Technology

The nightmare of Pan

Yesterday, I received a review copy of the new 2-disc Platinum Edition of Walt Disney's classic, Peter Pan, from DVD Pacific. Mindful of both the unnaturally harsh look of the earlier (2002) DVD release of the film, as well as Disney's unfortunate habit of going overboard during the restoration process of their older titles, I was rather curious to see how this enjoyable 1953 lark had fared on of what the publicity describes as Disney Home Entertainment's most prestigious line-up of DVD releases.

Unfortunately, the new edition really is a bit of a mixed bag. While the rampant edge enhancement of the previous release is nowhere to be found, it seems that DTS Digital Images (formerly Lowry Digital), Disney's regular partner in these ventures, have once again thrown artistic intent out of the window in an attempt to deliver an impossibly clean, "flawless" digital experience for the 21st century. By far the biggest problem is that the overall colour, brightness and contrast values of the image have been tweaked into oblivion. Tinkerbell was originally supposed to have an overexposed glow, which, on this release, has been dulled down severely, making the glow look more like a muddy shadow. Actually, "muddy" is the word of the day here: the colours are generally dull and sickly. The decidedly red Indians are now a gloomy shade of brown, more suited to something like Pocahontas than this altogether more fun and colourful cartoon world, while Captain Hook now looks like he has liver damage. Everything is so murky that the hand-inked, cel-animated characters, who should be vibrant, threaten to disappear into the backgrounds. I've inspected the DVD on both a monitor and a calibrated TV: it just doesn't look right.

Respected cel restoration expert Stephen Worth, and animation directors Oscar Grillo and Milton Gray, have all criticised this new restoration, while Chuck Pennington has provided visual evidence that each subsequent home video release of Peter Pan has taken its visuals further and further away from Walt Disney and co's original intentions. I've never personally seen the film on an actual print, but I feel more inclined to trust the informed opinions of experts like Stephen Worth than the staff of DTS Digital Images, who have shown a cavalier attitude towards artistic intent several times in the past, perhaps most significantly with Bambi, which was so heavily noise reduced in an attempt to remove any semblance of the movie ever having come from film that the image smeared and warped during camera movements.

Captain Hook is the greatest bastard ever.

Even the bonus content turns out to be rather disappointing. There really is very little here that wasn't present on the 2002 release. In the past, just about every Platinum Edition has included a lengthy documentary or at least a series of informative featurettes on the film's history and production. Not so with Peter Pan, which has to make do with a 15-minute made for LaserDisc featurette, a 20-minute piece showing ideas that didn't make it into the final film, and a couple of other miscellaneous featurettes. The commentary, moderated by Roy Disney and featuring the observations of a combination of animators and critics, is of a high standard, but it too was already to be found on the previous DVD release. Of the new additions, the most significant is an abridged narration of an essay by Walt Disney explaining his reasons for making the film, while the games, read-along storybook and preview for a horrendous-looking CGI Tinkerbell movie can go hang for all I care.

It's not the end of the world, though. Unlike the previous DVD, the original mono track has been included, at least on the US release (the European versions predictably lose this vital component of the original film, no doubt in order to make room for additional dubs). It's too bad that, despite allowing the film to sound as was it was intended, those responsible for the DVD made no attempt to ensure that it looked as it was intended.

One of the privileged few

As you may or may not have gathered from reading this site, Diablo II is one of my all-time favourite computer games. It's simple enough that you can pick it up and play it any time you want, while the number of different choices you can make, coupled with the randomly generated environments and items, makes it endlessly replayable and means that you always have new decisions to make. In the gaming community, the news in 2003 that David Brevik, Erich Schaefer, Max Schaefer and Bill Roper, the chiefs of Blizzard North, the studio responsible for both Diablo games, had tendered their resignations, was met with no small amount of disbelief, followed by considerable interest as a steady stream of employees left Blizzard North, joining their former bosses at their new company, Flagship Studios, or setting up new development houses of their own. Blizzard North struggled on for a while but, in August 2005, its plug was pulled by parent company Blizzard Entertainment, and with it supposedly died not one but two unannounced projects. One of these, many have speculated, was likely Diablo III.

Diablo III may, therefore, have died with Blizzard North, but its creators seem intent on bringing us the next best thing. This summer, they will be releasing Hellgate: London. The spiritual successor to Diablo II, this game combines the familiar concepts of randomly generated environments, as well as action/RPG hybrid gameplay with concepts more commonly associated with MMORPGs, including guilds, instances and a persistent world. Better yet, unlike most MMORPGs, there will be a free online multiplayer mode for those who don't want to fork out cash ever month for the privilege of playing, as well as a single player mode for those who prefer to go solo (such as myself).

