia having released other titles on the format. It did, however, show up out of the blue on Blu-ray that same month, without even a press announcement, as far as I’m aware (they seem to have done the same with their release of The World’s Fastest Indian on both formats last Tuesday). Anyway, Amazon was the only store I could find that was stocking it, so it seems that this disc is in short supply. I’ve not seen the film myself, and, not owning any other Magnolia titles, I’ve no idea what to expect from them in terms of quality or even technical specs. Given that not a single review exists for it, this is going to be very much a case of stepping into the deep end.

Blu-ray review: Enemy of the State

Disney’s Blu-ray release of Enemy of the State screams “catalogue title”. With no additional extras and a transfer based on an old master that really isn’t of an acceptable standard in 2007, this is yet another release that’s difficult to recommend to all but the most ardent fans of the film. While it’s undoubtedly better than the standard definition DVD, it could, and should, have been so much better than this.

Continuing DVD Times’ high definition coverage, I’ve reviewed the Blu-ray release of Enemy of the State, a rather underwhelming disc with paltry extras and a disappointing transfer.

Gangs of New York coming to HD DVD after all!

Source: Zona DVD

Remember how back in September I posted that UK distributor Entertainment In Video was planning on releasing Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York on HD DVD? If so, you’ll probably also remember that in October I posted that bad news that EIV was backing Blu-ray exclusively. In any event, their slate of titles ended up being put back to March 2007 (presumably to coincide with the upcoming European launch of the Playstation 3), and I can now report that, thankfully, we don’t have to wait for EIV to put out their version, only to discover that it’s region-coded, because the good folks at Manga Films in Spain are putting out an HD DVD version in March too. No specifications are currently available, and the release date isn’t any more specific than “March”, but I’ll update you with details as they emerge. With this, plus other interesting titles such as Asterix and the Vikings, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, not to mention Blu-ray “exclusives” like Underworld: Evolution and Saw, Spain is turning out to be an unexpectedly good source of titles for HD DVD owners.

Babbling about Babel

My review copy of the HD DVD release of Babel arrived today, via DVD Pacific. This is the first HD DVD I’ve picked up all month, due to the complete dearth of titles available for the format, and I’m happy to report that it’s a rip-roaring success. Shot in a combination of 16mm, 35mm spherical and 35mm anamorphic, the greatly divergent visual styles could have spelled disaster, but thankfully whoever encoded this disc knew their stuff. This is Paramount’s first AVC title, having previously used VC-1 for all their releases (their Blu-ray versions, meanwhile, continue to be MPEG2, since Sony handles that side of the deal), and, in contrast to the over-compressed Wolf Creek from The Weinstein Company, there is very little in the way of artefacting on display here. There are a lot of scenes that must have been hard to compress, from the shaky-cam grainy look of Morocco to the pulsating lights in the various Japanese nightclubs, and occasionally you can spot the odd slip-up if you’re paying close attention, but otherwise this is more or less (and I usually hate to use this term) a reference quality transfer. Detail is exemplary, colour and contrast are variable but appropriate, and there is only the slightest hint of minor edge enhancement in a handful of shots. All in all, a very high 9/10.

The film itself is very good too. Alejandro González Iñárritu builds on the fractured narrative style of his previous films, Amores Perros and 21 Grams, using the same concept of disparate events involving unconnected characters coming together in different ways, although this time on a global rather than local scale. In broadening the scope, he loses some of the intimacy and focus of 21 Grams, but it’s a great film nonetheless and one that I would certainly like to see pick up a few Oscars in a week’s time.

The latest Sony lies

Source: AV Science Forum

Sony’s CEO (Howard Stringer, I believe) has weighed into criticisms of his company’s Playstation 3 console in a recent interview with the magazine EGM. Unfortunately, the full article doesn’t seem to be available online, but a kindly forum member did post some highlights, from which I have selected some real gems:

If you can find a PS3 anywhere in North America that’s been on shelves for more than five minutes, I’ll give you 1,200 bucks for it.

