Ocelot

That's total BS... Just b/c the movie is in native language doesn't mean it's less enjoyable with another language track! I agree that the native language used in the movie is always the better than the dubbed ones, but still, for some of us know more than one languages, the multi-language tracks are big big plus. Not to mention the dubbed languages are richly encoded as well.

jiggawhat

People laugh at the fact that BDs have so many tracks but this will eventually make production cheaper. With DVD, domestic and international studios have had to issue separate releases because of different languages, now that they have extra space on the disc they won't have to do that for every title plus it opens up the title to other demographics which in turns help sales incrementally.

Read BrandonJF's post again and stop twisting around what he's saying. He never said that the movie would be better on BD. He stating a fact that BD has more space than HD, which you can't refute no matter how hard you want to try.

Fox is stupid plain and simple. They will learn the hard way what they are doing isn't in the best interest of the consumer, but I think we all know that they are releasing titles without extras so that they can do the inevitable double dip.

Also, why don't you remind me us why Paramount wasn't able to give us a lossless track on Transformers or Blades of Glory let alone any of their movies?

applesandrice

They still do region encoding, though, which would necessitate separate releases. Also, what about navigation issues? Menu languages, etc. Untill everyone in the world speaks one language (English, hopefully, as it seems to be the only one with which I have even a basic familiarity), there will have to be separate releases.

The Bus

For region coding, yes. Unless they are smart and stop region-coding catalogue releases.

But for the menus? I think it's pretty easy to figure out how to play a DVD, even if it is in a foreign language. And audio and subtitles can be done through the player.

applesandrice

Menus are easy to figure out if there's uniformity to the layout. Discs with more complicated menu structures, though, would be way beyond what most people would want to deal with if they appeared in an unfamiliar language. One way they could get around that, I suppose, would be to encode multiple menus: one for each language track. That could even be made to work with regional coding (for good or evil) so that certain languages would only be available based on the region in which the disc is operated. So the same disc could offer, like, five or ten languages for each of the three regions.

You'd still have to work out all sorts of packaging and marketing crap, though.

Qui Gon Jim

And it all comes back to this.

I AM IMPARTIAL. I DON'T CARE WHO WINS.

If someone says "Combos suck" then all but the most ardent HD DVD supporters say "yup, they do." Say Fox sucks, WHICH THEY DO, and you get the raving people coming out of the woodwork to defend Fox, not because they deserve the defense, but because they support Blu-Ray.

An honest, intellectual person cannot say that Fox has doe well especially compared to what Disney has done since the start (and I think Disney does it better than ANY studio, even all the HD DVD ones), just as no one can say that combos are the greatest thing ever.

THAT does NOT make me a HD-FUD or however you try to label me. I will NOT EVER stop calling a corporation on what I consider to be bullshit. Perhaps it is easier for you to put me in a box to dismiss my opinions. Good for you. Does it make me wrong? Nope. Does it make you wrong? Nope.

I think it is utterly laughable that anyone, ANYONE that criticizes any aspect of BD is met with a flurry of attacks, some personal, from the same ten people over and over. I see guys with lage BD collections, and am not even talking about Gizmo, being called HD DVD fanboys just because they are critical of the decisions of a corporation.

So much of the BD selling line is the potential of the format. I have agreed from the start that BD, on paper, was far superior. That superiority, except on paper, has not been realized. With this war coming to an end, it will be impossible to say it will EVER be realized, because no one will ever be able to say "The BD LotR looks better than the HD DVD LotR" because there will never be an HD DVD LotR. Of course people will say it couldn't be done, but we will never know.

My hope is that HD DVD goes away quickly, that BD solidifies their standards (which seems hopeful) and that BD quality continues to improve.

Qui Gon Jim

The assertation in the post was that BD was better than HD DVD because the discs were larger, and there is no evidence that the extra 20GB improved the viewing experience in any way. There is the potential for more there, but it cannot be ignored that there is also untapped potential in the HD DVD format.

