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

[CptGreedle]

Bill, I just got your new "The End" shirt, and I love it!
You guys should all look into these, its great!

Excellent work on it. I am looking into my own line of shirts and was wondering where you had yours made? Thanks again.

[horseflesh]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

Bill, I just got your new "The End" shirt, and I love it!
You guys should all look into these, its great!

Excellent work on it. I am looking into my own line of shirts and was wondering where you had yours made? Thanks again.

Have you (or anyone else) bought shirts from threadless.com ??
Some cool designs and reasonable prices.

[CptGreedle]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

Have you (or anyone else) bought shirts from threadless.com ??
Some cool designs and reasonable prices.

Actually no, I have not, but I have heard of them.
You should look at DrMcNinja, that webcomic has a lot of hilarious shirts like "What Would Batman Do?"
It's great!

[Bill Hunt]

Originally Posted by Grubert

Bill: one question and one request.

1. Is there a pattern or schedule to Warner's "book" editions?
Bonnie and Clyde was released in late March, and Dirty Harry is announced for early June (and there was a leaked pic of the Natural Born Killers BD in that same presentation).

2. Big studios should stop snubbing their smaller new releases
As a film lover (of the less mainstream and more arthouse side), it angers me that Fox sees it fit to release Alvin and the Chipmunks on BD, but not the latest Wes Anderson movie, The Darjeeling Limited. Same thing for New Line's Rendition or Warner's Otis. Sony is doing the best job with that.

I am aware that this will come when the overall user base is bigger. But please encourage them to do it sooner better than later.

I think Warner's plan is to do 1 UCE or "book" edition per quarter, on average. As for smaller releases, some of the so-called "art" films have smaller audiences, and given that we're so early in the life of Blu-ray, that would translate to very small sales. Even the DVDs don't sell huge numbers. It's also wht Criterion hasn't joined the Blu-ray fray yet. So it's more cost-effective for the studios to focus on more mainstream titles for now. But as the market grows, this will change. I'm guessing next year you'll see more of these 2nd tier releases on BD too.

[Bill Hunt]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

Bill, I just got your new "The End" shirt, and I love it!
You guys should all look into these, its great!

Excellent work on it. I am looking into my own line of shirts and was wondering where you had yours made? Thanks again.

Glad you liked it! Sarah works hard on those. She's found a company here in The OC that does great work. E-mail her and she can put you in touch with them (e-mail link is on The Bits).

[Bill Hunt]

OKAY... THIS IS CONFIRMED:

Just spoke with Warner Home Video. Both V for Vendatta and The Perfect Storm WILL have English Dolby TrueHD audio on the U.S. Blu-ray versions. Press releases will be updated shortly.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

OKAY... THIS IS CONFIRMED:

Just spoke with Warner Home Video. Both V for Vendatta and The Perfect Storm WILL have English Dolby TrueHD audio on the U.S. Blu-ray versions. Press releases will be updated shortly.

That there was any doubt is rather disturbing. We'll already have to put up with WarnerHD on these, but to lose the TrueHD track that was already released on HD DVD would be unforgiveable.

Gary

[JasonR]

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

OKAY... THIS IS CONFIRMED:

Just spoke with Warner Home Video. Both V for Vendatta and The Perfect Storm WILL have English Dolby TrueHD audio on the U.S. Blu-ray versions. Press releases will be updated shortly.

Is The Perfect Storm a HDDVD port? I am assuming so....

I heard the PQ was majorly suffering. Like first Full Metal Jacket suffering. If that is the case, it goes from a must own to a skip over for me.

The Video: Sizing Up the Picture


Well, I hate to say it, but 'The Perfect Storm' is the first time I've been genuinely disappointed in an HD DVD. While I haven't been blown away by every release on the format so far, most more or less have met my general expectations. So perhaps I was just hoping for more from the transfer on 'The Perfect Storm' -- it just doesn't offer the level of upgrade I wanted compared to the standard DVD release of the film. Not that this disc looks poor, it just doesn't look that spectacular.

