HD DVD

Belleville belle vue

My copy of the French HD DVD release of Les Triplettes de Belleville arrived this morning from FNAC - a lovely surprise, as I’d completely forgotten it was being released at the end of October and had no idea it was on its way.

For me, this release is a huge deal, because it’s the first full-length traditionally animated film I’ve owned on HD DVD (the next is likely to be Asterix and the Vikings, also due out in France at the beginning of December). I’ve already seen the three Looney Tunes shorts that are included on The Adventures of Robin Hood HD DVD, which made my salivate for more, as well as Satoshi Kon’s Paprika on Blu-ray, but the latter featured a somewhat underwhelming transfer, while the visual style did absolutely nothing for me (anime generally does little for me anyway, particularly when its flat, bland, stilted, washed-out anime like the kind found in Paprika).

Many people are under the misconception that animation doesn’t benefit from HD as much as live action, but my opinion has always been that the exact opposite is true, as I hope the screenshots I’ve posted below prove. Les Triplettes de Belleville looks amazing, with the improved definition really allowing you to appreciate the line work of the pencil animation and the level of detail in the backgrounds. Oh, and as an added bonus, it’s in its intended aspect ratio of 1.66:1, unlike the DVD, which was over-matted to 1.78:1.

It’s not a completely perfect release: the low bit rate of 9.16 GB is slightly too stingy for the encoder to cope with some of the more visually complex shots. In motion, the artefacts that you might be able to see in some of the screenshots below are nothing like as noticeable - in fact, I hardly noticed any of them when I was actually watching the film - but they could probably have been avoided had an HD30 been used instead of an HD15.

Still, all in all a very nice release indeed, and one that means I can now retired my 2-disc standard definition DVD version (all of the extras have been ported over, even if they are, by necessity, PAL to NTSC standards conversions).

Les Triplettes de Belleville
(France Télévisions Éditions, France, VC-1, 9.16 GB)

DVDs I bought or received in the month of October

• Black Book (R0 USA, Blu-ray)
• Dawn of the Dead (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Day of the Dead (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Fallen Angel (R2 UK, DVD)
• The Fly (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Halloween (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Inferno (R2 Italy, DVD)
• The Jungle Book: Platinum Edition (R0 USA, DVD)
• Masters of Horror: Season 1, Volume 1 (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Masters of Horror: Season 1, Volume 2 (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Mission Impossible III (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• Nikita/Subway (R2 UK, DVD)
• Oldboy (R0 UK, Blu-ray)
• Seed of Chucky (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• The Stendhal Syndrome (R0 USA, DVD)
• Suspiria: Definitive Edition (R2 Italy, DVD)
• Veronica Mars: The Complete Third Season (R1 USA, DVD)

No question about it, this was a very Blu month. A very expensive one too, although at least I managed to snag three review copies.

Halloween HD DVD review: Underworld: Extended Cut

In terms of bonus content, Sony Pictures’ recent US Blu-ray release of Underworld, which ports over most of the extras from the standard definition release of the extended cut, is definitely preferable. For those who are restricted to HD DVD only, however, this release provides a magnificent audio-visual presentation of the film that I struggle to imagine being bettered.

Concluding this year’s Halloween special, I’ve reviewed Concorde Home Entertainment’s HD DVD release of Underworld, a film which may not offer much in the way of seasonal cheer, but at least has vampires and werewolves in it.

Attention spookmeisters!

Well, in just a few hours it will be All Hallows Eve, and, as promised, I have some spooktacular reviews for you. Unfortunately, the list is somewhat shorter than I would have hoped, due to my coming down with a nasty case of writer’s block, which didn’t clear up in time for me to get through my entire list of titles. Still, here’s what you can expect to see tomorrow:

• Midnight: The Descent (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• 6 AM: Suspiria: Definitive Edition (R2 Italy, DVD)
• 12 PM: Inferno (R2 Italy, DVD)
• 6 PM: Underworld: Extended Cut (R0 Germany, HD DVD)

Unfortunately, I’ll be out at work all day tomorrow, so I won’t be on hand to post links to the reviews themselves until I get home. If you just have to be at the front of the queue, I suggest you loiter around DVD Times and watch out for them as they materialise. Unless you have anything better to do, that is.

