Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[thorthefifth]

Is Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 definately coming on blu-ray as a standalone or only as part of the complete series? I am really only interested in getting this season as I have the others on DVD.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

TV titles are wonky right now..........

I'm personally really hoping they do a season 1/2 of Breaking Bad. The first season is what, 7 episodes? Pretty easy to toss in another disc or so.....

Unfortunately (for you and your friend), there are no plans to release Breaking Bad on Blu-ray as of yet.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by mattym

it would be a shame to release the trek movies with the original FX intact on the older ones, the rejigged version of TMP was good, but V was shocking FX..on HD its going to look like Shocking FX in HD

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

5 has "shocking FX" because they were low budget at the dawn of the CG era.

It was the incompetence of VFX house Associates & Ferren who were deep over their heads. ILM had much smaller FX budgets for II/III/IV yet turned out spectacular work.

The others were modelwork only before that, and good CG after as well as good modelwork

VI: Models & mattes, CG used for the Praxis shockwave and the Excelsior's interaction with it, Marta's morphs.

Generations: Models and mattes. CG for the Nexus wave, the Enterprise-B trapped within it (only those shots, the rest was the retrofitted Excelsior model), the El-Aurian refugee ships, Bird-of-Prey cloak/decloak shots, Armagosa star and nova, Enterprise-D going to warp. Digital matte for Veridian III.

First Contact: Models. CG for majority of Federation fleet, Enterprise-E going to warp/caught in Borg timestream, Borg injectors, Borg Queen assembly/disintegration, Picard's nighmare. Digital mattes for Earth/Borgified Earth.

If you ignore Insurrection and Nemesis, Star Trek (XI) is the first TREK feature that ILM used CG for a majority of shots. Kerner Optical (ILM's model division that stayed behind when the CG dept moved to the Presidio) will be providing some models though.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by merrick97

I read that was something else that made Warner unhappy with the HD-DVD camp. Is that they felt that all their promotions with free movies de-valued HD media too soon.

Were there really more on the HD DVD side than the Blu-ray side, though? It always seemed to me like they pretty well matched each other and the whole thing was just a product of the wartime competition.

Now, I could see the argument about de-valuing hardware too quickly...

[Jeff Kleist]

Yes, HD DVD was giving away up to and including 10 free movies, in-store and 5 by mail with hardware

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Yes, HD DVD was giving away up to and including 10 free movies, in-store and 5 by mail with hardware

I could have sworn it got up to 15 (during a promotion) at one point....

~Alan

[NL197]

The problem with the "Final Frontier" ship shots is that they look like they are cut outs. There's no sense of dimension to them. Perhaps if they added a bit of shadowing to give the illusion of depth? I don't know.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Yes, HD DVD was giving away up to and including 10 free movies, in-store and 5 by mail with hardware

I don't know about 10 in stores, but Blu-ray was certainly doing the 5 by mail thing, too.

In any case, it's always a little silly when distributors feel this way and yet also participate in retail promotions like "Columbia House" who loudly offer half-a-dozen of their products for a penny.

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

I don't know about 10 in stores, but Blu-ray was certainly doing the 5 by mail thing, too.

When I got my HD DVD player, I got 2 HD DVDs from store, 3 from mail-in. When I got my PS3, I didn't get any free (by mail or store). They did offer it later, but never to the point where HD DVD went... and by that, I mean people saying online that they were going to go buy an HD DVD player so they can get the free movies, and then selling the HD DVD player on EBay... effectively paying nothing for the movies.

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

In any case, it's always a little silly when distributors feel this way and yet also participate in retail promotions like "Columbia House" who offer half-a-dozen of their products for a penny.

With Columbia House, you're supposed to be committed to buy more films at regular prices.

~Alan

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

With Columbia House, you're supposed to be committed to buy more films at regular prices.

Well, yeah, and with the free HD DVDs and Blu-rays, you had to buy the player.

