asianxcore

Definitely picking up this release. Not sure about the artwork.

RocShemp

It's not great but far from terrible. Still, I would have been happier with the orginal DVD artwork but with the headshot portraits excluded. Nevertheless, this is a must-buy for me.

buckee1

Artwork seems cool to me, as to the film itself, it's a definite purchase.

Duder

This will be the second Blu-ray disc I purchase before even owning a player (Blade Runner was the first).

Grain

I'm sure there will be some custom covers out there eventually, if not already.
I pre-ordered it at Amazon.

applesandrice

I've already started work on one . . .

tylergfoster

I posted this in both forums:

The Hi-Def includes:
- Theatrical and Director's Cuts of the Film
- 3 Audio Commentaries with Director Alex Proyas, Writers Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer, Director of Photography Dariusz Wolski, Production Designer Patrick Tatopoulous and Critic Roger Ebert
- Director's Cut Fact Track
- Introduction by Alex Proyas
- "Memories of Shell Beach" Documentary
- "Architecture of Dreams" Featurette
- Text Essays and Neil Gaiman's Review of "Dark City"
- Production Gallery
- Theatrical Trailer

My feeling is that the standard-def will only include the Director's Cut, one commentary, the featurettes, galleries, text and trailers. I'm guessing the first two commentaries go with the "theatrical" feature and the third commentary features the same participants elaborating on the "Director's Cut" of the movie.

bunkaroo

Great to see the theatrical will be there. I'm sure I'll like the Director's Cut, but it's always good to have the cut you fell in love with.

kefrank

with all that content, i sure hope the two different cuts are achieved with seamless branching. any word on whether any of the extras are in HD?

EDIT: I looked at the back cover image over at dvdactive and it indicates that at least some of the extras will be in 1080p.

kefrank

I'm not sure if New Line is doing some creative math, but the text on the back cover image over at dvdactive says there are five commentary tracks. I can't help but wonder if some of those five are duplicates from the theatrical version with extended sections for the director's cut.

Labor

I don't think Seamless Branching can work for this. Supposedly the Director's Cut features improved SXF as well as an improved (redone?) sound mix. So the DC is fundamentally different than the original version, it's not just a few minutes added here and there.

kefrank

Well, I can't help but think that if they're putting 215 minutes of hi-def video on one disc + extras, then the image quality is going to suffer.

That being said, I don't think redone sound on its own would preclude seamless branching. I could be wrong, but I believe the branching only applies to video - the disc has entirely separate audio tracks depending on which version is chosen. I could be wrong about that though.

tylergfoster

You could use branching, I imagine regardless of the additions and subtractions some 70% of the movie is intact. 30% is a lot of changes, but it still leaves plenty of stuff to branch from.

RichC2

215 minutes with 3 commentaries and some short extras don't really amount to that much. I don't see this being an issue for 50gb.

kefrank

If we assume ~10GB for the audio and extras (probably reasonable, considering at least one of the extras is in 1080p) that leaves 40GB for 215 minutes of video. If my math is right, that would allow for an average bitrate of 25.4 Mbps. Is that enough? Maybe, but it hardly leaves comfortable breathing room, especially for a dark movie with lots of shadow detail and likely plenty of grain. I hope they don't DNR it beyond recognition.

RichC2

Considering how amazing the HD DVD of Batman Begins looks (on a 30gb disc with a 29mbps maximum for a 2hr 20m movie), I'm going to say yes, that bit rate is more than enough. You have to consider most BDs still run at around 20 Mbps on average.

Plus there is no saying how much space is used on the audio and extras or how they're planning to actually put the two cuts on the disc.

People get entirely too hung up on numbers, and we aren't talking MPEG-2 here.

MoviePage

This is a definite purchase.

And I love, love, love the cover art.

kefrank

believe me, i'm the first one to bring up that the "ideal" bitrate depends on tons of different factors and there's no absolute determination of what is best. i'm simply saying ~25Mbps doesn't give me a warm fuzzy that it's plenty for this type of movie. it very well could be, but it's not such a high number that i can be fully confident. if the average bitrate ends up being 15Mbps, but the image looks great, i'll be the first to praise it, so i'm certainly not hung up on numbers.

MasterofDVD

I haven't watched the movie for ages because this new cut has been rumored for ages and I just kept telling myself I would just wait for the new version. While the wait became far longer than anyone ever imagined I am trying to hold off a bit longer.

I'm not sure how everything will fit but I can't imagine they waited this long just to muck up the release and have it look like shit.

eedoon

I agree that the cover sucks ass.

But I'm going to get it anyway.


I guess that makes me the bigger sucker.

E Unit

I got a chance to watch this last night. I'm kind of surprised no one has talked about this yet, and there doesn't seem to be any reviews - but this is the best looking BD I have seen since probably Blade Runner The Final Cut. The picture is vastly improved and the sound is equally as impressive. Proyas' director's cut is pretty good too, mostly subtle changes like addtional scenes or extended ones. I need to get around to lsitening to the commentaries, especially Ebert's since I liked listening to him on the original cut. This is overall a fabulous upgrade to the old Platinum edition DVD.

fryinpan1

reviews here:
http://www.hddb.net/reviews/dark-city-707566-blu-ray

Daytripper

There's a thread about it over in just the DVDTalk group too. I was looking for one here but didn't see this. Anyway, I responded in that other thread last night after I watched it. It *is* the picture this movie has ever seen. It's not great throughout though. A couple scenes looked just a little murky. But overall I'd give the PQ 4.5/5. Same with the sound. How many BD's do you have? Just curious. Because I only have about 30 and "Crank", "The Other Boleyn Girl" and "No Country For Old Men" are the best PQ BD's I own. In that order. Even over "Blade Runner" (which I also have).

Hammer99

Here you go... another DNR fest

Josh Z

The transfer is extremely schizophrenic. There are some shots with incredible sharpness and detail, but for the most part facial features look distractingly mushy, and edge enhancement is quite pronounced in many places. 3/5 score from me.