I think we all knew when the first SD/BD came out this would come along eventually.

As others have said the current Blu-Ray is fantastic so I will be holding onto that.

Yes, many of us DO know how much of an effort it takes to create a Blu-ray title.

I doubt that Disney needs to release another BD version of a movie in order to put a new movie on BD. Your explanation is weak. Using your argument, we'll only get day & date titles and movies already released on BD, since as you say, it's easier to release one already on the format. So we're capped at 1,000 catalog titles with this logic.

The goal, just like it was for DVD, is to EXPAND the catalog with as many films as possible.

DVD double dips weren't occuring until we had thousands of titles already released. BD has only passed the 1,000 mark and we're already seeing double dips. That is pathetic.

The reason BD was created was so the studios could re-sell us movies we already bought on DVD. Myself, and others, didn't think that also meant they could re-sell us movies we already bought on BD, especially since it's not even been on the market for 3 full years.

If I hadn't already bought the first Blu Ray release for this one I'd be all over the new release.

But I did, and I've got other titles I want to buy, so I'll pass as well.

Read much? That wasn't my argument at all. All I said was that it would take minimal effort from them to release a second Blu-ray of an already released title if all they were doing was adding more extras. That means that it has minimal impact on their Blu-ray mastering group. That means that they aren't releasing this title "instead of" another title, which is the statement I was addressing.

So, yeah, I stick by my point. It benefits them to fart out another version of the title because it will take them minimal effort and gain them easy sales. And they can do it without much impact to their normal release work.

No purchase for double-dip Blu-ray.

Yes, improvements should never be made to anything. Ever.

Likewise. Extras are nice, but considering how exceptional the presentation was on the original Blu-ray disc, I'm okay passing on this.

Given the choice, though, I would've rather seen Miramax dig deeper into their back catalog. They've barely released anything.

Yes, I do read. Thanks for asking.

You don't seem bothered that they're double dipping on a title that didn't need another release to begin with. So I guess you'd rather see the BD catalog not grow. I'm the opposite.

And yes, this title is taking the place of something else. They still have to press brand new BD50s for a title that didn't need re-releasing. This is not the exact same disc, since there's features added, plus a new DTS audio track.

Personally, I would rather have had them spend money on a title not out on BD already. I would rather them press more BD50s for a title not out on BD already.

The Brothers don't really do extras and this just seems like a bunch of TV specials and stuff, which is fine, but I've no reason to buy it again.

I don't believe in owning 10 copies of each title all in the name of Yayyyyy!!! It's An Improvement!!!

Get it right the first time.

Is that too much to ask? As stated earlier, this ties up other titles which could have been released and then those titles will probably be rushed to market. But don't you worry, you'll be buying the Improved & Hindsight 20/20 Version a few months later.

I'm sticking with my original copy. I can always use Netflix to see the special features.

No, I'm not bothered. I don't own the movie on any format yet, so I'll probably get the new release, unless the prices on the current release fall drastically.

And, no, this title is not taking the place of something else. Who is it that you think is pressing these new BD50s? Disney? If that was true, which it not, then you might have a small point. Then, maybe, the manufacturing of other Disney titles might be held up. But it's ignorant to think that the bottleneck for new releases in the manufacturing of them. Not anymore. When Warner had over a million copies of Dark Night manufactured, did they slip the rest of their 2008 Blu-ray slate? No. The bottleneck is in getting the product in the correct digital format for releasing on Blu-ray, not the manufacturing of it once it's been made.

I think a lot of people out there think that if any HD-master is available, then most of the work is done. For a decent studio, that is not the case. A lot more care is put into a Blu-ray release then is put into the HD versions you see airing on VOD. And since the non-Blu-ray HD versions often get made first, much of their work gets thrown away.

ya im gonna buy it too

You don't know if another title was pushed back for a re-release of NCFOM. Don't make assumptions you can't back up with proof. As I said, Disney re-releasing 1 out of the 40 titles they releases in 2008 on Blu-ray again is ridiculous. You know how many titles they have skipped over so far in 2009?

The only difference is the compression of the video -- since the actual transfers are the same for Blu-ray, DVD, VOD, etc. -- and encoding audio you already have handy, right? I'm not trivializing the work that goes into authoring a Blu-ray disc and poring over a movie as it's being compressed, but I don't see where the really enormous gulf is.

Good idea, but from what I can tell, Netflix often doesn't get the SEs.

A decent studio will not use a transfer that they made for DVD for Blu-ray. And taking a transfer and turning it into a Blu-ray master is A LOT more complicated then compressing and authoring it.

Rather than pile on with assumptions on how easy it is to make a Blu-ray, I encourage you all to research the steps a bit. You will quickly learn that bring a movie to Blu-ray for the first time is orders of magnitude more time-consuming then adding a few extras to an existing Blu-ray and releasing it again.

Assumption!?!

As far as I'm concerned, you're the one making assumptions, none of which you've backed up with any proof. My first questions to any of you would be: How many man-hours did the re-release of NCFOM consume and how many does the normal catalog release take? And, of those hours, how many of them prevented another project from moving forward in parallel.

Oh, and GizmoDVD, I'm still waiting for your response to the holes I shot in your "press[ing of] brand new BD50s" argument.

Seriously, if you guys want to keep insisting that this re-release had even a marginal impact on Disney Blu-ray output, I encourage you to provide one shred of proof. If you can't, than all of the bitching in this thread is assumption.

So there are no decent studios then? Virtually every Blu-ray in existence does this. For catalog titles, a single high-def master is struck, and the DVD is downsampled from that. Studios have been archiving high-def masters for ages, and it's pretty clear that they're being dusted off once the Blu-ray disc rolls around. Sometimes a new master will be struck later, but there's almost always a corresponding DVD release culled from that same master. Day-and-dates generally use the digital intermediate prepped for the theatrical release across all formats.

Maybe we are talking about different things. I'm talking about catalog titles that already hit DVD before Blu-ray. I would disagee with you if you said that the master used to create those DVDs which you bought 5-10 years ago are still being used to create Blu-rays. New masters are struck for new catalog releases. That's why they are also being re-released again on SDVD. That's when the DVD is downsampled. But that doesn't change the fact that a new master needed to be struck.

Not only was the same master used for the NCFOM Blu-ray re-release, but virtually none of the work that needed to be done in making that master ready for the initial Blu-ray release had to be redone.

My statement covers both cases. Downsampling from high definition masters has been standard practice for many years now, and by and large, the studios are leveraging these existing masters for Blu-ray. If there's not a brand new DVD arriving alongside a catalog title on Blu-ray, chances are it's an old master. Cases like Army of Darkness on HD DVD -- where a new master was struck without a corresponding DVD being released individually -- are really rare.

Since I don't care about digital copies and don't pay attention to extra features, I'm done with double dipping.

Stop. You have no clue what you are talking about. The same master is used to create the DVD, BD, VOD, etc. If Disney has 100 slots on its release schedule for BD in 2009, then one of those slots was just lost to a title already available, and not even one of dubious quality.

This concept is not hard to understand.

I haven't even watched the original BD release yet-- though I own it. Disney can lick my balls; I'm not double-dipping my blu-rays.

Even if I were interested in double dipping, almost all of the new extras appear to be clips from existing TV shows where the talent had been interviewed. Pass.