Chris wrote: What's up with the 480i version of Goodfellas as a 'Special Feature'? The current DVD release is 480p. You mean the extras right? I dunno, they seem to come in that format for every HD-DVD for some reason.

What's up with the 480i version of Goodfellas as a 'Special Feature'? The current DVD release is 480p.

Why must we ruin a perfectly good system? The hell with high-def.

Thembones wrote: Is this technology significantly better?  I know HD rocks but when this is about to get huge won't you be able to get them using an On-Demand kind of service.  I imagine DVD and just about all moving technology medium will be obsolete by the time this becomes common place.  So is this also going to be like every other technology that is going to leave lesser or not as popular selling titles unupdated and lost in the Hollywood shuffle so to speak.  I don't know.  I need to find out more on this.

From what I understand, HD content on cable and dish services is compressed way down and is pretty c**ppy. The difference between these HD films and HD films on disc is supposed to be equivelant to regular films on cable vs. films on DVD, which we know is pretty significant.

Is this technology significantly better?  I know HD rocks but when this is about to get huge won't you be able to get them using an On-Demand kind of service.  I imagine DVD and just about all moving technology medium will be obsolete by the time this becomes common place.  So is this also going to be like every other technology that is going to leave lesser or not as popular selling titles unupdated and lost in the Hollywood shuffle so to speak.  I don't know.  I need to find out more on this.

The ONLY reason Waner Bros. is releasing "Swordfish" on HD-DVD is so people can see Halle Berry's boobs in high def and you know I'm right

DTS say that:

Quote: "DTS Digital Surround® (DTS' core 5.1 technology) has been selected as mandatory audio technology for both Blu-ray Disc (BD) and High Definition Digital Versatile Disc (HD-DVD).

However, I dont see DTS listed on any of these discs. So what gives?

kcivets not'sayin wrote: I thought these discs were supposed to hold HOURS of more content?

Technically, they could hold hours of content, but you're thinking in DVD bit-rate and quality terms. An HD transfer of the main feature will still take up a heck of a lot of room on the new discs. Once the capacities of the discs get higher then you may get more on, but I wouldn't expect too much from the early releases anyway.

It looks like the special features on some of these are no different than the regular dvd releases..am I wrong?  I thought these discs were supposed to hold HOURS of more content?

Eliason A. wrote: Check out this month's issue of Premiere for a great guide on the latest for HD DVD and Blu Ray. And yes, it's official: both will be backward compatible.

That`s good to hear, but still, the only way I`m going to watch my HD and Blu Ray DVD`s is on my PS3 when it comes out. The players are ridiculously overpriced.

Would it be possible to separate these new for x date postings into separate entries?  Having to scroll through the same cover pictures over and over and over and over is just getting tedious.  

Just a request.

Check out this month's issue of Premiere for a great guide on the latest for HD DVD and Blu Ray. And yes, it's official: both will be backward compatible.

nice, but where is the collector's edition with great packaging ??? ... 2008 ?

William Coffey wrote: So, that True HD track on Phantom, is that like 5.1 EX?

no, the hd audio has to do with bit rate, normal dvd audio is around 780kb/s while hd audia can go upwards of 16 mb/s. Pretty amazing...and the video bit rate can go upwards of 30mb/s. and that is why you need special cords such as hdmi because the simple rca cables can only handle about 5 mb/s of both audio and video.

Matt wrote: Sigh...haven't we been trying to tell folks that for the longest time? Nice to know that there are some of our readers out there that actually know what they're talking about when it comes to such things.

Lol, well thank you! I do try :D

mntwister wrote: The audio on these hd discs will sound MUCH better than on dvd. The compression of the soundtrack is much less, and the bit rate will be way higher. I think there will be no comparison of the soundtrack between a dvd and a high definition dvd (either format). The high-def discs will have a soundtrack similar to the master soundtrack. DVD soundtracks, while they sounded great, were very compressed and were, from a standpoint of hearing an original soundtrack before compression, actually poor.

I'll reserve judgement until I here it, but the above comment seems ludicrous to me.  Less compression does not equal better sounding.  It isn't like Dolby 5.1/DTS compresses to the level of MP3.  

