My Cast Away already shipped and I am very excited. This is one of my favorite films and I've been putting off watching it again ever since the Blu-Ray was announced early in the year.

Also very pumped to finally see Superbad.

I also have Mr. & Mrs. Smith and POTC3 on the way, as well as BSG: S1 on HD DVD which I am also very excited to receive.

You know, after seeing how soon The Fly, From Hell and 28 Days/Weeks Later made it into sale prices, I should be waiting on Fox catalog titles, but I like Cast Away too much to try and get it for a lower price. $25 shipped from Amazon is good enough for me.

On M&MS, I liked it enough to see it again, but a rental is probably the best bet for now.

Anxiously awaiting Cast Away and PotC:AWE in the mail. Got both during the 30% off sale at Wherehouse.com a week or so ago. Cast Away should look excellent on Blu-ray. The higher bitrate core DTS audio track that the PS3 will play should also sound slightly better than the DVD. I'll keep the 2-disc DVD because it has a lot of good extras.

My local Best Buy had all the Fox catalog titles out already.

Castaway had the following special features: Commentary by Zemekis, Trailer, Trivia Track, My Scenes. Thats it. Its a 50GB disc with AVC at 33MBS. I don't see how Fox couldn't have included the SD features from the 2 Disc set as there is no way the transfer warranted 50GB of space. Future Double Dip? Hopefully this will BOGO at Fry's soon as I would pick this up for $14 easy.

Mr and Mrs. Smith had more features but I can't remember them all. It had 6-7 listed on the back, I recall a Commentary or two, Trivia Track, Trailer, My Scenes...and 2 other things I believe.

Crap, I forgot about BSG on HD DVD. I'm going to go broke tomorrow
Superbad is $26.99 at Fry's, so I imagine POTC3 will have similar pricing as well. BSG was $69.99 (or so says the employee at Fry's when I asked a few weeks ago)

I am an Amazon Prime member. 100% of the time, my preorders from Amazon go to "shipping soon" status the Monday before release date and ship that day. However, Superbad has ended that streak. I thought things were going as planned when my status for that title changed to "shipping soon" this morning. Unfortunately, the status has switched back to "items not yet shipped" and gives me the option to cancel. damn it!

ah, thank you. as to the state of this thread, it would be an argument if anyone were to respond to the many inaccuracies raised constantly by one member. though if anyone were to do so they would also be tarred with the same brush, so he gets to say what he likes. unfortunate.

true, though if someone were to enter a long running thread about, say, raiders of the lost ark, and constantly attack steven spielberg they probably wouldn't be welcomed. this particular member doesn't like this format. i get it. others seem to get it. what is his purpose in continuallly posting his negativity in this thread?

If you have a problem with a post of mine, report it.

They did the same thing to do with Transformers on HD DVD. Call and ask to cancel it. They can't, but will allow you to return it for free (not charge you shipping etc.)

the status has now changed back to "shipping soon".

Try calling still. They will at least let you send it back for free and not charge you since you can't cancel it and its not "released" yet. At least thats what they let me do with Transformers.

Just sit back & laugh... it's only gonna get more frantic in the coming months lol. IMO as long as no one is getting ganged up on or personally attacked, it's all good.

Mine was 'shipping soon' for most of the day... finally got the shipping notice an hour ago.

I have a PS3 and have a question about the Blu-Ray playback function. I rented from Netflix Fantastic Four 2 and the picture had the black bars on the top and bottom. I thought all blu-ray movies eliminated the bars on the top and bottom? The movie did look nice on the tv, but the I am worried a setting was wrong that made the bars appear.

Oh boy...

kenage
Senior Member

Join Date: Jun 2002




It all depends on the aspect ratio of the movie, just like on DVDs... Being Blu-ray or HD-DVD doesn't change that.

oh boy...

I thought it was movie specific but I just wanted to ask the question to make sure. It is fine either way, but I thought maybe with Blu-Ray all the movies would fill the screen. Geez.

+1!

Come on guys, be nice.

kenage, HDTV's are widescreen at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 (or roughly 16x9). Movies are generally shown theatrically at 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 (or 2.39:1 or 2.40:1 but you get the idea). Thanks to overscanning or slight reformatting, a 1.85:1 film will generally fill the entire TV screen. A scope film will still have the black bars to preserve a ratio wider than the TV's.

To add to what Supermallet said above I would like to point out that the only way to get a 2.35:1 movie to fit a 16:9 (1.78:1) screen would be to alter it. Most of us take a very dim view of such alterations because we prefer the "Original Aspect Ratio" (OAR) of the movie. So we view the "black bars" as a good thing.

In addition to the "black bars" above and below widescreen movies, you will also see "black pillars" framing the sides of older 4:3 movies and TV shows. Again, this is the way it should be, no need to adjust your display!

Kenage,

In all seriousness, can I ask why you thought this? Did you read it somewhere, or did someone tell you this?

I'd love to know where stuff like this comes from.

I don't know about Kenage, but I can see where someone who has seen cropped HD movies on premium channels might think that the HD discs are similar.

I learned my lesson from buying DVDs. I still have over at 50 DVDs that I've yet to open. Some of them have now been released on HD/BD, so I think I'm going to wait til prices get lower or some BOGOs. The most I will pay for a BD/HD is $20 bucks. No more frivolous buying for me.