[GORT]

Jeff/Bill are there any rumors about Grindhouse coming out as one movie like it was in the theater.

[cjamescook]

Originally Posted by BluDomain

Sounds like a plan. Better have Plan B just in case.

...

Pre-orders are often initially set a couple dollars lower as a benefit to determine stockage levels.

Plan B:
BSG is to release July 28. Two months before then, Star Trek TOS and movies starts releasing in late April and early May.
Therefore, one Plan B might be to pre-order BSG BD from Amazon today, then monitor the ST price trends for two months, with an eye to canceling the Amazon order for BSG a week prior to the 7/28 release if prudent.

Soapbox:
Point 1: I wished a couple years ago that Sci-Fi, et al released each season of BSG on HD and DVD simultaneously. I don't know that they were intending to double-dip, but still, it feels like a disservice (or sour grapes) for them not have done so.

Point 2: If you break down the BSG BD collection to the price per season, it's not so bad, though ST:TOS had a lot more work performed on it. It is just hard to swallow the BSG BD collection price all at once.

[Jeff Kleist]

Jeff/Bill are there any rumors about Grindhouse coming out as one movie like it was in the theater.

Unlikely any time soon, unless it's an import

Soapbox:
Point 1: I wished a couple years ago that Sci-Fi, et al released each season of BSG on HD and DVD simultaneously. I don't know that they were intending to double-dip, but still, it feels like a disservice (or sour grapes) for them not have done so.

They never released them simultaneously, Season 1 came out very late in HD DVD's life

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

I don't know about 10 in stores, but Blu-ray was certainly doing the 5 by mail thing, too.

In any case, it's always a little silly when distributors feel this way and yet also participate in retail promotions like "Columbia House" who loudly offer half-a-dozen of their products for a penny.

I think he meant 5 in store, and 5 by mail. At least that's the deal I had gotten.

[Jeff Kleist]

I'm 90% sure there was a period where there was 10 at Circuit city

[Bill Hunt]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

Regarding the Indiana Jones trilogy - are these still likely on target for this year?

POSSIBLE for this year would be more accurate. There's a chance it could be moved into 2010. Keep in mind, this release was NEVER set in stone and you know how finicky Lucasfilm is about their release announcements.

[Bill Hunt]

Originally Posted by dcowboy7

if thats the case then:

a) why did he release Clone Wars ?
b) why did he release Indy 4 ?
c) not his, but why is LOTR not waiting & being released ?

Lucasfilm ONLY has so many titles. They're not likely to want to jam 3 or 4 of them into a single year. They want to make each release a special event, and time it with the release of other products (games, toys). Indy 4 was their first BD release, last year. Clone Wars: Season 1 and MAYBE classic Indy will come this year. Who knows what next year? With each release, the BD audience gets bigger and bigger.

[Beast]

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

Lucasfilm ONLY has so many titles. They're not likely to want to jam 3 or 4 of them into a single year. They want to make each release a special event, and time it with the release of other products (games, toys). Indy 4 was their first BD release, last year. Clone Wars: Season 1 and MAYBE classic Indy will come this year. Who knows what next year? With each release, the BD audience gets bigger and bigger.

I'm a tiny bit surprised they didn't hit with Phantom Menace this year for the 10th Anniversary.

God... it's so hard to even fathom that it was already 10 years ago for that.

[Bill Hunt]

Originally Posted by thorthefifth

Is Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 definately coming on blu-ray as a standalone or only as part of the complete series? I am really only interested in getting this season as I have the others on DVD.

Yes. Season 4.5 will be standalone on DVD & Blu-ray. Complete Series (which also includes 4.5) will be DVD and Blu-ray also. Check The Bits - we posted all the details from the studio's press release earlier today.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/mytwocentsa167.html#know

We also just posted cover art for the Complete Series set (same for both DVD and Blu).

[Batman1980]

I actually just thought of something. I imagine the OT and PT of SW will get released whenever the pending live action show hits blu-ray.