Mal wrote: I'm going to do what I did with DVD, I'll just get the drives and use them in a new PC for so many years before buying a separate player. It'll mean I'll have much more capacity for backups too... just have to wait for a drive to be officially released.
I'm thinking that I'll probably go that way myself by building a new PC for my entertainment center sometime this year instead of a new stand alone player. That way I can get all of the player and PC benefits of the formats in one shot as opposed to two seperate, and costly, hardware purchases. Plus, upgrading should be a lot less painful seeing as the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD drives for PC should be cheaper than the tabletop players.

Quote: Films are not "mixed in" DTS or Dolby Digital. They're mixed in a mixing studio, uncompressed, and then  encoded to Dolby Digital or DTS or SDDS.
Sigh...haven't we been trying to tell folks that for the longest time? Nice to know that there are some of our readers out there that actually know what they're talking about when it comes to such things.

Matt wrote: DVD didn't take off as quickly as you might think. My first DVD player cost $550 when I purchased it in late March of 1997, and that was for what I think was the cheapest Panasonic model I could find.
I'm going to do what I did with DVD, I'll just get the drives and use them in a new PC for so many years before buying a separate player. It'll mean I'll have much more capacity for backups too... just have to wait for a drive to be officially released.

Most of us guys on here, are dvd addicts!
We live and breathe dvd, and the studios and tech companies are having trouble convincing us to shell out like £1000/$1000+!
The entire joe public that are essentially gonna decide this format war in their masses are just NOT gonna shell out that kinda money for dvd players, most of them are happy to goto their local asda(walmart-usa) and pick up a FULL dvd player for £19.99!!
They dont care about 5.1 and HD playback, they just wanna play their movies as inexpensivley as possible.
F*** them you may say, but keep in mind this, its THEM the masses that need to buy into the next format, and until it comes in at a realistic price, I think your gonna have a hard time convincing them otherwise.
Also the region coding is gonna be a stumbling block, loads of my friends have over 200 dvds all region 1, so are these gonna play on a uk HD/blue-ray player?
I think HD will have a place in the future years, but just not right now, LOTS of people have their dvd players just hooked to their tv's, no 5.1 set up or anything, 5.1 is out there just now for under £50 but people are HAPPY with stereo from their non HD dvds!
Dvd took off so quickly for 1 reason alone it WAS affordable, currently HD&BR is NOT!!
I second someones post on here, wait for the DUAL players, the technology IS there!

Staying out of the format war.    The cost must come down for the players, the bugs must be worked out, and the downgrading of discs to 480 dpis (if you don't have a HDMI hook up) must go.  

Michael Friedrichsen wrote: sildu wrote: One problem, please tell me that we will be able to play our standard dvds on these HD and Blu-ray disc players. If not, to hell with both of them. As some people pointed out, I have way too much money invested in dvd to upgrade to this. Please tell me that these new players will be backwards compatible. If not, it will never be worth it to me.

Yeah thats what I also want to know. There is no need to get it if you not even can play your invested DVD collection on the new players

I'm pretty sure that both format players will cope with DVDs - it's one of the only sure-fire ways to convince some of the fence-sitters to come over to the new formats.  Toshiba's HD-XA1 is definitely touted as being backward compatible.

On another note, and answering my own question from earlier, I had a scout about and found Dolby's white paper on Dolby Digital Plus. While it is true that to fully utilise the benefits of the sound format you'll need an amp that can cope with the up to 3Mbp/s data rate (and feasibly beyond!), part of the spec - and importantly, something that Dolby will not issue a DD+ licence without apparently - is that equipment must be able to downsample the stream to 640kb/s Dolby Digital and output it through SPDIF as well as the full unfettered DD+ through HDMI and/or FireWire.  Any DD amp can cope with 640kb/s, even though it's likely that all you will have ever thrown at it will be 448kb/s from DVDs (my DD Live soundcard outputs at the higher rate and the amp copes nicely).

Which is nice, as I've not long bought a new DD/DTS amp.

White Paper here for the tech heads out there

sildu wrote: One problem, please tell me that we will be able to play our standard dvds on these HD and Blu-ray disc players. If not, to hell with both of them. As some people pointed out, I have way too much money invested in dvd to upgrade to this. Please tell me that these new players will be backwards compatible. If not, it will never be worth it to me.

