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

[NoQuestion]

Seeing as I need to get another bluray player for my house and Besybuy currently has a deal where you buy a blu player and get the trek movies for $20 I will have no problem picking them up

[Constitution 101]

Originally Posted by Beast

Well, again... for $43 and change... I'm not canceling.

Anywhere you can just get Wrath of Khan?

[Beast]

Originally Posted by Constitution 101

Anywhere you can just get Wrath of Khan?

I guess they're available seperatly from the UK. Someone mentioned it anyway.

[Esox50]

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

No, I don't think so. I've spoken with the folks at the studio, and I know some of the mastering people. They get it, and they work very hard to achieve the highest quality. Just look at Godfather, Trek II... newer titles like Iron Man, etc. I think this was just a really tough call. Many of the transfers were started before people in the industry really fully understood DVNR was an issue with very large screens. I don't think we'll be seeing this issue from them very much, if at all, in the future. This is an abboration. The only problem, of course, is... it's Star Trek.

Given that they started work on Braveheart many moons ago (as it was supposed to hit HD DVD in 2008), I am now very worried. I can only hope we either got really lucky with Braveheart and it made it through unscathed OR a "re-do" was the reason for the delay since January.

[Bill Hunt]

I wouldn't worry about Braveheart for the moment. As far as Trek BD singles, I think you'll be able to buy them individually later this year.

[Jason One]

I don't think it's necessary to introduce screen size into the discussion of the Trek BDs -- they either look good, or they don't. It just doesn't seem relevant to qualify reviews for different sizes.

(To take it to an extreme, you could probably say every BD you review would look perfect on this 9-inch screen, but that wouldn't really have any bearing on whether the BD has a good transfer or not.)

As it happens, I have no trouble seeing bad DNR on my 34" screen.

[Beast]

Hey Bill or Jeff...

Any chance or word of a Batman Returns Digibook?

Would love to have at least the two awesome Batfilms in the same style package.

[Croweyes1121]

I'm told by people I trust that little to no DNR was used in these transfers

Hey, Bill. I was just wondering, based on the above, what do you think happened with this release and why were sources you trust at the studio so wrong on this?

[Jeff Kleist]

The studio people were probably talking to the compressionist/authoring house, not the person who did the film-tape transfers where the majority of DNR is traditionally applied. Many people who are unfamiliar with the production process (which many studio people are not, they're not film guys) assume it's being done FOR the disc, rather than already having been done

[Constitution 101]

Any info regarding Schindler's List?

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

As far as Trek BD singles, I think you'll be able to buy them individually later this year.

Ooh! That makes me want to wait for better disc packaging.... but the $79.99 price tag is certainly hard to pass up... I got some hard thinking to do... and fast!

~Alan

[Jeff Kleist]

Originally Posted by Constitution 101

Any info regarding Schindler's List?

I'll state this again for general purposes

While we often have foreknowlege of titles in the works, typically we don't comment on pending releases, because release dates change quite often, we try to be careful so we don't strike up false hopes unless we're pretty sure things are going to pan out.

[Esox50]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I'll state this again for general purposes

While we often have foreknowlege of titles in the works, typically we don't comment on pending releases, because release dates change quite often, we try to be careful so we don't strike up false hopes unless we're pretty sure things are going to pan out.

^^^And clearly the farther out those titles are, the more likely there is to be a change in release date. Thus, given the Spielberg news recently that some titles are seemingly headed into production, we can all read between the lines here. In the works, but a little further out on the schedule and therefore still very fluid.

But the important thing is that the big stuff is being greenlit. That's the big news as far as I'm concerned. And when it gets closer, I'm sure we'll be reading about it in the Rumor Mill.

[tvine2000]

Originally Posted by Constitution 101

They said that about Patton. I'll take the DNR in Patton over excessive grain any day. I expected the PQ to be dull. The picture didn't really look all that soft. Personally, I think the loss of detail from removing grain is WAY over-estimated. I watched the standard dvd LOTR on my blu-ray player which uses the HQV chip for upscaling. That didn't even touch the worst blu-ray transfer & I'm watching a 65" 1080p display from only 13' away. I think there's probably a minimal amount of grain they could remove w/o the human eye seeing too much detail loss, but having a big plus on the PQ side. Based on my experience of watching roughly 75 blu-rays, it seems that DNR has less of a negative impact on the human eye than grain does. It's sort of like the two are almost weighted differently. While it is a fact that DNR does remove detail, is it an amount the naked eye can REALLY pick up? You won't really be losing detail you can't see in the first place. Maybe the positive of DNR outweighs the negative of grain to the naked and/or "untrained" eye. It appears to me that the grain is so ez to spot but you need to work a little harder to see DNR. Just a little grain sticks right out like a sore thumb to me instantaneously, but it takes a bit for me realize excessive DNR. Just my humble opinion. I don't want to get off topic but maybe the bits guys have some insight into this on-going dilemma...

well i know all bd masters use some dnr.its just a question of how much.
i picked the davinci code and that looked real soft to me.some reviews i saw said thats the way it was shot,so reading your post i'm open to what you said.

[RedIsNotBlue]

Originally Posted by RedIsNotBlue

Any chance Lionsgate will re-release The Punisher with the Extended Cut with better picture quality and lossless audio? I would have figured they would do it around the time Punisher: Warzone hit Blu-ray but nothing. I like the movie alot but the transfer is really awful and the audio lacks the oomph it should have.

What he said.

[tvine2000]

Originally Posted by Constitution 101

Anywhere you can just get Wrath of Khan?

yes,amazon uk has them

[jd213]

Originally Posted by RedIsNotBlue

Any chance Lionsgate will re-release The Punisher with the Extended Cut with better picture quality and lossless audio? I would have figured they would do it around the time Punisher: Warzone hit Blu-ray but nothing. I like the movie alot but the transfer is really awful and the audio lacks the oomph it should have.

While it doesn't have the extended cut, the UK import from Sony has a much better picture and lossless audio.

[RedIsNotBlue]

Originally Posted by jd213

While it doesn't have the extended cut, the UK import from Sony has a much better picture and lossless audio.

Oh really? Hmmm I need to see if I can dig up some screenshots from somewhere and compare. But the extended cut would be nice as well.

[jd213]

Originally Posted by RedIsNotBlue

Oh really? Hmmm I need to see if I can dig up some screenshots from somewhere and compare. But the extended cut would be nice as well.

It still looks pretty soft but the Lionsgate disc was terrible in comparison. So if you want to hold out a while longer the extended cut might come eventually, but who knows.

[thebluemax]

Originally Posted by Constitution 101

Any info regarding Schindler's List?

This is a great movie, but I don't think I could torture myself and watch it again.