Woohoo, Amazon shipped my copy of The Departed (BD, of course )! I should get it on Wednesday.

My copy (BD) shipped out from DDD on Friday. I should have it tomorrow.

It's interesting to me to hear people saying they like combos so they can loan them to people. I'm kind of glad to have a reason why they can't borrow my HD-DVD titles. I get tired of my wife loaning out our movies to relatives and co-workers. It just adds the chance for scratches and smudges plus they keep them too long and occasionally I have gone to watch a film only to be told that someone else has it. It also adds to case wear which is a bummer if I ever decide to eBay a title.

Exactly.

I buy movies for myself, not for others to loan. I'm not Blockbuster.

I don't like the combos because they're more expensive and a flipper disc. I could live with having it a flipper but I'm not going to pay more when I already feel the discs are overpriced.

Yeah, I stopped that and told my fiancee not to lend any movies out. For alot of people they wouldnt give them back for months.

Combos are good for taking the movie to my parents on holidays or on trips with a portable dvd player/laptop. But, I just think the negatives outweigh those positives.

Wow just got back from my 6week Costa Rica Journey and it seems like there is alot of tension in here. I think this format war is getting on everyones nerves these days. It seems like alot of people are slowly working thier way over to BD but I for one and standing firmly on HD DVD ground. I for one easnt as disappointed as some were with thier SEC showing and I am as disgusted with Sony as I have ever been with the recent news that Sny plans to announce that BD is the winner of the format war soon. Thier arrogance is astounding and continues to bewilder me and makes me want nothing to do with them or BD.

I have said it since I sided with HD DVD and that is I will not support both formats as that is only prolonging the format war. I chose HD DVD and I am sticking with it till they close up shop and call it quits. I can buy the SD DVD for movies that dont come to HD DVD or just download the HDversion if I absolutly have to have it in HD. So with that being said ---

I am buying The Departed on HD DVD and I am one of the people that absoulty appreciate Combo Discs. I still have a bunch of SD DVD players around my house and this allows me to play my movie anywhere I want. Anyone that gets fingerprints on thier discs just hasnt progressed beyond the how to handle a DVD 101 stage. There is absolutly no reason why you would get a fingerprints on a DVD if you handle it properly by the edges.

Bottom line is I want HD DVD to win this war and I will continue to cast that vote with every purchase I make. as for the people arguing about the additional 4$ it costs for HD DVD, its absoultly mind boggling that people can spend thousands of dollars on new entertainment systems and then complain that thier disc is 28 instead of 24. Sure its 4 dollarsyou could put towards another movie but in the end its still only 4 dollars. Just makes some of you sound really lame imo. Its 4 measly dollars and it for one of the best films in the last 5 years. Get over it or get a new job that pays you some money!!

OC...

As I have said before about Blu-ray's lack of extras, it's the principle of the thing. I'm not buying HD DVDs so I can have the regular DVD, too. It would be one thing if they offered a non-combo version so we could have the choice, but they don't, and then they charge us more for it. It's like a kick in the nuts and a punch in the face. And while I agree $4 isn't much of anything, I want to send the message to the studios that they can shove those combo discs where the sun don't shine.

So then the Departed is a non-buy out of the principle of the thing?

If it is, is this a movie that was really high on your want list until you found out it was a combo and was lacking a major documentary found on the regular DVD? Just trying to understand.

Im sorry but they arent going to get that messege no matter how much you might in fact want them to. The messege that they will get is that you want BD to succed and not HD DVD. This is a format war people, every disc you buy for HD DVD is in fact a vote for HD DVD and every BD disc you buy is in fact a vote for BD. Make no mistake about it this comes down to simple numbers. So no matter how much you may want to send a certain messege to the studios out there in the end there is only one messege you can send with your purchase and that is what format you want to win.

If you dislike Combo's and want to send that messege to the studios the only way that is going to happen is if write an email to the company saying just that and contniue to send it each time they release a different Combo or something like that. again no matter how much you may want your purchase to send that messege, it is absolutly not the messege that is being sent.

OC...

I've gone back and forth on the Blu-ray thing for awhile, but this is a conclusion that I am quickly coming to appreciate. I've been with HD DVD since day one and for the most part have been happy with the discs. I came very close to giving in and buying a PS3, but walked away from it. I honestly don't want two HD players and two HD formats in my house. It definitely means I will be buying many movies on SD DVD for some time to come, but I am finding that a much better option than supporting Blu-ray and Sony.

edit. Ah hell, the $22.99 price for the Departed combo at Best Buy changed my mind and I bought the HD DVD. Sucks about the missing doc, but I will rent the bonus disc to see that later.

To fuck the consumer in the ass, of course.