Movie madness

Yesterday was quite a delay for deliveries for me, starting with the arrival of the third and final season of Veronica Mars from DVD Pacific. Veronica Mars is not a show that I wholeheartedly adore, but I did enjoy the previous two seasons on DVD to varying degrees, and I found myself with a definite desire to hear how the story ends (although, by all accounts, there is little sense of closure in the final episode due to the amount of confusion as to whether the show would be picked up for a fourth season). If nothing else, the move out of the high school environment which dominated Seasons 1 and 2 should provide a much-needed change of pace, while I understand that, mindful of how difficult it was for viewers to get into the previous seasons midway, the producers broke Season 3 into several “mini-arcs” rather than going for one continuous year-long mystery.

Up next: the 2-disc Collector’s Edition of Mission Impossible 3 on HD DVD, also from DVD Pacific (dang, those guys should be paying me royalties!). From the brief glance that I took at it when it arrived, the transfer is every bit as good as I remembered - a virtually flawless presentation and one of the few times I can remember seeing a film photographed in anamorphic Panavision looking this good in high definition I suspect this is due to the fact that Panavision has lost a considerable amount of popularity with filmmakers in recent years, with Super35 tending to be the preferred process for shooting 2.39:1 titles these days. As a result, most Panavision titles released in HD are older, catalogue titles, many of which come from weaker masters. Not so with Mission Impossible 3, which is crisp and clear throughout, with nary an edge halo or soft shot to be found, and only a couple of compression issues preventing it from receiving full marks (we’re talking 9.9/10 stuff here).

The third and final delivery yesterday was the R2 Italian release of Inferno, from DVD.it. This particular release, which is very interesting, will be the subject of a dedicated post that I hope to upload at some point tonight.

Finally, today, the HD DVD release of Seed of Chucky arrived from, you guessed it, DVD Pacific. (Oh, shut up - I like this film, even if it’s in a “so bad it’s good” way.) I really wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of image quality for this one, but I’m pleased to report that it looks very fine indeed. It comes from a film element rather than a digital intermediate, but it’s one of the best film-sourced HD transfers I’ve seen recently, especially from Universal, who have churned out some decidedly underwhelming-looking catalogue titles this year. A handful of shots, and even a couple of entire scenes, look noticeably softer than the rest of the film, but at its best, it has a nicely crisp appearance without looking processed in any way. A very high 8/10, and it would have been a 9 if not for the softer scenes.

Halloween: what can you expect?

In just a few days’ time, it will be Halloween, and, naturally, I’m planning a splurge of horror-themed reviews for DVD Times. Last year, I concentrated mainly on covering HD DVD releases, but this year, things are going to be a little more balanced across the three formats I cover. So, provided I can actually churn them out within the next 8-9 days, here’s what you can expect to see:

• The Descent (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Halloween (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• House of 1000 Corpses (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Inferno (R2 Italy, DVD)
• Suspiria: Definitive Edition (R2 Italy, DVD)
• Underworld: Extended Cut (R0 Germany, HD DVD)

Now, I’m aware that that’s a bit of a tall order, particularly given that I also have work commitments and my PhD to think about, not to mention a review of the Blu-ray release of Oldboy, plus one of Blue Underground’s new release of The Stendhal Syndrome when it arrives, so I don’t want to promise anything. I’ll do my best to finish as many of them as possible, though.

The optimum Mother of Tears experience

Source: Dark Discussion

Dark Discussion is reporting that Optimum Releasing has picked up the UK distribution rights to Dario Argento’s Mother of Tears, with a view to releasing it on DVD in February or March 2008. A general theatrical release is, unsurprisingly, not planned, but Alan Jones is apparently trying to persuade Optimum to put together a screening of the entire trilogy in London with Argento himself in attendance.