Yeah thats what I also want to know. There is no need to get it if you not even can play your invested DVD collection on the new players

"I think Laser Disc will win."

I sometimes think this might the true comparison for HD and Blu-Ray--not VHS versus Beta but VHS "versus" laserdisc, with one becoming the common man's imprint (HD, I guess) and one becoming the video snob's favorite (Blu-Ray.)

I think Laser Disc will win.

GavSalkeld wrote: jodi wrote: Universal, DreamWorks, and Warner Bros. do not believe in DTS sound of any kind!
Universal, DreamWorks and only recently WB are all DTS supporters. Indeed, Jurassic Park was the first film released in DTS and that was a Universal film.

DreamWorks release DTS on DVDs - American Beauty and The Last Castle are two examples I can think of.

Warner didnt support DTS, but are now just starting to provide it on some titles, e.g. the Batman movies.



Yes yes yes yes yes, but that was YEARS ago!!!
Back in the early to mid years of DVD (1996 to about 2003), Universal and DreamWorks released just about every title of theirs in DTS on DVD. Since about 2004, DTS just simply disappeared in Uni and DW's "radar".
As for Warner, DTS sound on their DVDs has always been non-existant except for the following: "Twister" (a film that DTS founder Steven Speilberg had a hand in as it's executive producer), "American Outlaws" ( the film company Morgan Creek is a DTS proponent -- had Morgan Creek not made this film, this DVD would have been just another Dolby Digital DVD), and "Batman & Robin" (Tim Burton's "Batman" and "Batman Returns" don't count because, in their THEATRICAL exhibitions back in 1989 and 1992, they pre-date DTS by four years and one year respectively......"Batman Forever", while it was THEATRICALLY released during the DTS era, was mixed in Dolby Digital ONLY -- therefore, it does not count as a true DTS codec).
Fortunately, thanks to importing, I do own Warner's "Terminator 3" (imported from Britain) and "Phantom of the Opera" (imported from Japan) DVDs with their originally intended DTS mixes from their theatrical exhibitions.
It is good to see studios like Paramount to finally be releasing more DTS-encoded DVDs, but they have a LOT more work to do -- I don't think Paramount should limit DTS sound on DVD to sci-fi films like the 'next-generation' "Star Trek" films (all of which were mixed theatrically in DTS) and the upcoming re-release of "Event Horizon". How about the "Mission Impossible" films or "The Relic" or the "Tomb Raider" films.
Lionsgate is starting to impress me, and I can almost always count on 20th Century Fox for delivering DTS-encoded DVDs of their films (which, of course, were DTS-mixed theatrically).
I'm a very picky viewer, with more than my share of cheers and jeers to the above-mentioned studios these days.
I will say this......I will not support either HD-DVD nor Blu-Ray if certain studios do not get the message. I also tend to agree that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are wasted technologies anyway.
If they can't deliver the intended goods (DTS, most importantly), then they are not worth spending my hard-earned money with, as well as not worth my time.

Jodi

I think that is still to be decided MDH.  I believe to begin with you are screwed and due to content protection, you would be down converted to 480p since you do not have and HDMI jack.  However, I think that there will be class action lawsuits against this kind of action and that eventually they won't be allowed to do this.  Just my opinion.

If you have a DVI input, these are very similiar to the HDMI except that they don't have audio associated with it.  If you have a DVI input that supports whatever revision of HDP (the copy protection) that is eventually released, you may be okay.

jodi wrote: Universal, DreamWorks, and Warner Bros. do not believe in DTS sound of any kind!
Universal, DreamWorks and only recently WB are all DTS supporters. Indeed, Jurassic Park was the first film released in DTS and that was a Universal film.

DreamWorks release DTS on DVDs - American Beauty and The Last Castle are two examples I can think of.

Warner didnt support DTS, but are now just starting to provide it on some titles, e.g. the Batman movies.

Kaya Savas wrote: Yeah, I do believe that Sony will win this format war, I think they're still bitter over Betamax. Also I think releasing these when there IS NO PLAYER TO PLAY THEM IN is the stupidest move ever. They delayed Blu-Ray players but still release the movies?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Where is the logic? "Oooh, they look purty on my shelf".

