[Beast]

Extras are great. I refuse to upgrade to Blu-Ray if all of the Extras from the DVD edition arn't ported over as well. I'm not going to support a shoddy release of a film on Blu-Ray. I've already passed on a couple for that very reason. In fact, Bill Hunt had a great lil rant about this very subject the other day.

Okay, I really didn't expect to get on a rant today, but circumstances have determined otherwise...

Specifically, MGM has officially announced the Blu-ray Disc release of Ronin on 2/24 (SRP $34.99 - we posted the cover art yesterday), thus sending a round of cheers through The Bits' offices. That's the good news. The bad news is that the disc includes NOTHING in the way of special features... not even the previous DVD CE material. And that quickly turned the cheers around here into groans. Seriously, a movie only Blu-ray for $34.99? That's just unacceptable. For $24.99, maybe. But for $34.99, MGM damn well ought to at least port over the previous DVD extras. Movie-only releases for FULL price just doesn't cut it.

While we're talking about Blu-ray peeves (following my rant from last week about Sony's movie-only La Femme Nikita and The Messenger), here's a couple other things that need to change: Warner needs to stop using excessive DNR on their titles, and start making lossless audio MANDATORY ON EVERY RELEASE. This has been an ongoing problem - one that we thought Warner had agreed to address earlier this year. But too many titles are still slipping through the cracks with lackluster specs. And on their catalog Blu-rays, Universal needs to stop taking perfectly good featurettes and documentaries and cutting them up for use as U-Control Picture-in-Picture material.

Look guys (and I'm talking to you studio folks now, so LISTEN UP), here's the thing: Do you REALLY want to impress consumers with your Blu-ray titles? Then here's how you do it: You focus on ENTHUSIASTS. You impress the enthusiasts with top-notch A/V quality and decent extras at a fair price. If you can please them, you'll please almost everyone else too. Blu-ray is ABOUT offering the best video and audio quality possible, so that should be a given. As far as extras, almost no one gives a s--t about BD-Live and U-Control if you can't be bothered at least to include the previous DVD bonus material! Why? Because you're asking movie fans to UPGRADE to the Blu-ray, when many of them probably already own the DVD special edition. Upgraded picture and sound, with downgraded extras and a higher price - that's a net NEGATIVE! Do you get it?! This stuff isn't rocket science, guys. If, after including all the previous DVD content, you really want to add on some advanced interactive stuff too, then fine. But Blu-ray is still being driven by enthusiasts, and enthusiasts - hell, I would think ALL Blu-ray consumers - demand top quality and VALUE for their money. So shape up, studios!