First, the positives. The source material looks to be in good shape, with no print anomalies or defects present. Blacks are also nice and solid, and contrast pretty good. Colors are also naturally rendered (though not nearly as well saturated and eye-popping as I had hoped). The transfer is also indicative of the HD DVD format's ability to handle rapid action quite well; there are no instances of blockiness or pixelization, which is a problem that often hampers over-the-air and terrestrial broadcasts of HD-based material.

Unfortunately, none of those plusses can offset my biggest gripes with this transfer, which is that the image does not look all that detailed for most of its runtime, and also appears quite soft. I'm used to HD material looking three-dimensional, or at least boasting considerable visible depth. 'The Perfect Storm' looked pretty flat to me throughout, more akin to standard DVD quality than HD. I also was surprised that it didn't look sharper. Most shots appear too misty and soft-focus. Granted, this image looks far from terrible, but it just seems so... average. And I just don't expect that on HD DVD. Call me cranky, but I was disappointed with this one.

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/86/perfectstorm.html

[Moonraker]

Any reason why Warner (prev New Line) announced Be Kind Rewind for DVD only.

Also was there a reason why Rescue Me Season 4 is DVD only. I kinda feel like a sucker for buying Season 3 on Blu.

Thank you for all you do.

[coolmilo]

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

OKAY... THIS IS CONFIRMED:

Just spoke with Warner Home Video. Both V for Vendatta and The Perfect Storm WILL have English Dolby TrueHD audio on the U.S. Blu-ray versions. Press releases will be updated shortly.

OK, Wicky...where is the "I told you so???"

[Nick Graham]

Bill, are the Predator and Commando releases holdovers from before Fox went MIA for a while? Being MPEG 2, BD25, and featureless when most Fox titles at least have a few features have me wondering if those movies were authored back during Fox's initial wave of BDs.

[dialog_gvf]

^^^ It shows how spooked Fox was by the hacking, and how rediculous it was for people to believe they were thinking of switching to giving away their encodings (a.k.a. releasing on HD DVD).

Gary

[indy7solo]

When are we going to see Blu releases from them?
The Mist 2-disc is sitting unopened, holding out for a Blu release, and also I'm Not There is another big title with no release on the horizon on Blu. Any light shed would be appreciated. Love your site.
thanks,

[Bill Hunt]

Originally Posted by Nick Graham

Bill, are the Predator and Commando releases holdovers from before Fox went MIA for a while? Being MPEG 2, BD25, and featureless when most Fox titles at least have a few features have me wondering if those movies were authored back during Fox's initial wave of BDs.

The answer (I believe) is yes. And Gary's right... anyone who seriously thought Fox was about to go HD-DVD was listening to the wrong little red birdies. No way, no how was that ever going to happen as long as Blu-ray continued to exist.

[dialog_gvf]

Lionsgate's High Noon ad

Only DVD?!

Excuse me while I blow a fuse.

Gary

[Bill Hunt]

Originally Posted by indy7solo

When are we going to see Blu releases from them?
The Mist 2-disc is sitting unopened, holding out for a Blu release, and also I'm Not There is another big title with no release on the horizon on Blu. Any light shed would be appreciated. Love your site.
thanks,

We reported a few weeks ago that Genius senior execs have told shareholders that Genius and Weinstein Blu-rays are coming in the 2nd half of 2008. Original story was on Home Media a while back I believe.

[Bill Hunt]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

Lionsgate's High Noon ad

Only DVD?!

Excuse me while I blow a fuse.

Gary

The film might need costly remastering for a Blu-ray release that Lionsgate doesn't want to pay yet. It'll come eventually. This is what, the 4th ot 5th time the studio has released this title on DVD? The 6th dip will be Blu, you can be sure.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

The film might need costly remastering for a Blu-ray release that Lionsgate doesn't want to pay yet. It'll come eventually. This is what, the 4th ot 5th time the studio has released this title on DVD? The 6th dip will be Blu, you can be sure.

Well, perhaps they should have waited for that restoration/remaster for the DVD too. At this point it is sales of the DVD that justify and subsidize the restoration costs.

It's a missed opportunity. Lionsgate is getting big enough now to do things better.

Gary

[HeavyHitter]

Bill,

Can you verify if Warner is going to fix the vertical resolution filtering issue of Perfect Storm for the BD release which plagued the HD DVD?

[Bill Hunt]

I'm looking into it...