Also, what is Dolby Digital-Plus? Why can't they put DTS-ES on all of these?



Universal, DreamWorks, and Warner Bros. do not believe in DTS sound of any kind!!!!
You won't find DTS on ALL of their standard DVDs, HD-DVDs, and I fear the Blu-Ray discs as well.
The three above mentioned studios are officially on my s**t list, and I would love to start organizing a boycott of ALL of their product until they get the message..........anyone with me!!!!!

Jodi

Green Hornet wrote: Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems HD-DVDs are a seamless transition from regular DVDs. You can buy any HD-DVD and watch the standard 480i definition version of the movie on your regular DVD player. Then later say in a few years you can buy a HD-DVD player, and you already have the HD version of the movie on the same disc.

I can't see how this would be true.  They would have to encode two different versions of the movie and the extras/menus/etc on the disc.  This would take up quite a bit of space.  I can't imagine why they would want to use that space for 480p video.

im not gonna rebuy all my dvd movies cause of this s**t.i have 450 dvds they will both go away just like superaudio cds and cdsdvd. wait and see. its 2 soon for this.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems HD-DVDs are a seamless transition from regular DVDs. You can buy any HD-DVD and watch the standard 480i definition version of the movie on your regular DVD player. Then later say in a few years you can buy a HD-DVD player, and you already have the HD version of the movie on the same disc. All companies that decided to go with HD-DVDs over Blue Ray will release 1 disc, with both Hi Def and regular version of the movie. However Sony and others will be releasing Blue Ray and regular standard DVDs separately. I don't see how Blue Ray will win this. I don't know that many people would want of spend $1000+ on a Blue Ray player. Not every one will buy a PS3 to watch movies on.

I see a couple of good movies being released. Is this Robocop the Uncut version or the cut version.

What are these new hi-def DVDs? I'm not familair with them. Do you need a certain DVD player to play them or could you just play them in a regular DVD player?

Hmm... well House of Flying Daggers does sound tasty in HD thats for sure.

Artwork added for Wave 1 & 2 of Universal's May releases...

I think it nice that films will come out in highter resolution, it's the only thing that bugs me with DVD.

Metal Slug wrote: Who the f**k would buy ' Hitch' on Blu-ray? Aren't the discs going to be around $40 CAD each? That's such a waste.

Off-topic, but I just wanted to compliment your name. My all-time favorite game series.

what happened with the matrix films I'm sure I heard they where coming as "lunch" titles

I am also still sticking to DVD.
But I am worried about the region coding for HDDVD and Bluray when the time comes. But what the hell DVD's is very much alive and the picture on the new movies on DVD is gorgeous. So I can't really see the point in a upgrade now.

Universal really should remove "Best in picture and Sound" on the artwork

Metal Slug wrote: Who the f**k would buy ' Hitch' on Blu-ray? Aren't the discs going to be around $40 CAD each? That's such a waste.

It's a shame to see so many c**ppy movies as launch titles. I doubt Criterion will ever start releasing under these formats, unless if you guys have heard some rumours.If they have any success, of course Criterion will start releasing titles, just like they did with DVD after the LD.

I agree with the c**ppy titles though but they're strategy must've been to release some of the biggest selling titles on DVD. Kinda dumb since obviously the titles that'll sell the most will be the ones with the best eye-candy, which is what HD is all about.

Well I think there's supposed to be a Blu-ray player appearing in June, it was originally planned for May but is suffering from delays. Will of course be very expensive. Here:

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/04/samsung...

Who the f**k would buy ' Hitch' on Blu-ray? Aren't the discs going to be around $40 CAD each? That's such a waste.

It's a shame to see so many c**ppy movies as launch titles. I doubt Criterion will ever start releasing under these formats, unless if you guys have heard some rumours.

Wow, HDDVDs as soon as april 18? so when are the Blu-Ray and HDDVD players coming out?

I hope HD wins, although I'm pretty worried with the PS3 having Blu-Ray and all.

And yeah, I'm definitely not upgrading anything any time soon. I'll wait for a winner and a price drop, thank you

I think Sony is going to win because they have more support, the BDs have more space. UMDs failed because people had to buy new versions of movie ONLY for PSP. UMDs weren't a replacement for DVDs, and they certainly weren't higher resolution. The whole idea of UMDs was actually quite stupid if you ask me.

