Blazing Saddles was released today on Blu-Ray.

http://www.dvdtown.com/discdetails/b...blu-ray/19763/

Full Metal Jacket too.

The Searchers, Robin Hood, Grand Prix, and Caddyshack will all probably be eventually released.

Meanwhile, BD has movies like The Professionals and The Last Waltz.

http://www.dvdtown.com/discdetails/p...blu-ray/19683/

You are incorrect here. The grainy look is the llok of film. The biggest difference between plain video and Movies is the film grain. Directors such as Tim Burton use specific film stocks to get that grainy look on purpose. Having a HD version of this film is not going to get rid of that gariny look and you shouldnt want it to. Grain is what gives alot of films the characteristic look of the film. I would not want my Sleepy Hollow looking like the Aeon Flux transfer. It would completly destroy the atmospere of the film. Anyone who is complaining about these films and thier grainy appearance, even on HD-DVD, are just clueless about film in general and the different looks that film can give you.

With that being said certain titles will look like better transfers than others due to the original film stock used for a particular movie. As soon as people learn that every movie is not supposed to look like the Aeon Flux or Sahara transfer they can start enjoying the films more for what they are instead of thinking they should look like something else. You can make huge changes to the overall mood fo a film by using differnt looking film stocks.

Sleepy Hollow for instance is without a doubt my single favorite film stock release that has come out in the last 5 years. I loved it so much that I actually spent 6 months perfecting the look of that stock in my own still photography work. I now use it for some of my architectural photography clients when doing dusk shots and it gives the buildings a beatiful haunted look.

So to sum it up, the ignorance of people thinking that every transfer should be as clear as humanly possibly will lead them to the incorrect conclusion that certain transfers are better than others. Most of the people who review titles are aware of this. Its the average consumer who is clueless most of the time.

PornoStar...

It's the average consumer that is going to determine the success or failure of either or both formats. If they can't see a difference, then neither format will ever movie out of a niche market.

Yes, I know film is supposed to have grain. I was talking about other people who don't understand it and therefore may not be as impressed. I wasn't saying that I would not be impressed with a good film transfer.

Sleepy Hollow is one of my favorites. The dvd just didn't do the style of the film justice.

BTW, I believe Aeon Flux was shot on Super 35? I could swear I saw some grain at the beginning during close-ups of the actors. Not much but I believe it's there. I'll have to check again.

The real problem that I noticed in the reports is that none of the retailers seem that interested in either format because it wasn't mentioned much if at all. I don't know if that bodes well in the long term or not.

I will keep you posted as I'm sure I'll be hearing a lot more once we get down to the nitty gritty when PS3 is released.

What surprises me is that Circuit City and Best Buy haven't made any attempts to "own" Hi-Def. With both of them doing a fantastically shitty job of promoting the format, I'm surprised not one of them has tried to take the lead. Amazon is doing a pretty good job of it, and I never really shop for DVDs there, but they're my #1 online HD DVD retailer right now. I've probably spent more with them since HD DVD came out than I did most years.

It doesn't take much more floor space or resources to change what either shop is doing right now. Put a demo kiosk somewhere between the DVDs and the home theatre section. Set up two TVs, one running a HD film, the other running the same film over composite cable (hell, make it full screen). Have a TV for Blu Ray with the demo running.

Set up big displays with the movies front-facing. It makes such a difference. A CC near me had all the HD DVDs front facing on one rack. When I stopped in, I was amazed by the number of movies. They probably had all 40+ that had been released so far. As I picked up Good Night & Good Luck, I thought to myself: I need to come back here and buy more movies! I did come back later that week, but the movies had been cast aside, showing only their spines. I didn't get the same feeling of a huge library available and I had to scan by name from memory, not by looking at the covers.

Retailers can't be surprised that a product is barely moving when so few of the employees are aware of it and the system is relegated to the dusty corner where the VCRs are.

In the past few months, I've met two people who even knew what they were talking about; one was at BB, the other at Wal-Mart. Both were pretty young and you could tell that they read up on it externally, and one of them (the BB employee) even said Blu-Ray wasn't really "ready"... Meanwhile with most employees when I ask about HD DVD or where the "Hi Def DVDs are" I get a look like I'm from The Future.

Place the player(s) near some TVs that can show it off. If someone's shopping for an HDTV, lo and behold, here's an HD DVD player. If you keep playing a scene from Sahara on loop it's bound to look and sound better than anything piped over the closed circuit cable loop or any DVD.

Place the player(s) in the actual DVD player section! Don't put it next to the VCRs, or the mobile DVD units, or the $20 players. Put it somewhere near the $200 or $300 upconverting units. Make it easier for someone to see it as not a $500 (or $1000) cost but spending $200 (or $800) more to see some HD stuff on disc.

Retailers have no one blame to but themselves. Wait, no. Studios and electronic companies. Blame them for not getting a unified format in the first place. But then blame yourselves, retailers.

