Blu-ray Getting Stronger
I was on Amazon.com, where they are pushing both hi-def and regular DVDs heavily these days, and noticed that No Country For Old Men was on their best seller list both in DVD and Blu-ray formats. Wow.
I always caution to be suspect of Top Ten lists at Amazon and iTunes, since volume is not noted, but still… for both formats to be on the list suggests some positive movement for Blu-ray, no? And then, when I went back to do this entry, the pre-sale Blu-ray of I Am Legend -and not the regular DVD – topped the chart.
Of course, those of us who have gone Blu are the most intense consumers of the films films that fit our demo. And I still think Blu is likely to be a short-window technology. But this suggests a step forward.
(it is only fair to note than in the Top 7 shown below, only 101 Dalmatians is NOT available in Blu. So while BSG and Stargate are very geek and Enchanted is big with the kids, they aren’t breaking through in Blu the same way the two slightly older, slightly more make skewing titles are.)
Just a couple of days ago, a title that I am greatly anticipating on its 20th anniversary showed up from the studio… and it was the regular DVD. I’m thrilled to have it a few weeks early… and I was ready to rip the disc out of its contained and throw it in the machine right that minute… untill I saw it wasn’t Blu-ray. And now, it sits unopened, as I wait for the Blu-ray. I want to see it in the best way possible and I am willing to wait a few more weeks to experience it that way, even if upscaling would look pretty good. That doesn’t mean that I won’t watch The Graduate upscaled, which I bought yesterday to watch, anxious to look at it again after reading Mark Harris’ book. But I’m waiting on Bonnie & Clyde too.
Every time I put a Blu-ray in, I get that same thrill I got when I first got a DVD player and was buying gray market discs in New York, thrilled to hear Charlie Parker or Aretha Franklin or Mozart so cleanly with just a set of earbuds. And I already find myself prioritizing the pay-TV offerings, prefering the ones in HD (about 20% of the channels).
Of course, give me a movie theater experience any/every day…
WTF? Is there an embargo on the 20th anniversary DVD? What, is Willow getting a new edition?
I’m guessing it’s either Beaches, License to Drive or Ernest Saves Christmas.
Hell to the yes, on BSG being in the top 10.
All you Wire fans that haven’t checked out Battlestar, really should…
Hopefully NBC/Universal will decide to continue with straight to DVD movies or a feature for this awesome recreation after the fourth season ends.
I’m hoping that the format war being over means that people will now be more open to the idea of HD. I do know that my local video rental recently started carrying blu-ray (about a 100 titles so far and continuing to add to them) and they are renting out quite nicely they tell me.
I own both a an HD-DVD and a Blu-Ray player.
I’m picking up HD-DVD titles as they drop in price because I don’t want to wear out my PS3, as it’s a discontinued model that actually supports more features..
The thing I wonder about is: When HD-DVD and Blu-Ray were fighting it out, the studios demanded that they conform to the same video and audio quality standards that wouldn’t eclipse HD-DVD’s storage capacity, even though Blu-Ray has much more storage space, until a winner was decided.
Now that Blu-Ray has won, I’m tempted to pick up the Ultimate edition of Blade Runner (the one in the aluminum case) for HD-DVD because it’s going for $45; and is of the same quality of the same Blu-Ray edition, but then only to have them double dip (it’d be a double dip on the current Blu-Ray version too)and come out with some extra special Blu-Ray transfer that takes up all that unused storage space…
Does that make sense?
No, it did not make sense, because I forgot to say:
I’m tempted to pick up the Ultimate edition of Blade Runner (the one in the aluminum case) for HD-DVD because it’s going for $45; and is of the same quality of the same Blu-Ray edition, but “I am also hesitant to buy it and “then only to have them double dip and come out with some extra special Blu-Ray transfer that takes up all that unused storage space…
Not to be a nerd, but neither BSG nor STARGATE are available in Blu-Ray, Dave. And as you may or may not have noticed, the Blu-Ray for ENCHANTED sits comfortably at # 11, just below the family-friendly full-screen DVD of the same title.