Minidiscs and Betamax was also a LONG time ago. Right now Sony seems to be poised to win this format war. I am not buying any hardware just yet, of course, but we'll see what happens...

The studios really should have put their feet down and refused to support any format unless it was the ONLY one! All of this c**p could have been avoided. Many of us could ALREADY have a player and handful of discs for it, as well...

fumjum wrote: ECE wrote: I think Blu Ray will win because it will come with PS3.

"Yeah! Just like how the UMD discs on PSP took off! and how we are all walking around with MiniDiscs instead of CDs, and BetaMax was a big hit when VCRs came out. All by Sony" I said, SARCASTICALLY

Sony owns the biggest share of the gaming market as we know it.  Being included could help their format quite a bit more than hurt it.  Who wants to drop a grand on a player when you can spend around $500 and get it for basically free?

Is it just me or is that quite possibly the worst group of launch titles in existence? I like the idea of a few of them, Apollo 13 especially, but come on! I can't be the only one who doesn't need 50 First Dates in Hi Def.

Ive seen these before and I gotta say that I do not like the cropped images of the packaging, it looks nasty. I cannot buy these yet in the UK, but I'm kinda worried about the region coding of these HD-DVDs cos ive bought loads of region 1 DVDs and when the HD-DVD players come out I'm not sure they gonna play my region 1 dvds...its gonna suck balls if they cant. I reckon its gonna be a delayed release of for HD-DVD players in the UK, which might be a blessing cos the format wars might be settled by then and I reckon Sony got it already in the bag. Although Xbox360 is gonna have a seperate component available to buy to play the HD-DVDs...damn these format waaaaaaaars!! Whyyyyyyy!??

Oh, wait... I just noticed :O
I want the special feautures on HD too!!

All HD films will be mastered in 1920x1080 regardless of format of choice.

ya need a "new" audio receiver to have Dolby Digital Plus, HD-DTS & Lossless audio.

You also need a television capable of displaying 1080p & it also has to have a 1080p input jack for you to view 1920x1080 progressive scan. If not, your stuck with 1080i or lower res.

Oh, & of course the minimun $500US purchase of a HD player.

Tempting, but I am not a millionare yet.

I don't think I'll be taking any sides at this point, don't wanna end up with a Betamax... Although if I had to choose a format based on the titles released, I'll go for HD.

you know, looking at the top and bottom part of these cases makes it feel like they are really putting the world BEST IN ..., but to people who do not,YET, have a HDTV, makes us (well, at least me) seem jealous.

I'll probably get a new PC at some point with both a Blu-ray and HD DVD drive, and use Power DVD or something, but that's about it. Not that I review anything these days.

I`m going to stay away from both HD and BluRay aswell. Those cases for both formats are equally ugly, and come on, DVD`s still have a lot of life left. It seems kind of unneccessary at this point. I am furious that the PS3 will include a blu ray player because that means the price is going to be a lot more steep, and that just isnt cool!

Are the boxes a different shape than regular DVD cases? I can't tell from the pictures.

sroberts1220 wrote: Blu Ray is going to be the winner I think. Once Universal signs up to release them on Blu Ray, that will be the end of the format war.

I think Blu Ray will win because it will come with PS3.

Yeah, I do believe that Sony will win this format war, I think they're still bitter over Betamax. Also I think releasing these when there IS NO PLAYER TO PLAY THEM IN is the stupidest move ever. They delayed Blu-Ray players but still release the movies?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Where is the logic? "Oooh, they look purty on my shelf".

Also, what is Dolby Digital-Plus? Why can't they put DTS-ES on all of these?

Isnt Blu-Ray disc where one you play it you have 48 hours and then it stops working,or was that something else???

Not all of those HD DVD titles are being released on April 18. It's nice to finally see some cover art for the Universal titles.

I'm not sold on this as an early bit of hardware that I have to have.  It's a lot like the XBox 360 to me.  Looks cool, but I'm going to wait for a lower price.

By the way, Blu Ray discs will have added content, they just are not announced yet for the specific titles.

Are there going to be special things only on these High def dvds??