Bear in mind that Optimum are also a supporter of high definition media, currently releasing HD DVDs and also supporting Blu-ray as of November. They haven’t released a whole lot of HD content as of yet, but in their most recent press release they stated an interest in responding to “the demand for a greater variety of product”, so it’s possibly worth contacting them and asking them to consider releasing Mother of Tears on either or both formats. I’ve sent them an email (info@optimumreleasing.com), and I would strongly encourage you to do likewise.

In related news, the soundtrack to Mother of Tears is being released in Italy by the label Edel to coincide with the film’s theatrical release at the end of the month. MovieGrooves hope to have copies in stock by early November, and I’ve already got mine pre-ordered. I’m very curious to hear the score in all its glory - I’ve heard mixed reports about it, but the Jerry Goldsmith/Omen-esque snippets that I’ve heard in various trailers and the like sound quite enticing, and, if nothing else, it suggests something of a change of pace for Argento and Claudio Simonetti.

It’s a mad, mad world

I’m probably going to regret this when my credit card bill arrives, but what can I say? It’s one of my all-time favourite films, if not my absolute favourite, and I’m determined to get the best possible presentation possible, so I’ve ordered both the newly-released Italian 2-disc “Definitive Edition” tin box set of Suspiria from IBS, and the upcoming French 3-disc Collector’s Edition from Amazon.fr.

The situation, as far as I can determine, from various web sites and forums, is this:

The Italian release includes an English 1.0 mono track - not ideal, but, if it is derived from the mono recording that did the rounds back in 1977 at cinemas not equipped to play the film’s quadrophonic mix, then it will still be preferable to the monstrosity present on the Anchor Bay DVD. Also included are Italian 1.0, 5.1 and 5.1 EX mixes, although this surprises me somewhat as the 5.1 EX track presumably renders the 5.1 track irrelevant. English and Italian subtitles are included, as well as the following extras: two Dario Argento interviews, theatrical trailer, TV and radio spots, gallery.

The French release includes no English audio options, and French subtitles are forced when any of the Italian audio options are enabled. These booby traps will not, however, thwart the HMS Whimsy’s skilled navigators. The offered audio options, as per Wild Side’s page on the release, are French mono and Italian mono, stereo and 5.1. The extensive array of extras is described in my previous post.

So there you have it. The Italian tin should be arriving within the next week or so, and, if nothing else, it will look very nice on my shelf next to my French Danny the Dog tin, which features a similar design. I must say I’m really stoked to see this new HD-sourced transfer in action. In an ideal world, I’d be sitting down to watch it in full 1080p on HD DVD, but that doesn’t appear to be on the cards just yet, so, in the meantime, I’m going to have to settle for plain old standard definition.

I am now a gamma-level Thetan

Over the last few days, thanks to me free month of movie rentals from Amazon, I’ve been watching the Mission Impossible films on HD DVD. Surprising as it may seem, this is the first time I’ve seen any of them, and I’d be lying if I said I thought they were brilliant. Actually, I quite enjoyed Brian De Palma’s Mission Impossible, although the only moment that truly stood out for me was a particularly nail-biting sequence involving everyone’s favourite crackpot, Tom Cruise, suspended from the ceiling of a CIA installation and attempting to download a series of files. John Woo’s Mission Impossible II, however, was a tedious wreck, in my opinion.

The best of the bunch, surprisingly, was, for me, J.J. Abrams’ Mission Impossible III. Okay, so it’s essentially just a feature-length episode of Alias, Abrams’ show, with a higher budget and Tom Cruise in the Jennifer Garner role, but that in itself is no bad thing, particularly given that I am quite partial to Alias. It also features by far the best high definition transfer of the series - another home run for Paramount, marred only by some compression problems in a couple of scenes. Okay, so in an ideal world Abrams would just have made an Alias feature film, because I’d much rather watch Garner strut her stuff than the intensely annoying Cruise (Garner is able to frown without smirking at the same time, for one thing), but I suppose this is an adequate compromise. I’ve ordered a copy of the US release, in fact.