The best is yet to come, though. In preparation for the release of Hellgate: London, Flagship have created an entire game for the sole purpose of testing their server architecture. This game, Mythos, will be entirely free, and this morning, in my capacity as an alpha tester, I got my first glimpse of what looks even more than Hellgate: London to be the true successor to Diablo II.

Call it Diablo 2.5 if you like, because, while the graphics and world are completely new, the game mechanics are almost identical. Anyone who has played the Diablo games should be able to jump straight in and feel right at home. The interface and controls are virtually identical, and old favourites like the skill tree, a feature first introduced in Diablo II, are in their proper places. The usual point and click controls are in place, and, over the course of the two hours that I've been playing, I've found myself getting that same buzz that I first did back in late Spring 2000 when I participated in the Diablo II stress test.

Obviously, there have been some major changes. The look of the game, for instance, is about as far removed from its forebearers as possible. While Diablo's graphics were moody and gothic, Mythos is a much more colourful, exaggerated (I refuse to abuse the word "cartoony") and warm affair, more along the lines of Warcraft, with its primary colours and over the top animation and character designs. The closest point of comparison, arguably, is a little game called Fate which I played back in Summer 2005. This is perhaps not entirely surprising, given that that game's creator, Travis Baldree, has a hand in this title.

As you would expect, the gameplay is fairly straightforward. Equip your weapon, point the mouse at an enemy and hold down the button till it's dead. Rinse and repeat. It's simple, but fun - as the millions of people who wore out their mouse buttons on Diablo can attest. No, it won't make you smarter, but it is a great stress reliever, and highly addictive in the best sense of the word. The exaggerated visuals go hand in hand with this type of simple, no-nonsense gameplay, although the move from 2D to 3D does mean that, unsurprisingly, some of the Diablo series' precision is lost. On the plus side, though, the game runs very smoothly thanks to its fairly simple graphics, with the impressive art direction meaning that it never looks cheap and clunky. I suspect that those who find themselves unable to run the more graphically complex Hellgate: London will find this to be a more than acceptable substitute.

Other minor miscellaneous complaints? Well, the manner in which skills are equipped seems to have changed. In Diablo II (and, or so I'm led to believe, Hellgate: London), you can bind an ability to each mouse button simply by clicking on the relevant icon and selecting a skill of your choice. Not so with Mythos. Instead, you have to go into the Skills menu and bind your abilities to various hotkeys (in this case, the F1 to F12 keys). It's not the end of the world, but it's an extra step that detracts from the otherwise simplistic nature of the interface. Also, whenever you descend (or ascend) to another level or area, the game asks you to confirm whether or not you want to do this. When you simply need to travel, it's a mildly irritating extra step. When you're running from a horde of angry monsters, it can mean the difference between life and death. I really hope that, for the final game, Flagship will consider either doing away with this "are you sure?" mechanism entirely, or at least give players the option of turning it off. I'm also not a fan of the tiny little minimap in the corner of the screen - I much preferred the larger overlaid Diablo style of map. Oh yeah, and the interface graphics end up being stretched if you select a widecreen (16:9 or 16:10) resolution. It's not the end of the world, but it does look a little sloppy.

I hope to be able to bring you more observations as I continue to play. Because the alpha is designed primarily to test Flagship's servers, the game can only be played at specific pre-arranged times (in order to get as many people thrashing them as possible), and, because the game originates from America, the times aren't always entirely convenient for me. I wasn't able to attend last night's session, for example, because it wouldn't have started until 2 AM GMT. (As luck would have it, though, a technical glitch meant that it got postponed anyway, so the server was still online when I got up this morning.) Presumably as the game enters the beta phase and more testers are gradually added (I believe I'm currently one of the few people playing who isn't a family member or friend of the developers), the server will stay online for longer, but it is slightly annoying to have to adhere to a specific schedule. Still, I'm grateful that we're getting this great game for free, and that I'm getting to participate in this early sneak peek. Stay tuned!

Update, March 24th, 2007 04:16 PM: The server has now gone offline, and an in-game text message from one of the developers indicated that all characters have been wiped, meaning that, when they go live again, everyone will have to start from scratch.

You take the blue pill...

