HD DVD

Red Dragon

Fans of Manhunter will continue to debunk Red Dragon as a lifeless remake, but in reality it is far from the disaster that many have made it out to be. It is ultimately a worthy attempt to serve up an adaptation of the first chapter in the Lecter trilogy while providing a level of intertextual continuity not offered by Mann's film. The end result is not a masterpiece on the same level as The Silence of the Lambs or Hannibal, but to be honest it was never going to be, and the final product - a smart, competent thriller featuring a highly qualified cast and slick production values - is as good a result as anyone could have reasonably expected.

I continue DVD Times' HD DVD coverage with a review of Red Dragon, the first of the various Hannibal Lecter films to arrive in high definition. This unfairly maligned readaptation of Thomas Harris's gripping novel is given an impressive presentation and is stacked with an array of bonus materials.

Red Dragon

My copy of the recently released HD DVD of Red Dragon (R0 USA) arrived this morning. Some general notes and observations follow.

First of all, this release includes all the extras from the standard definition 2-disc "Director's Edition" release, and yes, that includes the isolated score with commentary by composer Danny Elfman, which is not listed on the packaging or in any of the online reviews I've read so far (which makes me wonder if some of these reviewers even bother to look at the bonus features, or just write some general blather using the press release as a guide). The menu system is the same generic style used for Unleashed: just the Universal logo with a menu pane down the left-hand side and some score from the film playing in the background. It would seem that Universal has abandoned its short-lived habit of playing a montage of footage behind the menu (see Serenity and The Bourne Supremacy).

The transfer is, in all but one area, excellent. Red Dragon on DVD was always one of the better-looking standard definition releases I'd seen, but the HD DVD naturally takes it to a whole new level. Sharpness is almost always exemplary, except in areas in which the shot itself seemed to have been defocused. A lot of this film takes place in darkness, and the shadows are magnificently deep, with excellent contrast across the board. Colour reproduction is fabulous too, and little things like the red lettering in the opening credits, which were rather smudged and diffuse on the DVD (due to the low resolution of 720x480 being further reduced for primary colours due to MPEG2's half resolution colour storage - a problem which still exists in the new formats like VC1 and H.264, but which is offset by the much higher source resolution of 1920x1080), are smooth and crisp here. There are also no compression artefacts visible, while the grain is handled very well. Red Dragon was shot in anamorphic Panavision and, as such, has an inherently finer grain density than Super35 films like Serenity and The Bourne Supremacy. On certain occasions, however, the grain does become more pronounced, such as when Graham is investigating the Leeds' bedroom at around the 18 minute mark, and it is handled very well. On a related note, it should be pointed out that this, like Tomb Raider and Sleepy Hollow, comes from a film element rather than a digital intermediate, and as such it looks a little more "film-like" than DI-sourced material like Constantine and Unleashed, exhibiting a very slight telecine "wobble" and a smattering of film artefacts (which I have no problem with at all, as this is how it was meant to look).

The downside is something that I haven't seen in any Universal HD DVD releases until now, and that is edge enhancement - and it is at times rather pronounced. As with the Warner titles I've seen, Million Dollar Baby and Constantine, both of which have been edge enhanced, it's quite high frequency, so the halos are fairly thin and only tend to affect highly contrasted edges. Unfortunately, due to the visual style of the film, these crop up quite often, such as the opening credits sequence, in which the camera crawls over pages of typed lettering and handwriting. The edge enhancement seems to be almost entirely horizontal, so while you won't see any ringing at the top and bottom of objects, it can be quite pronounced at the sides.

Once again, though, I must impress on you that this is, in every other respect, a top-drawer transfer. It's a shame to see Universal sullying their track record with the use of edge enhancement, which makes this the weakest of their HD DVDs that I've seen so far, but it's still very much a mid to high 8/10, and compares very favourably to anything I've seen from either Warner or Paramount.

Update, September 23, 2006 08:07 PM: Oops, not quite all the extras have been ported over. The theatrical and teaser trailers are nowhere to be found.