The "potential" argument is pretty old.

redbill

then quit arguing about it. it really annoys the rest of us who don't want to read all this bickering...

dsa_shea

All they would have to do is change the region code then press and release. I do agree that region codes could be done away with but I also undertsand why some studios support them. This prevents a loss of theatrical money in regions where the movie has yet to have a theatrical run. As far as your point of everyone speaking one language, I strongly disagree with you on this. Language and culture are so intertwined that you couldn't do away with one without significantly altering the other. Besides, learning to speak a second or even a third and fourth language will enrich your life far beyond anything I can tell you. It also blows peoples minds that think that they really know you only to hear you speaking a second language with someone else for the very first time.

dsa_shea

Let's just state it like this: BD has far more wiggle room for technological advancement than HD-Dvd was able to offer. We know that HD-Dvd had a 51 gb disc in the making but it was nowhere near field tested and approved by the masses. On the other hand we have 50gb Blu-Ray discs on the street right now with a very small percentage of failure. Most of the failure that has happened has to do with the disc material being faulty and not the fact that it is a 50gb disc. I like HD-Dvd but I see more than can be done with BD in the future.

Yavin

Well, looks like HD-A3 and HD-A30 price drops have finally hit us in-store in Canada too. Both Best Buy and Future Shop have the HD-A3 and HD-A30 going for $169.99 and $219.99 now. Fire sale is officially on.

Dan

A35 is $319 at Visions.ca

SO tempting...

applesandrice

It was a joke, I promise. I've actually got a minor in Russian, and have taken (on a very limited scale) both Spanish and French. As for English, I can talk it pretty good.

dsa_shea

I paid 350+tax for my HD-A30 just mere months ago. Sons a bitches!!!

dsa_shea

It is awesome to know that you are learning some foreign languages.

jjt1081

Cry me a river, I paid $448 for my HD-A35 in October.

dsa_shea

I know it is the high cost of joining the club. I guess I will at least enjoy the 30+ titles I already have.

jjt1081

Pretty much. But I think I only have like 15 HD DVDs. Though is just bought Sahara from Amazon and there is this one porn that I'm going to have to break down and buy. Oh, plus American Gangster. Eh, whatever, hopefully the machine lasts 10 years like people report with their original Toshiba DVD players.

Peep

Well said. I'm not sure why anybody, at this point in time, cares if bigger is better. Obviously Toshiba thought it was worth their time to try to come up with a 51G disc, but I'm sure they were expeecting to get zero benefit from them.

Josh Z

For someone who works for (or used to work for?) Paramount, I'm surprised you never noticed how little support they ever offered DTS on DVD. Does that mean that the DVD format wasn't able to handle DTS audio? Of course not.

Paramount has always been conservative in its usage of audio formats. This has nothing to do with the technical specs of the format, and everything to do with corporate policy. I'm sure you'll agree that the Viacom empire, with its teams of lawyers lording over every single decision no matter how insignificant, is extremely stodgy and slow to embrace change. That's the corporate culture there. That they release anything on High-Def Media at all this early in the game is kind of amazing. They were one of the last to embrace DVD, and only after their preferred (lawyer-created) DiVx format kicked the bucket.

Mr. Cinema

So why would they put TrueHD audio on titles like A Mighty Heart and The Heartbreak Kid, but not on their biggest film of the year, Transformers? Are you certain that the film, all of the interactive features, and lossless audio would have fit on 1 HD DVD without compromising video quality?

Qui Gon Jim

Are you certain they wouldn't?

No one can win a debate of what ifs. There really is no way of knowing.

bunkaroo

I posed this very same question several times at AVS with no good answer.

Some people would say lossless is only needed for certain titles. I find it hard to believe a title like Next needed TrueHD but Transformers didn't warrant it.

If Paramount had opted to not use TrueHD at all at least they would have appeared consistent.

Note that I am not here to debate whether lossless can be detected by the average user, etc. I am simply stating Paramount's own inconsistency suggests there were other reasons TrueHD wasn't used on Transformers besides DD+ being good enough.

Supermallet

There's no debate about Transformers. I was at Paramount and they said it was lossy audio due to space constraints. That being said, the audio was fan-fucking-tastic and I don't care if it was lossless or not.

Mr. Cinema

I'd love to get the chance to hear Transformers with TrueHD audio. Hopefully when Paramount releases the BD version, it'll contain that track. This would be one example of 50gb helping to improve the experience. Same goes for King Kong, which lacked lossless audio.