Oh, wait. Sorry - the blue pill isn't ready yet. It's been delayed due to continued BD-Java problems. The red pill will, however, be ready for you to swallow on May 22nd, at which point you'll be able to see just how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

What am I babbling about? Why, the announcement of The Ultimate Matrix Collection for HD DVD, of course. The Matrix was one of the most hotly anticipated high definition titles last year (and rightly so - it certainly helped sell plenty of DVD players, so chances are it will do the same for HD DVD), with many expecting it to arrive at some point in the run-up to Christmas. When it failed to materialise, customers were understandably disappointed, but it seems that Warner are intent on making up for lost time by releasing what looks set to be the single most comprehensive and all-inclusive high definition box set to date. In addition to the first film, the shoddy The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions (which I haven't actually seen - Reloaded was that bad), each film will include an In-Movie Experience feature and all of the extras from both the original and Ultimate Matrix Collection standard definition releases. (Read the full press release at the AV Science Forum. (A slightly cheaper, less extras-intensive version, The Complete Matrix Trilogy, will also be available.)

Part of me is slightly disappointed that the films are not being released separately, given that I only really want the first one. Then again, this does sound like the HD DVD box set to die for, and part of me really wants to listen to the notorious "critic commentaries", in which an increasingly disgruntled group of film reviewers lay into the trilogy. Knowing me, I'll end up splurging on the full package - unless, of course, I can get a review copy.

Oh yeah, and in case it wasn't clear enough from the little reference to one of the film's iconic scenes at the start of this post, the Blu-ray release will be arriving "later", giving the HD DVD version free reign until it deigns to put in an appearance. Many will no doubt say "Oh, it'll come eventually," but how many format-neutral customers are going to wait for that? It certainly looks like Warner have delivered a Pirates of the Caribbean beater to wipe the smirks off the Blu-ray fanboys' faces come May.

Casino Royale high-def comparisons

A nice chap has put together a comparison between the standard definition and Blu-ray releases of Casino Royale - well worth checking out if you remain unconvinced as to the benefits of high definition. I particularly recommend having a look at the third image - when watching the film, this shot was the one that leapt out at me personally as the most obvious example of the stunning amount of detail that you can get from 1080p. You can even read the lettering on the wine bottle - HD product placement!

By the way, I've pre-ordered the supposedly uncut Korean Blu-ray release of the film from YesAsia. It's due for release on March 29th, at which point I'll sell off my cut US copy.

Update, March 21st, 2007 05:43 PM: There's a whole thread filled with comparison screengrabs, from both HD DVD and Blu-ray, at the AV Science Forum.

Is it a sign of the apocalypse when an MPEG2 encode looks this good?

My copy of the Blu-ray release of Resident Evil: Apocalypse arrived today from Amazon.com. Slowly but surely, my DVD collection is being replaced with high definition editions!

Anyway, this guilty pleasure looks very impressive indeed in high definition, especially given that it is an MPEG2 encode (although, to be fair, Sony did have 50 GB of disc space to play around with). It's far from the best HD title I've ever seen, and there are a few instances of noticeable compression artefacts (Lyris has a screen grab of the most offensive one), but this is yet another smooth, crispy, grain-filled title that looks as if remarkably little, if any, digital tampering has gone on. There is a minute amount of ringing at the top and bottom of the frame, suggesting some very mild low-pass filtering, but, for the most part, I am very pleased with how this looks. A mid-range 9/10.

On a side note, as Lyris points out in his review, certain reviewers have been critical of the image quality of this release, seemingly confusing aesthetics with cold technical facts. I'll grant you this: Resident Evil: Apocalypse is not the world's most visually impressive film. In fact, it looks downright shoddy in some places. However, this has got nothing to do with the quality of the disc itself. Aesthetics are a matter of taste, whereas technical issues are not. No-one in their right mind would seriously say "Well, personally, if it's all the same to you, I'm not a fan of detailed, untampered transfers that are transparent to the source - I'd prefer something edge enhanced and DVNR'd, with some compression artefacts for good measure." We all want the best-looking discs possible, I'm sure, but certain reviewers seem to have trouble differentiating between personal preference and actual quality, and reviews criticising discs that correctly represent the source material are, in my opinion, doing damage to home cinema.

Royale with cheese

My copy of the Blu-ray release of Casino Royale arrived this morning from Deep Discount (formerly Deep Discount DVD). Given that this looks set to be the fastest-selling high definition title so far (as of writing, it's number 9 on the DVD chart at Amazon.com - an incredible number for a niche product), it's the sort of release that can, in many ways, make or break a format's reputation (I'm sure it will be many customers' first ever Blu-ray title, with a number of people even buying into the format especially to see it).

