Mr. Cinema

From the Blu-Bits:

"We've got some breaking high-def format news to report this afternoon. Warner Bros has just officially announced their first Blu-ray Disc releases. Training Day, Good Night, and Good Luck, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang and Rumor Has It will all street on 8/1. All four titles are already available on HD-DVD, so this will be the first really good opportunity to directly compare the two formats. Training Day and Good Night, and Good Luck will carry an SRP of $28.99. The other two titles will sell for SRP $34.99. There's no word yet on the extras to be included, but we expect more on that shortly. Warner also says that they'll be announcing additional waves of Blu-ray Disc titles soon."

If Good Night, and Good luck shows up before BD, I'll be pissed.

Supermallet

And no announcements of new HD DVD titles. Come on, WB!

Eric D.

Why the hell are they getting Good Night, and Good Luck! A HD DVD announcement better be on its way.

Davy Mack

I think it's good that everyone can FINALLY directly compare the 2 formats with the same film. If the BD STILL looks like ASS, then it is only a good thing for HDdvd!

Oliver Clothesoff

Good Night Good Luck has to be coming for HD that week too. Remember, we haven't been getting long-term announcements from WB like this at all, so i fully expect GNGL to be available 8/1, if not before.

Davy Mack

If they do mpeg2, it ain't gonna look as good...

digitalfreaknyc

Cjplay over at AVS had said that several of the first WB releases will be MPEG2. Who knows if they even made a VC1 master for GN&GL?

Adam Tyner

Split off all discussion not directly associated with the announcement to the free-for-all thread.

Giles

so are they purposely using MPEG2 to make their Blu-Ray editions look inferior - cheeky of them.

Grubert

No, they used MPEG2 because when they started authoring for BD there were no tools for VC1 ready.

Giles

but from what I have read in the most recent issue of Widescreen Review, is that it sounds like a studio, that isn't Sony, can actually use either MPEG2 or VC1 on it's BluRay releases at it's discretion.

digitalfreaknyc

Yes they can. Everyone but Sony is open to it.

Adam Tyner

This is correct (although you're excluding H.264, which I halfway expect to be more widely used by BD-exclusive studios), but the tools to do so weren't in place until recently.

Giles

and yet all their single-layer, 25GB MPEG2 encoded discs have been criticised and reviewed negatively for this - Sony are real bone heads.

digitalfreaknyc

Sony refuses to use it because Microsoft created it. It's completely about pride. They're all a bunch of assholes and that proves they're not in this to honestly be as great as they can be.

Giles

you're so blunt...

digitalfreaknyc

If BD were playing this game fairly and honestly, I'd still be on the HD DVD side because it's light years better. But I wouldn't hate Sony and BD with the white-hot intensity of a 1000 stars like I do now because of all the pompous and arrogant statements being made.

That said, to get us back on track, i can't wait to see how these were encoded. What a hoot it will be if the 25gb version of 16 Blocks looks worse than the 15GB HD DVD version!

Giles

but at this point in the game, it seems like Sony is purposefully is shooting itself in the foot (for being so stubborn). Hypothetically, can another studio(s) buck the trend that Sony is setting and release Blu-ray titles that make us of the format's abilities. Until Sony manufactures and perfect their future DL/50GB discs, they are currently doing more harm than good to the format they are trying to promote. The MPEG2 codex is outdated and simply unacceptable for HiDef discs, Sony should have released these discs using the newer MPEG4 codex that is supposedly as a good as VC1. Given the bad reviews of Sony's current crop of Blu-Ray discs, I really hope studios (Fox, Disney, Warners) use the higher codex and double layer, or just jump ship entirely and go HD-DVD exclusive.

digitalfreaknyc

I'm assuming that was a question?

Yes, other studios could and will use VC1. But this isn't "making us aware of the format's abilities." All BD has is a larger storage space. That's it. A VC1 file on BD and HD are the same thing. BD just has more space to put it in.

Giles

but for Sony to be advertising 50GB space on discs and in return, and at this point, only encoding discs with 25GB worth of space (and as a result the final product suffers and looks like crap) - they are playing the general HD public as fools. As you noted, it should be interesting to see how the upcoming BR supporting studios are going to encode their discs.

digitalfreaknyc

Again, the "public" would be none the wiser. Unless they put a disc into a player to find out exactly how much space is being used, they'll never know. All they have to do is "claim."

Look at SD DVD? How often do you put discs in your DVD-ROM drive to find out how much of the DL space is actually used?

Grubert

And all a rich man has is more money. Duh.



And that claim is not accurate BTW...

BD has also a bigger total bandwidth than HD DVD. cjplay explained the ramifications of that fact here.

Giles

my point is that I feel that with all the 'claims' - Sony is being very untruthful in saying one thing, but delivering an inferior product. For reviewers and folks interesting in buying Blu-Ray but coming away unimpressed, due to the fact that Sony is releasing titles in lesser HD quality is just deplorable and wrong.

RockStrongo

Lets face the facts now...Sony has done things recently to combat the HD-DVD launch. If HD-DVD were delayed, I DOUBT we would see any BD releases (hardware or software). They just arent ready right now.

Once Sony gets their shit together, this war could totally change. BUT, will it get done in time?? HD-DVD looks to have a big release plan this fall (and 3Q). So, can Sony get on track by then? and get some huge releases?

All have yet to be determined. Those that think HD-DVD is winning right now are correct, but it doesnt matter, because we are only 2 minutes into the first period.

Bcolon

Could you explain this statement? How Is HD "light years better" than BD?