Transatlantic Pan

Source: DVD Times

Not long after the specs were discovered for the upcoming UK HD DVD and Blu-ray releases of Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth from Optimum, New Line Cinema have announced their own North American high definition release of the film. Arriving on both HD DVD and Blu-ray on December 26th 2007 (just over a month after its UK counterpart), this edition seems to be the more impressive of the two, boasting a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 audio track and including an “enhanced visual commentary” that, as far as I can gather, is not being offered on Optimum’s release.

I’m glad New Line are releasing this title simultaneously on both formats, after they got pissy about HD DVD’s lack of region coding and decided to delay the HD DVD versions of Hairspray and Rush Hour 3 (not that I’m particularly mourning these titles) to give their international distribution partners a chance to release the films worldwide.

Cat People claws its way back on to the schedule

Source: DVD Times

Previously delayed from its original intended release date of September 25th, the HD DVD version of Paul Schrader’s Cat People has resurfaced, with a new street date of December 26th.

No explanation has been given for this delay, but the optimist in me hopes that the additional time has been spent on making the transfer as good as possible. My pessimist half, however, mindful of the quality of many of Universal’s catalogue HD DVD releases, is somewhat less hopeful.

They even have HD in the Deep South now

Paramount have an extremely impressive track record in the high definition domain, and Black Snake Moan is no exception. I contrast to Warner, who seem to routinely filter pretty much everything, Paramount’s attitude to their modern, digital intermediate-sourced masters is to leave the damn thing alone - a most admirable approach. Black Snake Moan is one of those titles that really “pops” in HD, with richly saturated colours and most scenes taking place in broad daylight. It’s smooth rather than pin sharp, but this seems to be entirely representative of the film’s look.

Black Snake Moan
(Paramount, USA, AVC, 20.8 GB)

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.

Pan’s delights

Source: AV Science Forum

Optimum Home Entertainment have unveiled the bonus materials for their upcoming HD DVD and Blu-ray releases of Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, due out in the UK on November 19th. Impressively, especially considering that all of their HD releases so far have been bare bones, it appears that they intend to port over almost everything that was on their 2-disc standard definition DVD release.

- Director’s commentary
- Director’s prologue (35 secs)
- The Power of the Myth featurette on DVD comics (20 mins)
- El Fauno Y Las Hadas featurette (32 mins)
- The Colour & The Shape featurette (4 mins)
- Director’s notebook (20 mins)
- Storyboard video prologue (26 secs)
- Notebook video prologue (33 secs)
- Storyboard/thumbnail comparisons
- UK theatrical trailer (1 min 06)
- Picture galleries
- Guardian/NFT interview with Guillermo Del Toro (30 mins)
- Where applicable, all have English and Spanish subtitles and English Closed Captions available

As far as I can tell, the “Mercedes Lullaby”, “Guillermo Del Toro and the Green Fairy” and “The Melody Echoes the Fairy Tale” featurettes are absent, as is the poster gallery, but everything else seems to be present and correct.

Obviously, these details may be incomplete or unfinalised, and we still don’t have any confirmation on the release’s technical specs, but this is shaping up to be a very good release. It’s likely to appeal to all those in need of an English-friendly HD release, regardless of whether or not they live in the UK, especially with the US distributor, New Line, currently playing sillybuggers over their HD DVD releases.

DVD image comparison: Silent Hill (SD vs. HD)

I’m just about to go out to attend this enrolment meeting at the university, but before I leave, I thought I’d upload my latest standard definition to high definition image comparison. Today, I take a look at the UK Region 2 DVD release of Christophe Gans’ Silent Hill, surely the best video game adaptation created to date, and see how it compares against the stunning HD DVD recently released in Germany by Concorde Home Entertainment. It can only end in tears.

Walk this way!