Luckily (or unluckily, if you have a vested interest in Blu-ray's failure), it has been granted a stunning-looking transfer. Actually, I'm tempted to call it the best I've ever seen. Some rather puzzling reviews have predictably materialised, criticising the picture for a handful of supposed defects, ranging from a lack of "realistic skin textures", to "motion-drag and aliasing" to, "too much digital noise reduction" being applied, to, in the most general case, a statement by one reviewer that he "was expecting just a bit more". These reviews are wrong. Casino Royale is astounding more or less from start to finish. It's highly detailed, contrasty and film-like, with no visible compression artefacts: Sony have finally ditched the aged MPEG2 codec in favour of AVC, and the result is their first 10/10 title that I've seen. Sony's European division have made a wise choice in dishing out copies of this title to early Playstation 3 adopters.

Lyris has written some more pleasing words about this disc, and highlighted some of the film's most hilarious examples of product placement.

I also received a copy of The Devil's Rejects - a gift from Gary Tooze of the excellent comparison site DVD Beaver for some HD DVD screen captures I supplied for him from Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood. It's not as good-looking as Casino Royale, but it put a smile on my face all the same. It's interesting, given the false belief, held by certain individuals, that a film has to actually be shot in HD to look good on an HD disc (a perfect example of the sort of misinformation that is likely to be putting a lot of people off adopting either format), that 16mm material seems to shine so much in high definition, with both this and the Moroccan segments of Babel looking particularly luscious. (Now I really hope Universal UK gives Thirteen a whirl on HD DVD - or Fox on Blu-ray if they promise to tame the rampant DVNR plaguing the DVD release.) Unfortunately, The Devil's Rejects is an MPEG2 title on a single layer BD25 disc, so there are some noticeable compression artefacts (and a dearth of extras in comparison with the 2-disc DVD), but it's an impressive presentation all the same - a high 8/10 on my scale.

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?

USB stick delivers MPEG soup!

This tiny stick contains 67 channels!

I picked up this little doozy for a mere £19.57 (plus shipping) at SVP. It's a Freecom DVB-T USB Stick, and it is in fact a miniature digital terrestrial TV and radio receiver that plugs directly into your computer. This, in conjunction with the bundled software, provides a very convenient way to watch and record TV shows. It comes with its own mini-antenna, but it turns out to be little more than a glorified fridge magnet (it wasn't managing to pick up any channels), so I ended up connecting it directly to our roof antenna, which has a decidedly strong signal (all six signal bars are lit up in the software).

The TotalMedia software, as it happens, isn't the most brilliant piece of engineering. It has a lot of niggles, and switching between channels is a little on the sluggish side, but it's nicely laid out and easy to use. The MPEG2 files it saves are also pretty reasonably sized (approximately 1.2 GB for an hours' worth of poorly-shot shakycam, at the lowest compression settings) and there doesn't seem to be any noticeable degradation in quality, with the end results looking noticeably better than the dedicated DVD recorder my parents have... not that the quality of British digital TV is any great shakes in that department anyway. For £20, it strikes me as being a really good deal.

Oh yeah, and I now have a job. I don't have a concrete starting date yet, but, after several months on the proverbial dole, my days of scrounging are finally about to come to an end!

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 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.

Song of the PS3

A sweet little video has appeared on YouTube featuring an absolutely delightful song entitled "How to Kill a Brand". Mean, but oh so funny.

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.

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.

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.

Blu-ray round-up

A plethora of Blu-ray discs went through the patented HMS Whimsy benchmarking system today, starting with American Psycho, which arrived from DVD Pacific this morning. Unfortunately, this is hands-down the worst high definition transfer I've seen to date. In fact, it's downright guff, with edge enhancement that makes An American Werewolf in London's ringing seem mild, and intrusive noise reduction that destroys the texture of the actors' faces, making it look like everyone has taken a bath in a tub of grease. Indeed, I'd go as far as to say that I'm strongly considering selling it on and just hanging on to the standard definition version: it's not that the HD version looks worse, but I can probably get more money by selling it than I would with the DVD. That's how bad this looks.

Next up, Hostel, a rental copy of which arrived from LoveFilm. It's not as bad as American Psycho, but it's pretty naff, marred once again by edge enhancement, which gives it a decidedly harsh appearance. How can a master for a film little more than a year old look this bad?

