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

[Blu As Hell]

Thanks Bill, for keeping us informed on all things Blu-Ray, now we can all focus on mass adoption.

[greekjgg]

Bill, I saw that you announced Indiana Jones Special Edition for DVD today.

The trailer for the new film was in hi def last week and showed clips from the first 3 movies.

I have to believe that Paramount is going to announce this soon on Blu?

Any thoughts?

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Croweyes1121

1. Naturally, the one thing on everyone's mind right now is Paramount/Dreamworks and Universal. There's an entire forum set up on this already here, but in your experience, what kind of time frame do you think we're looking at on the heels of this news? Nothing *too* specific, but would you put your money on days, weeks, or months?

I'll save Bill a bit of time to mention here that Universal is already Blu.

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/new...ticle_ID=12120

Originally Posted by Home Media Magazine

“While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray,” said Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

Kornblau’s statement came moments after Toshiba announced it was pulling the plug on HD DVD, a move that effectively ends a two-year format war with Sony’s Blu-ray Disc to become the successor to DVD.

“The path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear,” Kornblau said. ”Universal will continue its aggressive efforts to broaden awareness for high-def’s unparalleled offerings in interactivity and connectivity, at an increasingly affordable price. The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate.”

[lunddal]

He already posted that on TDB.

[Robert Siegel]

Originally Posted by Icemage

I'll save Bill a bit of time to mention here that Universal is already Blu.

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/new...ticle_ID=12120

Bill, what's your take on this, I thought it a strange statement coming especially from Universal, the one studio that could have stopped this war (by going blu before Paramount went red):

Kornblau said:

“The path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear. Universal will continue its aggressive efforts to broaden awareness for high-def’s unparalleled offerings in interactivity and connectivity, at an increasingly affordable price. The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate.”



You have to love it, Kornblau says that the emergence of a single format is cause for the entertainment industry to celebrate, LMAO. Celebrate that we can push high def now with one format-after Universal helped keep the format war going for 2 years?

[ben7ben3]

i think hes wondering how long it will take uni to actually release titles, not go blu, we already know they did that...but the titles dates are teh important thing now

[blurayisking]

Hello Bill:

In case your unaware, AMAZON is listing a February 26, 2008 release of what might be the re-mastered version of Terminator 3, fixing the encode problem.

Is WARNER trying to sneak this re-release under the radar ???

Have you heard any definitive response from WARNER concerning the replacement of the faulty copy of T3 that had the 1080i encode ???


Blurayisking

[NoQuestion]

Bill,

If this has been asked already, then disregard. I saw over on your site that paramount just announced release dates for there will be blood and sweeny todd for april on hd-dvd. why would they still be releasing on that format now that toshiba dropped out? I would think that they would stop immediately and concentrate on blu. any thoughts on this?

EDIT: Also, why was Universal the first to come across? dont get me wrong i am very excited that they are preparing titles, but i would have thought they were going to be the last one to come over. Is the lack of response from paramount to these events due to the contract that they are under? i would have thought that baby was meaningless the minute toshiba threw in the towel. hopefully the silence is due to the fact they are preparing a statement with upcoming titles that would be nice. only time will tell.

[Seretur]

Bill -- your announcement of the new Paramount Indiana Jones SE DVDs is a bit buried under the avalanche of the end-of-war news. This is understandable, but on any other week this would be top news indeed.

Now, is there anything you can tell us about those releases? Including what new features they will include? Not to mention if a hi-def release is in the works (and we know what this means in Spielberg's case).

May 13, that's a perfect day to introduce Indy to the hi-def population. Please say it is so.

[MerrickG]

Bill, is it reasonable to expect that Universal will have more to say in the coming days?

I was hoping for an official press release with titles listed, but nevertheless them saying they support blu is enough for now.

As for Paramount however, anything less than title announcements will be a disappointment. I really hope thats why they are taking so long.

Pretty sad how impatient we are, huh?

