Technology

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.

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.

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.

Buy my crap!

After several months of procrastination, I'm finally getting round to hawking the various computer components I no longer need. If you could do with a new computer, why not start putting it together by relieving me of my case, power supply, motherboard and processor. That's right, you yourself may have the privilege of owning:

- Lian Li PC-6070B Silent Black Aluminium case
- Antec NeoPower 480W power supply
- Asus P5AD2 Premium motherboard
- Intel Pentium 4 550 3.4GHz CPU

Imagine that! All of this could be yours! Get bidding!

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

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.

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.

I've seen some bullshit in my time...

...but this has got to take the cake. My dad bought a copy of What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision, a UK technology publication that prides itself on being "The world's No. 1 home entertainment magazine". While flipping through it, Lyris alerted me to an article that reviewed and rated different brands of mains cable. My initial thought was "You must be joking", but, as I sat down and read the one-page exposé from beginning to end, my eyes began to bug out of my sockets, while my jaw grew slacker and slacker with each word I read.

I may not be the world's biggest technology expert, but I can tell you for a fact that many of the claims being made by this article are complete and utter bunkum. Seriously, read it for yourself, soak up the outright nonsense being fabricated by the (curiously enough, uncredited) writer, and then ask yourself how anyone in their right mind could seriously believe £325 to be a worthwhile investment for a power cable. I'm just surprised there wasn't an accompanying article telling you to colour in your music CDs to improve the audio clarity.

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!

Cat People slinks off

Source: AV Science Forum

Proving to be as elusive as the felines themselves, it would seem that Cat People, due out on HD DVD on September 25th, has been removed from Universal's schedule.

While I can't say that I'm about to slit my wrists over this news (unlike certain Blu-ray fans over the recent Paramount announcement), I'm a bit disappointed nonetheless, as I was hoping to upgrade my rather underwhelming-looking standard definition copy. Then again, it may well have been cancelled or postponed (it's unclear which) as a result of a poor master - if they were planning on using the same source as the DVD, they were probably wise to yank it. I'm sure the last thing Universal wants is another Traffic, and I'd rather they took their time releasing quality discs than merely shovelling them out, as they have been somewhat guilty of recently.

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).

Michael Bay: "Now I love HD DVD"

Source: High-Def Digest

This just gets funnier and funnier. After going off on a rant about how he wouldn't direct Transformers 2 because Paramount had ditched Blu-ray, he has suddenly had an epiphany, deleted his original post, and come out in full favour of HD DVD:

As a director, I'm all about people seeing films in the best quality possible, and I saw and heard firsthand people upset about a corporate decision.

So today I saw 300 on HD, it rocks!

So I think I might be back on to do Transformers 2!

This guy flip-flops like a fish out of water! Who wants to bet Paramount executives woke up to find his words being bandied all over the web and had a quiet word with him?

Oh, and Paramount CTO Alan Bell has submitted to an extremely interesting interview with PC World, where he discusses his company's reasons for switching to HD DVD exclusively in a commendably candid way:

Bell: Paramount has been getting experience with publishing titles in both formats for the last year. We've had a hands-on ability to see how these formats work in practice. And after some hands-on analysis, we decided that HD DVD was the format we wanted to support.

PCW: Why was that?

Bell: For one thing, the lower prices of the players: It's good for consumers, it's good for our customer base.

For another thing, HD DVD came out of the DVD Forum. The DVD Forum is very experienced at developing and managing specs. [HD DVD] was launched in a very stable way, with stable specifications, and they had specified a reference player model, so all players had to be compatible with the HDi interactivity layer, and all players had to be capable of the interactivity. So when we publish titles in the future that have interactivity, we can be assured that every HD DVD player will be able to handle this content.

Oh, and he reiterates that the current situation represents an "indefinite commitment".

"Mum, it's no good - the picture's all funny!"

In a completely unexpected move, Entertainment In Video appears to have become the first studio to enable the Image Constraint Token for high definition content. This flag, when checked, only allows content to be output at its full resolution via a secure HDCP-compliant HDMI or DVI connection: in other words, those watching their HD material via component, VGA or non-HDCP DVI will end up seeing a downscaled 960x540 resolution image - in other words only slightly mor horizontal resolution than standard definition, and less vertical resolution than standard definition PAL. I can see the headlines already: "EIV's HD transfers as bad as their packaging!", "EIV begins producing HD content... but only some of you can watch it!", and so on.

The Hollywood studios purportedly agreed not to enable the ICT flag until 2012, effectively giving audiences a "good grace" period in which to make the transition to HDCP-compliant hardware. Unfortunately, not being a Hollywood studio, it would appear that EIV are not bound by this agreement. The only title currently confirmed to be affected is their recent Blu-ray release of The Crow, but I'd put money on reports similar to this one pouring in for their other titles before long. Oh, and they're also coded for Region B only.

EIV, eh? You gotta love 'em.

Operation keep the pests out

As part of an initiative to counter spam, I've decided to force anyone leaving comments to first preview their message before it actually goes live. Essentially, this means that the "Post" button is missing from the individual entry page for each of my posts, requiring the extra step of pressing "Preview", then, when the preview is displayed, clicking "Post". Sounds simple, but apparently it goes a long way towards avoiding automatically generated posts. I don't, as a rule, get a lot of spam, but I figure this extra step will pay off in the long run.