My BB has one shelf section on the same aisle as the 'new releases' and right next to the UMD disks with HD and BD disks, mostly front-facing; they also have a cardboard standee with one of them [I forget which.] They have the BD player set up over by the dvd players on and endcap, and the HDA1 over on an aisle next to the portable dvd players and some random Superbit titles. They had a sign saying "See this in action, on this aisle", and when I asked somebody, they said they didn't have it set up anymore, just the BD, which he started nudging me toward, when I looked somewhat hesitant, he said "Yeah, we're not sure how that one is going to do, I think the HDDVD is better." And it actually took me two or three trips to even find the HDA1.
I walked all around the HDTV and big-tv section, the only HD content was from DTV and TWC.
It's not how I would have set it up. But they're spending lots of shelf space and endcaps toward pushing DirectTV and their 'total HD solution'.

Guys, seriously. This is the most direct quote so I posted it, but this entire week so far is all this discussion on specific pricing and timing....This war will not be won this year. It can't be. Both products are dependent on HDTVs, and they aren't in every home. Each year sees more and more TVs sold, and will see more and more HD players sold. And prices will drop. In a couple years, player prices will be the same on HDDVD and BD, assuming BD actually gets DL discs and other shit working. So, fairly soon, all the $500 vs $1000 comments will be meaningless. It is a non-issue for longevity of either tech, or the outcome of the war. And before somebody rips on me yet again for injecting reality, I understand that it matters to you and your wallet. But don't try to translate your one wallet into the war's outcome.

Also, people keep wanting to compare this rollout to DVD. For the same reason, it just doesn't work. It has to be a slower pace than DVD managed due to the number of HDTVs, so some stamina is needed by the supporting companies.

While I agree that it probably will not be won this year, Q4 will be VERY important. It could sway stuidos into supporting BD or HD-DVD (Disney, Fox, Universal, New Line).

So, sales this year will be very important in this format war.

Not if they have a clue.

We could start a little contest. Guess how many individual DVD titles will outsell the entirety of BD/HDDVD catalogs in 2006.

BD = drop
HDDVD = slightly bigger drop
DVD = bucket

Exactly. But, by your own estimates, HD DVD has the 'slightly bigger drop'. Why should studios like Fox and Disney ignore that?

And, if studios like Fox and Disney decide to start supporting HD DVD (to get the $$$ from those bigger drops), why do we need two formats? Isn't the war over at that point?

Sales in Q4, while pathetic compared to standard DVD, could go a long way towards deciding the direction that this 'format war' takes.

Because creating another format disc for a movie takes up time and money, takes up inventory, and takes up store space. I wonder if discs on either format are actually recouping their investment at this point, probably not. If you figure a studio would release almost all their titles in both formats, like Warner, that means that they're releasing less titles with their resources than they could if they were exclusively one format.

Sony Columbia will stay exclusively BD until the bitter end. The others that are currnently releasing in exclusively one format are doing so with the expectation/hope that it will be the only one of the two formats they will ever have to release on.

Also, if you were a studio, would you rather sell a title like Troy for $7.50 in the bargain bin...

Or sell it for $22-$25 on HD DVD?

OK. But, say you're Fox or Disney. You're exclusively BD. BD is not meeting any of their promises. Sales are slower than HD DVD. The promises of BD50 are not coming to fruition. Even the highly-touted PS3 launch is turning into a dud.

Aren't you asking yourself why you're exclusive to this turkey of a format? If you're going to pool your resources into one format only, why are you picking the one that has lower sales?


From a consumer perspective: Big. Freaking. Deal.

If you have Warner, New Line, Disney, Fox, and Paramount releasing on both formats, the fact that Sony is exclusive to one becomes trivial to the extreme.


I still argue that if Fox and Disney decide to support HD DVD tomorrow, this format war is over. The ONLY thing that BD has going for it at this point is Fox and Disney exclusives. And that could change tomorrow, quite literally.

Is Sony not subsidizing Fox and Disney's entry into the format? I find it hard to believe they're funding this movement out of their own pockets when they have no vested interest in either format. If they truly were expecting BD50 and the PS3 be the heroes of the BD format, why not just wait until those come to fruition before devoting any capital?

The rumor mills are going crazy right now...

Apparently,
...which means there may not even be enough for a release of the (how many?) players this fall.

The problem is this: people are waiting for big titles to be out before they jump in and some studios are waiting for people to jump in before they put out their big guns. This whole situation is a chicken-egg conundrum. Well, if we're not careful, we're not having chicken or eggs for dinner, just a dry-ass roll. And maybe some green beans.

I think Q4 will solve a bit of that, for sure.

King Kong, Superman Returns, Batman Begins, Harry Potter 4, X-Men: The Last Stand all should be out in quarter 4. Those are big titles that should help sell players. Isn't the first Pirates of the Caribbean also coming in Q4?

Alternate theory: The only smart studios are Warner and Paramount. Investment into putting a movie into BR or HD-DVD (just the movie, not special extras, etc) is minimal once you've done it for the other format. Sure, Rumor Has It... isn't a barnstormer, but it makes some sales. It's better than taking a crappy movie no one cares about (Stealth) and putting it out on one format only.

I wonder when, if ever, studios will debut a movie on HD/BR before it comes out on DVD.

Someone suggested this on avsforum (maybe it was you..I dont remember). It sounds like a GREAT idea. They could really push the format with giving this incentive to early adopters.

I'm with you except for X-Men 3 and Pirates 1. I haven't heard anything about those coming in Q4. Are you sure?

yes to both.

Interesting...