There is a season of BSG in Blu, no? And I thought I saw Stargate yesterday too. My mistake if not.
I am dealing with the same problem, THX, and in fact, just bought a deeply discounted closed-box HD player for when the one I have wears out.
My plan so far is that I will only by HD if it is insanely cheap ($10 or less) or if it is a box set that I really don’t want to pay full price for, like the Sopranos Season 6, Pt 2, which is almost half the price of Blu on HD. Eventually, the deep, deep discounts might kick in. But until then, I am playing it close to the vest… and am happy to have two upscaling 1080p players available.
What are you upscaling from/to? 480 to 720? Or to 1080?
HD has very much lamed out my movie rental habits. My netflix queue is now almost entirely in blu-ray – I have no real desire to watch a standard dvd again. This, despite the fact that blu ray is not exactly worlds better than an upscaled standard def dvd. Many out there wouldn’t notice the difference unless you put them up side by side. Still, it’s better enough that I can tell, which means in my mind all DVD’s now suck.
This would be OK but for the fact that blu ray releases are barely trickling out, and every week those few new ones that come out seem to be mostly pure crap or otherwise not of interest to me at the moment.
1080 in most cases, Mutiny.
I am not an expert on this at all. Some DVDs, especially trailers, have been like a postage stamp inside the frame of the TV. I assume that’s 720 or 480… maybe not.
The most interesting upscaling experience was during the awards season, when some studios films upscaled great and others really sucked… like watching videotape…
if it’s postage stamped that means it’s letterboxed inside a 16:9 frame, almost all trailers are presented this way, probably has to do with the deliverables for the film the studio and/or dvd house recieves from the trailer house and/or studio.
That’s why a standard DVD that says 16:9 enhanced (anamorphic) is so important, it will upconvert properly while a standard DVD that’s letterboxed will be postage stamped and look terrible. not a whole lot of films are released letterboxed anymore, usually just 1.66:1 films but even most of the holdout studios (WB, MGM) that insisted releasing those films letterboxed have relented recently and new releases with that ratio have been anamorphic. Often it was cheaper for the studios to take an existing tape master (for LDs) from the 80s or early 90s that was 4×3 letterbox and dump it to dvd rather than make the expense of having a new master done.
DVD upscaling is the most overrated concept I know of. It’s a marginal improvement at best, because guess what, the quality isn’t there. No process can produce something that isn’t there to begin with.
When people are trying to tell themselves that an upscaled DVD is “just as good” or nearly as a true 1080p image, they’re just deluding themselves. It’s not even close or even in the same league. A true 1080p picture is in fact “worlds better” than an upscaled DVD and you have to have truly bad eyesight and a determined will not to acknowledge that.
Yeah… my ex-roommate had a 720 upscale on his player. I was never that happy with it. The brightness, contrast and color always needed to be adjusted, often disk by disk. Can’t imagine how a 1080 upscale would look.
Not all transfers are done initially in 1080, some are still standard def. Forget it if it’s standard. But if it’s of 1080 origin, imagine it kind of like this. You’re starting with a high-end digital photo, then you down-res it to an online jpeg, then you try to enlarge it again and hit the sharpen filter to compensate.
And if your DVD isn’t upscaling before it sends an image to your HDTV, then the HDTV is upscaling it anyway. The only reason to have an upscaling DVD player is if the scaling chip in your television is really, really bad.
But I agree with ThriceDamned, it’s generally a concept for suckers. The DVD player can’t replace image information that’s been taken out. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
For anyone interested:
The XBox 360 add on HD-DVD player is now being liquidated for $50.
The thing is, it can work as a standalone player through a PC and windows.
Was this the model you got Dave? I’m gonna pick an extra and keep it boxed for when my current one dies.
I also bit the bullet and bought the Ultimate Blade Runner for $46
I bought a second Toshiba A30…