Samsung caught two-timing

Source: Electronic House

The full specifications for Samsung's upcoming HD DVD/Blu-ray hybrid player, the BD-UP5000 Duo HD Player, have been unveiled. Due to be released in the fourth quarter of 2007, this machine is noteworthy for the fact that, unlike LG's solution, it doesn't appear to short-change one of the two formats (the LG player doesn't support full interactivity for HD DVDs). Personally I'm happy with my Playstation 3/Xbox 360 add-on solution, but, if you haven't got into either of the two formats yet, this player looks set to be an enticing prospect... depending on the reviews, of course.

You must try harder

The "remastered" Blu-ray release of The Fifth Element and the HD DVD of The Bourne Identity both arrived yesterday. I'll discuss the former first, since I've watched it from beginning to end, and it's also the more significant of the two releases, albeit not for positive reasons. As you probably know, The Fifth Element was one of Sony's launch titles when the Blu-ray format first lifted off last summer. You probably also know, therefore, that many of Sony's initial Blu-ray discs were mercilessly derided - some unfairly (Silent Hill is still a fine-looking disc in spite of its compression problems), but others most definitely fairly. The Fifth Element, judging by the screenshots I've seen, fell into the latter category: lacking in fine detail, horribly compressed and viciously noise reduced, a certain comparison which quickly circulated around all the best home entertainment forums showed there to be surprisingly little difference between it and the standard definition Superbit release.

At the time, it looked as if Sony's lax quality control could actually end up costing them the format war. The tides now seem to have turned, and Sony's desire to improve Blu-ray's image has been realised in a new "remastered" version of The Fifth Element, released on July 17th. As a gesture of goodwill, they event set up an exchange programme so those who were gypped on the original release can trade in their copies for the new edition. The original release has been discontinued, and Sony's plan is clearly to make the transition from old to new as discrete as possible, given that the packaging of the new version is almost identical to the previous one, the only giveaways being the copyright date, the presence of Dolby TrueHD in the audio specifications, and some other minor changes.

Anyway, on to the image quality itself. My verdict would be "good, but not great". Lyris does a pretty good job of summing up the pros and cons, so I'll keep this brief and simply say that, broadly speaking, it seems to be an improvement over its predecessor in terms of compression (the move from MPEG2 to AVC, and from a BD25 to a BD50, is definitely appreciated), but much of the supposed increase in detail that certain reviewers have pointed out is really little more than edge enhancement. Obviously, not having seen the original release in motion, it's hard to offer a definitive review, but I'd peg this as a low 7/10. The effects shots look considerably less detailed and exhibit more ringing than the non-effects shots, and that's something that can't be helped, but that doesn't change the fact that the edge enhancement is rather pronounced, and the tell-tale signs of a 1080i to 1080p conversion rear their head on occasions in the form of combing artefacts (Lyris noticed them within a couple of minutes, and once we knew they were there, they became extremely difficult to ignore). I've no idea if the previous release also shows these (to date we seem to be the only people to have posted about them on either release - then again, we seem also to be the only people to have noticed that the Blu-ray District B13 is also a 1080i to 1080p conversion (and a bad one at that) - but my message to Sony is ultimately: "So near and yet so far."

Maybe when Pathé release it on HD DVD (whenever that happens), they'll get it right.

For The Bourne Identity, fortunately, the case seems to be somewhat more clear-cut. What we basically have is a nice-looking transfer that isn't perfect by any means but it still rather better than most of Universal's recent catalogue releases. Whereas The Bourne Supremacy's HD DVD was derived from a digital intermediate, The Bourne Supremacy is film-sourced, and (probably as a result) appears slightly less defined, and with a (naturally) rougher texture. There are also some signs of mild ringing, but all in all I'm happy with what I'm seeing. It won't find its way into any "best of" lists, but I doubt that too many people will be disappointed by it.

HD DVD debacle

The HD DVD release of Being John Malkovich arrived yesterday from Amazon. Knowing that the most recent Universal catalogue titles generally haven't looked all that hot, and having read some rather critical reports from individuals known to be - let's say - less than discerning, my expectations weren't exactly all that high. In fact, I was partly fearing a 480i upconvert à la Traffic, so I was actually somewhat relieved to discover that it doesn't look all that bad. No, I wouldn't call it good as such - there is some fairly obvious DVNR and also quite a bit of edge enhancement - but it's far from the worst HD transfer I've ever seen. I'd put it on about the same level as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (which, coincidentally, shares the same writer, Charlie Kaufman, and the same studio, Universal) - a low to mid 6/10.

This morning, Blood Diamond, which I must confess I'd actually forgotten I'd ordered, arrived from DVD Pacific. It came out on Blu-ray more than a month ago, but, given that, thanks to the incomplete status of the BD-Java spec, that release lacked the picture-in-picture In-Movie Experience feature, so I decided to just wait and get the more complete package. I haven't had a chance to watch it from beginning to end yet, but I've taken a look at the transfer and it seems to be pretty decent. I was initially concerned that it looked a little diffuse, but a quick look at its technical specifications on IMDB reveals it to have been shot using an anamorphic process called Hawk Scope. I've been tending to notice that anamorphic films tend to look a little soft at 1920x1080, presumably as a result of the short focal range of the lenses, and, looked at in that light, my guess is that Blood Diamond's slight softness is inherent in the source material rather than as a result of digital tampering. Certainly, there is no ringing or clumpy grain to suggest filtering.

By the way, I'm aware that I haven't posted an updated HD Image Quality Rankings list for some time. I've got a handful of titles that I haven't looked at closely enough to rate with any certainty yet (La Haine, Layer Cake and Syriana), so I'll leave it till I've had a chance to watch them from beginning to end. My current (35 and a half hours per week) job ends in just over a fortnight, so my lighter load come mid-August should afford me ample opportunity to engage in some much-missed movie-watching.