DVD image comparison: Underworld (SD vs. HD)

For my second standard definition to high definition image comparison, I’ve pitted the R1 USA 2-disc Unrated Extended Cut release of Underworld from Columbia Tristar against the recent German HD DVD release (also of the extended cut) from Concorde Home Entertainment. In terms of image quality, both are towards the upper echelons of their respective formats, so it’s interesting to see how they compare. Underworld may not have the razor sharpness of King Kong or Silent Hill, but the HD DVD constitutes a very faithful and natural-looking reproduction of the source materials.

Note that a US Blu-ray release by Sony Pictures, featuring an AVC encode, a PCM 5.1 audio track and most (but not all) of the extras from the 2-disc DVD release, is also available. I haven’t seen it so I have no idea how it compares to Concorde’s version.

Have a look!

DVD image comparison: Unleashed (SD vs. HD)

I lied! Despite earlier claiming that it would probably be “a couple of days” before any actual standard definition to high definition comparisons were made available on this site, I decided to go all-out and have one ready for this very night. The first ever Whiggles.com SD vs. HD Image Comparison is for Unleashed, looking at the DVD and HD DVD sides of this combo release.

If you head over to the comparison now, you’ll probably notice that a couple of things have changed from the days when I only pitted one DVD release against another. For a start, the video, audio and extras ratings (out of 10) have been removed, simply because SD and HD are on completely different playing fields, so an actual side by side numerical comparison would be pointless.

Secondly, for my image roll-overs, I have opted to present a portion of each frame rather than the whole thing. This is for two reasons. One, to save bandwidth (although, as I am allocated a terabyte of the stuff every month, I’m not sure that there’s any actual point in this). Two, a full-size HD capture has a resolution of 1920x1080 - I don’t know about you, but that’s more than my desktop resolution. Therefore, to keep things manageable, and to avoid breaking the site’s design, I opted for 720x720 crops. The HD image retains its original resolution, while the SD image is first scaled up to 1920x1080 and then cropped to match its HD counterpart.

With any luck, these changes will be to everyone’s satisfaction, and hopefully you’ll get something out of this first comparison. Unleashed may not be a title that shows off the HD DVD format to its fullest potential, but it constitutes a massive improvement over its SD counterpart, and hopefully the comparison will make this crystal clear.

Enjoy!

HD cartoon capers

A selection of 1080p animated delights for your viewing pleasure.

Corpse Bride
(Warner, USA, VC-1, 11.6 GB)

Rabbit Hood (on The Adventures of Robin Hood HD DVD)
(Warner, USA, VC-1, 1.08 GB)

Robin Hood Daffy (on The Adventures of Robin Hood HD DVD)
(Warner, USA, VC-1, 926 MB)

Click the images above to view them full size.

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.

Zodiac’s great but the DVD ain’t

Yesterday, I received a review copy of the R2 UK release of Zodiac, David Fincher’s latest film. The short story is that it’s a great film, a worthy spiritual successor (of sorts) to Se7en, and you should definitely see it if you haven’t already. For the long story, you’ll have to wait for my full review for DVD Times, which will hopefully be going up on Sunday, ahead of the DVD’s Monday release.

On a side note, it’s been a while since I watched a standard definition DVD of a recent film, and I was horrified by just how shoddy this release of Zodiac looks. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by high definition, but I was genuinely shocked by the amount of artefacting (mostly in the form of mosquito noise and horrible noise reduction smears) on display, not to mention the total lack of fine detail. I think Lyris (who saw it at the cinema) put it best when he said to me that, with high definition and theatrical screenings, you can tell what’s supposed to be in focus because you can see a clear difference in clarity between, say, the actor who is the centre of attention and the background which is of less importance, but, in standard definition, or at least poor quality standard definiton, everything just sort of merges together as a flat, indistinct sea of mush.

Paramount is bringing the director’s cut out on HD DVD in the US on January 8th, and you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be snatching it up and junking the DVD as soon as possible.