The film itself was pretty disappointing too. It's part of the recent wave of exploitation horror movies originating from the US, such as Saw and The Passion of the Christ, which have no actual purpose beyond repulsing the viewer with as much mindless gore as possible. In these films, there is no real plot to speak of, and the violence takes the form of sadistic torture carried out against defenceless prisoners with no justification. I have a feeling that this type of film is going to come to define the horror genre in the early 2000s, just as the late 90s were characterised by self-referential, "post-modern" Scream rip-offs, and the 80s became known for their Halloween-inspired teen slashers. For the first 70 minutes, it's frankly tedious, a sort of bizarre look at an imaginary, squalid, barbaric Eastern Europe populated by skinhead ogres and busty, sex-crazed sirens who lure innocent young American boys to their deaths. If it's meant to be ironic, it doesn't come across, with the two aforementioned Americans neither annoying enough to give cause for cheer when they finally started getting hacked up, nor likeable enough to care what happens to them. The final 20 minutes do constitute something of a reversal of fortunes, with the sole survivor turning the tables against his torturers and staging a dramatic escape attempt, but it's too little, too late. 4/10

Finally, Lyris received his DVD Pacific order containing Chicago and Flightplan. Unfortunately, the grossly edge enhanced Chicago looks like it's going to be another title to go up on eBay in the very near future. Flightplan, meanwhile, looks considerably better, albeit not stunning. It's one of a tiny number of Blu-ray titles to be encoded with VC-1, the codec more commonly associated with HD DVD.

Blu-ray, so far, has been a really, really mixed bag. Basically, I've seen two stellar transfers, several mediocre ones, a couple of poor ones and one outright awful one. Obviously, I've only seen a small number of Blu-ray titles in comparison with those available on HD DVD, but at this stage it's fairly clear which format is delivering the more consistently impressive experience.

Throwing my toys out of the pram

Back when Pixar Animation Studios was acquired by Disney back in May 2006, one of the first changes made by John Lasseter, Pixar's Creative Vice President and the new CCO of both animation departments, was to shut down production of Toy Story 3, a sequel being produced without Pixar's authorisation by Disney themselves. Now, it seems that production will go ahead after all, although this time by the Pixar team. The bad news, though, is that John Lasseter will not be directing (unlike the previous two Toy Story films). This is not in itself particularly surprising, given that, with his responsibility for running both animation studios, finding the time to direct a film into the bargain would be pretty much guaranteed to be out of the question. It's still a shame, though, and the news that Michael Arndt, the screenwriter of Little Miss Sunshine, is writing a script for it, fills me with dread. I've not seen Little Miss Sunshine, so I've no opinion on it one way or the other, but I'm incredibly suspicious of the notion of a live action screenwriter penning a script for any animated film, let alone a Pixar film, given that the studio has always prided itself on having actual artists develop their storylines. Still, the film will be directed by Lee Unkrich, who has served as co-director on several Pixar projects, including Toy Story 2, and let's not forget the fact that, for all these setbacks, this will be a 100% Pixar venture, so I'm sure there's hope for it yet.

In other Disney news, the Variety article linked to above (which I'm translating into something resembling English here) reports that the rumours were true and that Lilo & Stitch co-writer/co-director Chris Sanders is no longer with the company, and that the reins for his upcoming pet project, the CG American Dog, have been passed to Chris Williams, who served as a story artist on several of the studio's films, including Lilo & Stitch. Whether Sanders left voluntarily or was given the boot is unclear, but one thing's for sure, the end result is sure to suffer without his guidance. Oh, and Lasseter and Disney/Pixar animation president Ed Catmull have refuted the rumour that Disney would be switching back to an exclusively 2D slate after the release of their upcoming Meet the Robinsons, although they did confirm that 2D was well and truly back at the studio, with the John Musker/Ron Clements project The Frog Princess, expected to be the next in line for release after American Dog, being traditionally animated.

The latest HD image quality rankings

Time for the latest high definition image rankings update. This one is particularly noteworthy because, thanks to a combination of buying various titles myself and renting a handful to give the once-over, I've been able to add Blu-ray releases to the list. (I would have liked also to have added Hostel and S.W.A.T. to the list, but some dumdum managed to render the rental copies I received unreadable by attacking the data surface with some sort of CD cleaner and a rather coarse rag.)

