but how does the IMAX intro look ?!?

but, but, it hardly looks better than an upscaled DVD. i can prove it in photoshop!! :cool:

I've only seen the first one and half of the 2nd, so I can't judge the quality too much. But it lacks a menu that allows you to choose the shorts one by one. The pop up menu just has a "Play Feature" icon in regards to the actual shorts.

Does anyone know if any store is offering exclusives for the BB Bluray Gift Set? I've seen tons of exclusives for Gotham Knight and BB DVD Gift Set. But none for the Bluray set.

What else would I buy at Best Buy though? It's not like I'm going to get a deal on anything in that store. If my friend hadn't given me a gift card I would have gotten the regular version at WHV with the discount code.

I posted this in Movie Talk, but as it's directly applicable to Blu-ray, I'll repost it here:

Last night I got the chance to ask Christopher Nolan how he's going to handle the IMAX footage for The Dark Knight on home video. He said that for Blu-ray, the 35mm film footage will be in 2.40:1, while the IMAX footage would be at 1.77:1, which retains more of the image and also fills a 16x9 widescreen TV.

God, the IMAX footage looks fantastic on the Blu-ray.

The image quality was good but I've seen much better looking blu-rays and hd-dvds. (batman begins not the imax prologue)

Is the Prologue encoded in MPEG-2? Also, is it in Dolby True HD? Sorry if these questions have already been answered.

I don't know how much IMAX footage was shot, but this makes it sound like the aspect ratio will be bouncing back and forth throughout the film...? Or is it only the prologue that was shot differently?

The aspect ratio will bounce back and forth for The Dark Knight on Blu-ray, as it does if you see it in IMAX theaters. It's not as distracting as it sounds.

That is going to piss off CIH people. I wonder if they'll think to keep the subtitles within the area where the 2.39:1 frame would be.

Well it certainly sounds distracting. Is there a precedent for this to compare it to?

Hopefully WB will have the exact theatrical version on the disc as well.

Yes, Enchanted began in non-anamorphic 1.85:1 for the animated sequence, and when Gisele entered the real world, the pillarboxes widened, and the matte boxes shifted up, to 2.35:1, anamorphic. It was a good effect.

As for this one, it doesn't seem that jarring.

So why was the prologue presented in 1.66:1 (or at least close to it given the small bars on the sides) instead of 1.77:1 on the Batman Begins Blu-Ray?

Also, how the heck do you get Dolby TrueHD on the prologue? There's no pop-up menu once you play the prologue and I can't get it to switch to any other audio track via the remote either. :hscratch:

Well, I certainly don't have any issue with this being presented as an option, but I still want the 2:35:1 version on there too. It may not be strictly what C. Nolan prefers - but it's what I'll see in the theaters, and what I'll be used to. I can't imagine a scenario in which switching aspect ratios wouldn't take me out of the story.

I think i'd rather have it the same aspect ratio all the way through.

I also wouldn't want to buy the Blu-Ray with switching aspect ratios.

Anybody else having a problem playing this on the Panasonic DMP-BD10A? It keeps telling me "No Disc" when I put it in. I'm going to be more than a little pissed if I spent $600 bucks on a machine 9 months ago, that is already discontinued and hasn't had a firmware update since October, that won't play new movies.


Now that I'm messing with it it's saying no disc on all my blu-ray movies, even the ones I've played with no problem in the past, but standard dvd's are playing fine. WHAT THE FUCK!!! Is this an easy fix I'm way too numb to figure out?

Keep in mind that standard dvds are read via a red laser in your blu-ray player, while the blu-rays use the blue laser. Perhaps there is an issue with the laser mechanism? I have no idea, I'm simply throwing out an idea.

Try the following:

Make sure that there is no disc in the tray. Leave the player on. Unplug the cable. Wait 3-4 min. Plug it back in. Insert a BR disc.

A few weeks ago we had a major rainstorm in Chicago and something similar happen to my player.

Pro-B

Please can someone that has this disc answer this? I'm usually not this desperate, but I need to know this if at all possible...

Once again, see the example with Enchanted. Aspect ratios switch for narrative purposes in other films as well, such as Black Snake Moan.

A bad example of not changing aspect ratios is with documentaries shot in a widescreen aspect ratio that attempt to fill up the screen with older news reports (with a 4:3 ratio), which end up looking bad.

Plus, the theatrical version is...yes, compromised from the original IMAX. The IMAX scenes are the definitive versions of those four scenes, and just because they're not as widely distributed as the other versions, doesn't take away from their legitimacy, which will be reflected on the Blu-ray release.

Well, the IMAX shots should be in 1.44:1, so they will still be compromised somewhat on the BD.

This is a unique case though WRT OAR, because surely he shot the scenes knowing they would be cropped to 2.39:1 in most theaters.

Unless my TV and my theater's 2K projector has some drastic overscan, the prologue looked like 1.77:1 on the BB Blu-ray. Nolan even referred to the prologue on the Blu-ray as 1.77:1 at the Q&A I attended.

No go, but thanks for the help. I guess it's time to test the return policy at Circuit City.

I set my Sharp 52D62 to Dot-by-Dot mode whenever I I watch 1080i or 1080p content because it eliminates overscan and in this mode I see that the footage has bars on its sides. They're not major but they are enough to obviously make the image less than 1.77:1 and closer to 1.66:1.

Maybe somebody screwed up making the transfer?

the prologue was filmed in IMAX, so the ratio is around 1.77:1

Well I also noticed a touch of black bars on each side. Very, very, very small. In fact, those who may not see that, probably have a little overscan as opposed to the 'just scan' option other TV's have.

IMAX is really about 1.44:1, despite how they're formatting the discs.

Well, Roc, I don't really know what to say about that one. Perhaps they will go for 1.66:1 to get even closer to the original IMAX ratio and just presume that most people's TV will overscan it to 1.77:1. :shrug:

I just found it kind of odd when I was watching the prologue. Perhaps you're right and they did it in a effort to get as close to 1.44:1 as possible while still (mostly) filling a 1.77:1 frame.

BTW, when you talked to Nolan, did you get to ask him if more (if not all) of the eventual third film will be shot with IMAX cameras?