My solution: just don't watch the Departed on your trip. Watch something else

Uh, yeah, thats an obvious option.

But, it still doesnt diminsh that it IS a positive for combos (and rememeber I hate them).

There have been many times that I go visit my parent's and my dad wants to watch something that I have. The Departed is defiantely one that he would want to watch. Short of renting it on DVD ($5 at blockbuster), a combo is a good alternative.

Its not important enough for me to buy the combo, but these are the only positives that I can think of. They ARE positives, but how important varies to each person.

HD DVD review:
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/departed.html

Blu-ray review:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/departed.html

Yes, it is. A combo by itself won't make a movie a non-buy for me. But missing extras are. I didn't buy King Kong, and I won't buy this unless it's used or just so damned cheap I can't help myself. I would love to see/hear the movie in HD, but all the studios have to stop the practice of dropping extras on these formats, period.

Sounds like in the future, I'll probably go with the Blu-ray release. It's too late for me to cancel the HD-DVD from shipping, but I'm not gonna spend 4 extra bucks on identical video, slightly inferior audio, slower load times, and a SD-DVD version that I'll never watch.

I don't really consider this a Departed extra. It's a special from several years ago.

And I guess as someone who doesn't care much about Scorcese, it's not an issue. It would be like putting a documentary for Spielberg on the Munich DVD.

Doesn't really belong there because it's not related to the movie.

Yeah, it also happens to be what, 85 minutes? That's a pretty substantial extra to lose.

But it's not a "Departed" extra.

It's a documentary about its filmmaker.

Has absolutely nothing to do with the movie and should be released on its own.

But that's a slippery slope of reasoning. Technically, the "Stranger Than Fiction" featurette isn't strictly about the making of the movie. Should that not be on there? What percentage of a featurette should be about the making of that specific movie to make it relevant to a disc?

Personally, I greatly appreciate the separately-produced documentaries that WB includes (Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Gone With The Wind, etc.), and this seems like a perfectly acceptable place to house the Scorsese on Scorsese feature. And yes, a "Spielberg on Spielberg" documentary on Munich would have been great (certainly more substantial than the somewhat fluffy featurettes on disc two...yes, "fluffy," even for something like Munich).

Besides, how is it that when Chicago left off the VH1 special and the Chita Rivera thing, it was unacceptable, but when The Departed leaves off the Scorsese on Scorsese documentary, it's fine?

I don't mean to be antagonistic, but carrying over special features means carrying over special features, whether one feels they are necessary or not.

This is a valid point and different from the King Kong DVD. I still think that it appearing on the DVD version is reason to have it on the HD versions, but I can understand that this was a separate enity from the film and not the outright crime that the King Kong release was.

I ended up caving today and getting the HD DVD version. I figured I would rent the extra disc to watch the documentary, but hell I have that one recorded on SVHS from 2004 or 2005 already. I have many of those TCM docs recorded already and had forgotten about this one.

I am still puzzled about it not being included. If they could cram all that on the Superman disc what would stop it this time? Also, if Clerks II can be on two discs there is no reason why this should ever happen.

If the Chita Rivera special were the only thing left off of the BD, I wouldn't be bitching. But even still, that's related to the main feature at least.

The Scorcese extra was made YEARS before the movie it's included with was. That's stupid. No slippery slope here.

Extras should be related to the movie included. This has nothing to do with it.

But WB saw fit to release the documentary along with The Departed and it's on the SD version. Therefore, it should have been carried over, relevant or not. The problem might stem from the WB added content department choosing this documentary for this release, as yes, it doesn't include The Departed. But it's still a special feature that has been left off of the HD version, and regardless of its content (which I still argue is relevant for Scorsese fans), it should have been on there.

It is a slippery slope to start saying "It's okay that they left this feature off because it's not 100% relevant" (though again, "Scorsese on Scorsese" included on a disc with a Scorsese film is relevant...but I digress). What next? You might as well argue that including something like the 1930s version of Scarface with the 1982 version was irrelevant and that it's okay if it's not carried over to HD, or the earlier versions of Ben-Hur, or The Maltese Falcon.

Besides, who's to say if something is relevant or not? I say this documentary is, you say it isn't. The bottom line is, it should have been included. There's no excuse.

Since when was that the criteria for extras? I could name a ton of DVDs which have extras not specifically related to the film in question. How many war films had documentaries about the war in which the film takes place? Or how about that extra on Field of Dreams where Kevin Costner talks to some sports guys for an hour, maybe saying five words about the film? I checked on Amazon and couldn't find the Scorsese on Scorsese doc on its own separate DVD, which means that the Departed DVD is currently the only place to get it (unless I'm missing another place that has it), so it sucks that they're keeping it off the HD/BD.