Of the new additions, there are a few surprises. Chiefly, it seems that once again my views on image quality are out of step with those of the bulk of the reviewing populace. Silent Hill was held up to be wildly inconsistent, with some moments of awful image quality, when in reality it is a stunning-looking disc. Fantastic Four and Tears of the Sun, meanwhile, both received charitable if not outright ecstatic reviews, when in actual fact it turns out that both have been subjects to a disturbing degree of digital manipulation. Of the two, Fantastic Four is the worse, but Tears of the Sun is not what I expect from HD either: edge enhanced and with a strangely "waxy" look to it (not to mention more compression artefacts than I've seen on any other Blu-ray title), it sums up the sort of excessive tinkering I hate to see in a transfer. Perhaps, though, these fake-looking, processed, edge enhanced titles are what people actually want? How else can you explain the rave reviews of the likes of Brokeback Mountain on HD DVD, and of standard definition titles like The Lord of the Rings, Final Destination 3 and the remake of The Hills Have Eyes? The same goes for the HD DVD of Batman Begins (which, along with some other titles, I also rented), which is the worst-looking Warner disc I've seen this side of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Far be it for me to say "Everybody's wrong except me", but sometimes that's genuinely how I feel.

10/10

• Corpse Bride (Warner, USA, HD DVD)
• Serenity (Universal, UK, HD DVD)
• Serenity (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Warner, UK, HD DVD)
• The Descent (Lions Gate, USA, Blu-ray)

9/10

• Looney Tunes: Rabbit Hood (Warner, USA, HD DVD)*
• King Kong (Universal, UK, HD DVD)
• The Bourne Supremacy (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• The Adventures of Robin Hood (Warner, USA)
• Miami Vice (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Silent Hill (Sony Pictures, USA, Blu-ray)
• Doom (Universal, UK, HD DVD)
• Casablanca (Warner, USA, HD DVD)
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Warner, UK, HD DVD)

8/10

• Unleashed (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Red Dragon (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Constantine (Warner, USA, HD DVD)
• Looney Tunes: Robin Hood Daffy (Warner, USA, HD DVD)*
• Land of the Dead (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• V for Vendetta (Warner, USA, HD DVD)
• The Machinist (Toshiba, Japan, HD DVD)
• Sleepy Hollow (Paramount, USA, HD DVD)
• Million Dollar Baby (Warner, USA, HD DVD)
• Batman Begins (Warner, UK, HD DVD)
• Van Helsing (Universal, UK, HD DVD)

7/10

• Wolf Creek (The Weinstein Company, USA, HD DVD)
• The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Sony Pictures, UK, Blu-ray)
• Tears of the Sun (Sony Pictures, UK, Blu-ray)
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• The Mummy Returns (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Warner, USA, HD DVD)
• Enemy of the State (Buena Vista, USA, Blu-ray)

6/10

• Fantastic Four (20th Century Fox, UK, Blu-ray)
• Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (Paramount, USA, HD DVD)
• An American Werewolf in London (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Brokeback Mountain (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Basic Instinct (Studio Canal, France, HD DVD)

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

Descending into the Blu

The Blu-ray releases of Enemy of the State and The Descent arrived from DVD Pacific this morning. Having just watched Enemy of the State, I can categorically state that my first encounter with a Disney BD was a mixed bag. First of all, although the disc has all of the extras from the recently released Extended Edition DVD, it actually contains the theatrical cut of the film itself. Given that the Extended Edition merely spliced in some previously deleted scenes, as far as I can tell without the involvement of director Tony Scott, I tend to think that the theatrical cut is preferable, but opinions will no doubt differ. In terms of transfer, "underwhelming" is probably the word of the day. This looks like an old master to me - likely the same one used for the old 1999 DVD - and it shows signs of edge enhancement and filtering at all times. The film also looks fairly diffuse throughout. Unlike most of your recent 2.35:1 blockbusters, Enemy of the State was not shot in Super35 but Anamorphic Panavision, which theoretically allows for increased resolution (because it uses the entire area of the negative), but also has poorer depth of field and can lead to focus problems. Initially I wondered if the softness was due to this, but Red Dragon on HD DVD, which is also an Anamorphic Panavision film, looks much crisper. I'd peg this as a low 7/10.

I haven't had a chance to watch The Descent all the way through yet, just sample a few scenes here and there, but it looks much better: very crisp, no sign of edge enhancement, nice grain. I suspect that there are some compression artefacts in the darker scenes, but I'll have to look more carefully to confirm. Incidentally, this is one of two notorious Lions Gate BDs which feature a "fake picture-in-picture" mode (the other is Crank). Essentially, because the BD-Java functions required to get PiP to work are not yet ready (and, of the currently available players, only the Playstation 3 will ever be able to support it), Lions Gate created a PiP experience by including two copies of the film on the same disc, one with a video window superimposed on top of it. Great use of those oh-so-expensive BD-50s!