[Fozziwig]

Originally Posted by NoQuestion

Bill,

If this has been asked already, then disregard. I saw over on your site that paramount just announced release dates for there will be blood and sweeny todd for april on hd-dvd. why would they still be releasing on that format now that toshiba dropped out? I would think that they would stop immediately and concentrate on blu. any thoughts on this?

................

My thoughts are why re-announce a title release you already announced almost 3 weeks ago?

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...for_April/1425

As for 'There Will Be Blood', if it does well on Oscar night we could see all home video dates postponed and a theatrical re-release to cash in.

However, Warner said they will honour their existing commitments up to May 2008. So maybe P/DW are going to go the same route.

[ACD]

Bill,

Off topic a little bit here, but have you considered setting up a RSS feed for your site The Digital Bits?

Thanks!

[Branden]

Originally Posted by blurayisking

AMAZON is listing a February 26, 2008 release of what might be the re-mastered version of Terminator 3, fixing the encode problem.

Is WARNER trying to sneak this re-release under the radar ???

Have you heard any definitive response from WARNER concerning the replacement of the faulty copy of T3 that had the 1080i encode ???

thanks for pointing it out, blurayisking, wouldn't have noticed otherwise. i'd also like to know what the future holds for my only 1080i BD.

on to my original question for Bill,

although it's only been one day so far, dominos have been falling fast and it seems like paramount is taking a while to make an official announcement.
are they taking their sweet time because they want to come back with a bang? are they taking their sweet time because they're embarrassed and don't want to appear to be crawling back to blu too quickly and desperately? or are they scrambling right now because they were somehow not smart enough to see this coming?

[dialog_gvf]

Warner Bros. has Quo Vadis in the lab now and a 2008 release is planned, most likely in the fourth quarter. Raintree County is less certain as to timing as the studio is intent on releasing the road show version. To that end, it has involved dealing with a collector's print and marrying various portions to Warners' master. The studio continues to look for even better elements, so at this time it is impossible to gage the release date. A BD release for these titles cannot yet be confirmed, but it is Warners' intention to release as many special editions day and date SD and BD as possible.

Oh Warner: Please, please, pretty please.

I am giddy with how amazing the next decade is going to be for rediscovering the classics.

[zipbags]

Where's Bill?? He's harder to find than a Paramount statement.

[NovaKane]

Originally Posted by Branden

although it's only been one day so far, dominos have been falling fast and it seems like paramount is taking a while to make an official announcement. are they taking their sweet time because they want to come back with a bang? are they taking their sweet time because they're embarrassed and don't want to appear to be crawling back to blu too quickly and desperately? or are they scrambling right now because they were somehow not smart enough to see this coming?

You might want to check out one of Penton's recent posts in his insider thread. It sheds some light on your question (although, naturally, there is no mention of any sPecific Player involved )

[NoQuestion]

Originally Posted by NovaKane

You might want to check out one of Penton's recent posts in his insider thread. It sheds some light on your question (although, naturally, there is no mention of any sPecific Player involved )

ok, im going to blame this on a very long rough day at work, so what does this mean?

[blindcat87]

It means that a certain last holdout studio and a certain hardware company that has already had a very bad month are embroiled in a catfight made up entirely of lawyers over certain payoff money and who it should really belong to post 2/19.

Chris

Originally Posted by NoQuestion

ok, im going to blame this on a very long rough day at work, so what does this mean?

[NovaKane]

Originally Posted by NoQuestion

ok, im going to blame this on a very long rough day at work, so what does this mean?

If you had gone into Penton-man's insider thread you would have seen his not so cryptic reply to a question regarding the status of Paramount announcing its Blu-ray plans.

At times he's not able to discuss or name specific players in the format, so he teases us with clues. This clue, P, in his post was as obvious as Joan Rivers' numerous face lifts.

[Seretur]

Count me among those who've never seen Quo Vadis properly, and would immediately snag a BD release.

Mervyn LeRoy, rock on in the 21st century!