(Referring to the number of PS3s languishing on store shelves)

…it personally wasn’t all that compelling to me. We feel that vibration is not part of our future.

(On the lack of a vibration function on the PS3 gamepad)

I think Nintendo is trying to find their place in the market.

(Referring to the Nintendo Wii)

I don’t know if ultimately has the horses to do that.

(On the Wii attracting new consumers)

The mistake we made in UMD as a movie format was assuming the movie studios understood our consumers and their tastes… that they knew what they were doing.

(Oh, so that’s why UMD failed! Once again it’s everyone else’s fault!)

To ultimately be successful, you have to believe that every consumer matters.

Gold, sheer comedy gold.

And so the delays begin

Source: High-Def Digest

Remember when the Blu-ray camp announced a massive array of titles at CES in January, to be released during the first half of this year? Well, Fox, never one to break its promises, has indefinitely postponed a considerable chunk of that line-up. Eleven titles now no longer have a release date, among them two of the films I was most looking forward to on the format, Hannibal and The Silence of the Lambs. It just goes to show that the Blu-ray team may indeed have shot themselves in the foot by making so much noise about their software releases at CES. While the HD DVD studios will presumably spend the next few months announcing titles that are actually coming out, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Fox, Disney, Sony et al announcing further delays and cancellations.

See? When you announce your entire six-month slate of releases at a single event rather than staggering them over a longer period, the only possible news you can announce from then on will be of the bad variety. I hate to say “I told you so”, but…

Delivery debacle

My copy of the Blu-ray release of Ridley Scott’s director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven arrived today from DVD Pacific. At 194 minutes, this is one of the longest title to be released on either of the two HD formats, as far as I’m aware beaten only by the 198-minute Spartacus on HD DVD. Anyway, on DVD, this cut of Kingdom of Heaven came in a lavish four-disc set, splitting the film across the first two and showcasing a wealth of extras on discs three and four. For the Blu-ray release, all of the extras, barring the trailer, have been disposed of. And why? Would it really have been so hard for them to include an extra disc - even a standard DVD9 or two - including the extras? Was space on the BD50 really so scarce that they couldn’t toss in the three audio commentaries at a low bit rate? The first question can be answered by simply stating that Fox are cheapskates and have already built up a reputation for diddling customers over when it comes to extras on their Blu-ray releases. The second question can also be answered by going down the “Fox are cheapskates” route: instead of licensing a more efficient codec, they chose to encode the movie using bloated old MPEG2, and in doing so ensured that the only element of the disc that’s “Beyond High Definition” is the pop-up menu.

Anyway, what of the transfer itself? It’s impressive, and in the upper echelon of Blu-ray efforts. No, it’s not The Descent or Silent Hill, and it doesn’t hold a candle to HD DVD greats like Serenity and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, or even almost-but-not-quite titles like King Kong and The Adventures of Robin Hood. It is very good, though: a solid 8/10 affair marred only by some artefacting in the opening snow-laden scenes (MPEG2, look at you!) and some mild but persistent edge enhancement. Obviously, I’ve not watched the entire film yet, so I may uncover some additional problems when I go through it with a fine toothcomb, but first impressions would put it more or less on a level with Constantine and Robin Hood Daffy.

My copy of the French collector’s edition DVD release of Lucio Fulci’s Beatrice Cenci also arrived today, from FNAC, along with the two most recent “Grande Collection” Asterix books (interesting that one, shipped on the final day of the last month from Amazon.fr, arrived on the same day as the other, shipped four days ago from FNAC). I’ve given it the once-over, and it appears to have a decent if unremarkable transfer (it’s 1.85:1, which appears to be the intended aspect ratio, although some of the opening credits on the right-hand side are barely contained within the frame on a zero-overscan display), although the lack of English subtitles is going to be a bit of a pain. Still, at least my French (rudimentary) is better than my Italian (non-existent), so I suppose I can probably just about muddle through with the help of the subtitles.