[JTK]

The following is some dialogue between myself and about as rock solid, reliable, credible, and unobjective of a source as you can get. This is someone who currently owns both HD formats and is incredibly hardcore.


See what you make of it:

I just got the first four titles in and unless I'm called in to work, I will commence the reviews later today. But, I thought I'd chime in on a few things first.

First a bit about the cases: the cases are not like the BD cases that Sony and LG have been using. They are the spitting image of the HD DVD cases used by Warner and Universal, except they are blue and don't have the two feet on the bottom, for what little good those did.

That's great. I really like smaller jewel cases.

Looking at the packaging my only disappointment is that the option box indicates that none of the new high resolution audio formats have been used, not even DD+. I know the Samsung player inexcusably doesn't support any of these audio formats yet, but other players are coming that will. So the BD supporter will be stuck with basic DD 5.1 in a few months too.

So even if someone throws down for the big boy hardware in October, like the Panasonic, the Pioneer Elite, or the Sony player...it simply does them no good, because the discs themselves don't even bother with ANY of the newer audio codecs?

No DD+ even?!

Sorry, that's a +1 for HD-DVD right there.

The disc comes with the usual insert, that mentions other Warner titles coming this summer. And I wanted to go ahead and hit on that for those interested. Other titles that are coming according to the insert include:

-Firewall
-16 Blocks
-The Fugitive (hopefully with corrected video over the dissapointing HD)

That would be nice, but if they use the same film transfer, it's going to probably come down to a VC-1 vs. MPEG 2 issue, and I'd probably bet on VC-1, such as it is.

-Million Dollar Baby
-Space Cowboys
-Perfect Storm
-Under Siege
-Caddyshack
-Christmas Vacation
-Swordfish
-Blazing Saddles
-Corpse Bride
-Syriana
-Full Metal Jacket
-House of Wax
-Lethal Weapon
-The Searchers

That's a LOT of discs considering the summer is starting to run short.

Yes. There's several obvious duplicate titles that are awesome on HD-DVD, like Swordfish, among others, that are really going to start bringing some meaningful A/B comparisions.

Looking forward to it!

They're not jewel cases. The size of both Sony's BD cases and these are the same, they're just shaped a little different. I think Sony's cases are a bit nicer actually. In particular the BD emblem has a sunken oval around it that gives it an embosed look with a chrome highlight rather than a silver paint that can be easily scratched off on the HD discs and now on Warner's BD discs.

I think these may be the only MPEG 2 titles that Warner releases on either format and I'm not positive that these are even MPEG 2 yet. But, Warner will be switching to VC1 on BD as well asap, as I understand it.

If The Fugitive hasn't been remastered for the BD release, it won't be worth owning on either format video wise.

I would expect all of the new titles listed as coming in BD will also be available in HD around the same time.

Good stuff!

I really can't believe they didn't throw in DD+, though. That's just senseless, imo.

It's almost a dead giveaway that these titles are going to be double dipped on sometime in the not too distant future. Can't you just feel it?

There's rumor that both Sony and Warner may remaster some of their early disappointments (ie Fugitive, Element). But, other than that, I wouldn't expect too many double dips until either has caught on. I suspect the studios priority right now is getting out as many titles as they can rather than revisiting titles that they've already done, which makes poor early releases all the more disappointing as we may have a very long wait before we see them in high def again. We're already seeing signs that production and authoring facilities are struggling to keep up. That will improve, but it'll take time.

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but I think we all know Sony's pattern on this sort of thing by now, all too well, don't we?

Ho hum version, better version, good version, great version, Superbit version ,etc. etc.

Here we go again.

I wouldn't contest that Sony is probably the worst offender when it comes to the art of the double dip. How they're not supporting the format with extended cuts of the films is a good indication of their plans; that or it implies that the elements used for the extended cuts aren't up to high definition quality. But, it would take one heck of a retooling to get me to buy Ultraviolet again. That movie looks and sounds great and features one of my favorite action actresses. But, I had a hard time sitting still through it even the first time.

Agreed 100 percent.




This is just an example of why I think the HD enthusiast who wants the best and the most choice is going to most likely have to own two players before the year is out to get the job done right.