DVDs section completed

Huzzah! The brand new Movable Type-powered DVDs section is now completed, and I can finally give my aching fingers a rest. Actually I can't, because I really need to get to work on some DVD and HD DVD reviews that I've been putting off for too long. Still, writing about films is considerably more fun than copying and pasting data for hours on end.

You may also notice that I've gone back to my previous posts regarding the new DVDs section and removed the links to the placeholder preview, replacing the clickable URLs with text that looks like this. I'll be doing this from now on with any material that has "expired", in an attempt to eradicate or at least cut down on dead links on the site.

Update, December 19, 2006 06:37 PM: Fixed dead links.

Major HD DVD announcements from Warner

Source: High-Def Digest

One of the biggest criticisms levelled against both high definition formats has been the relative lack of "triple-A" movies. This is not in itself particularly surprising, as the studios, always keen to make a buck, have initially been releasing less successful titles in the hope that, given the dearth of available films, AV junkies will buy titles they otherwise wouldn't consider simply because there isn't anything else on offer. The run-up to Christmas was always going to be the point at which the studios really kicked into gear, and it seems that Warner, who have been unusually sluggish when announcing new releases (often very close to the release date), have finally decided to kick things up a notch with the following releases on October 10th:

- Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971 version)
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005 version)
- Corpse Bride
- Batman Begins
- The Polar Express

These titles will be encoded in VC1 at 1080p, with 640 Kbps Dolby Digital-Plus audio. The extras will be the same as those of the standard definition DVD releases, apart from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Batman Begins, which, in addition to the standard definition extras, will both gain an "In-Movie Experience" interactive feature.

Warner also announced two Blu-ray releases for the same date - Syriana and 16 Blocks, both of which are already available on HD DVD. They too will be using the VC1 format, unlike Sony, who continue to insist on using the outdated and bloated MPEG2. This should mean that image quality will be identical to the HD DVD versions (unless they need to be re-encoded in order to fit on the lower capacity Blu-ray discs), although the higher price tag of $34.99 (versus $28.99 for the HD DVD releases) means that, once again, there is nothing appealing about the Blu-ray versions.

PS3 games to come with free Blu-ray movies?

Source: High-Def Digest

Industry insiders are suggesting that Sony will be bundling free Blu-ray movies along with game releases. No, you didn't read that wrong: they're not bundling them with the console itself, but along with games. I'm starting to smell the strench of desperation. "Buy Sonic the Hedgehog and get a free copy of the classic Little Man!" as Lyris put it.

On a related note, Engadget is reporting that Warner Home Video have apparently come up with a means of creating a triple format HD DVD/Blu-ray/DVD disc. This doesn't mean that the same data can be read by both players, but rather, much like the HD DVD/DVD combo discs being offered by Warner and Universal for some titles, that multiple differently formatted layers are included. This is certainly an extremely interesting development, but I have to wonder how many studios are likely to pay the licensing costs for three formats, as well as the unavoidable increase in manufacturing costs.

Universal boss takes swipe at Blu-ray

Source: AV Science Forum

Recently there has been some speculation from the Blu-ray camp that Universal, currently the only one of the big-name studios exclusively committed to HD DVD (as opposed to Paramount and Warner, who release for both formats, and Sony, Disney and Fox, who are currently Blu-ray exclusives), would begin releasing Blu-ray material as well. A comment from Universal Home Entertainment president Craig Kornblau, however, has pretty much put the final nail in that coffin:

"The reviews are in and HD DVD is hands down the leader in picture quality, audio experiences and interactive capabilities that have never been seen before," said Kornblau.

"Look at the blogs, look at the reviews by the early adopters and even look at the mainstream media - HD DVD has maintained its first-to-market advantage and delivered on the promises of providing the best high definition image and sound quality at the best value for consumers today. Take today's announcement of new players from Toshiba, new PC hardware from Niveus and new titles like 'The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,' and add the hardware and movies that are coming this Fall and you can see why HD DVD is poised for a strong holiday."

Given that, in order to succeed, HD DVD is going to need all the support it can get, this should certainly be welcome news for backers of the format.