Calling a boycott on Warner(effect) blu-ray movies

[tron3]

Originally Posted by J6P

... It is unreasonable to expect them to do the encoding work twice on all or even most titles, with the profit margins being what they are in HD media. We're lucky they've refused Toshiba's checkbook thus far, quite frankly.....

Well, Wickywoo says that their Microsoft friends wrote the conversion software to resize the HD DVD sectors to play on blu-ray. Why not do the opposite? Shave some of the bitrate and downgrade it to HD DVD, not the otherway around.

[tron3]

Originally Posted by Joe Cain

...

Was your last buy Polar Express? Were you unaware it was released on just a 15G HD-DVD?

Wow, I was completely unaware of that. I assumed 30GB which left me wondering why it didn't look at least as good as 300. Should have just waited like I originally wanted.

[T-Town Oil]

Originally Posted by Xerious

hey man, do what you want, don't solicit our help if you want to screw over warner and the bluray camp at the same time.

agreed. i think they are starting to get the idea though. to those bagging on warner have you seen "2001" yet? they seem to be headed in the right direction with that one for it has pcm and a perfect picture. i would say thats a good start. some good things just take time to develop.

[Joe Cain]

Originally Posted by tron3

Wow, I was completely unaware of that. I assumed 30GB which left me wondering why it didn't look at least as good as 300. Should have just waited like I originally wanted.

Yeah, I found that tidbit...I dunno, floating around on the forum somewhere, which effectively killed my interest.

[sj001]

I hear you on this, but I think that they are improving on their transfers with their newer releases, and if we can stick it out until next year, I am sure they will finally jump the fence to BD.

[mdm1699]

Geez! I thought that I hated them!

[ra1024]

Originally Posted by Luis_A51

What annoys me is that soo many people talk about new warners movies having amazing PQ (300, Troy for example) and then when I see it its nothing like Pirates or Crank in terms of PQ

I'm soooo with you on this one. I couldn't believe all the people who thought Troy was great. I think there was only one scene in the entire movie that looked sharp. After being tricked into buying this one, I re-instated my earlier one man boycott of WB. I know it doesn't help us but I refuse to waste money on mediocre encodes which amount to nothing more than HD DVD packaged in a blu case.

[tron3]

Originally Posted by T-Town Oil

agreed. i think they are starting to get the idea though. to those bagging on warner have you seen "2001" yet? they seem to be headed in the right direction with that one for it has pcm and a perfect picture. i would say thats a good start. some good things just take time to develop.

In any case, this is a threat Warner will recognize and they will wake up. You really think Warner wants to loose market share with blu-ray if they know how to fix the problem? They aren't going to spite us. They know why something sells or not. They don't WANT to drop BD, nor are they going to cross their arms and arrogantly tell us, "This is what we have. Take it or leave it." Suppose Sony did that with "The Fifth Element" and basically every other movie? They know we would eventually wise up and leave it.

Warner can't operate under the guise of "consumers are stupid" forever. That is Toshiba's mantra.

Originally Posted by sj001

I hear you on this, but I think that they are improving on their transfers with their newer releases, and if we can stick it out until next year, I am sure they will finally jump the fence to BD.

Have any proof of that? IE: Links, statements by Warner, articles, etc.


In any case, The Bi-Polar Express was my one Warner BD support for this Christmas season.

[T-Town Oil]

i think the proof was in 2001

[CptGreedle]

A boycott will do nothing. First, loss in sales right now will convince them Blu-exclusivity is not for them. Second, anything we boycott will be minor and they would likely not notice. Third, the quality is not bad! Yes its the same as HD-DVD and could be better, but it is not so bad that I would not buy a WB title. Besides, they might some day make a re-released edition with better stats.

[Bluray_ne1]

Originally Posted by quexos

Agreed, of all ailments, we must consider the bigger one. and losing Warner's support would be very dangerous. They have the biggest amount of movies of all studios, remember that !

Instead there should be polite letters sent to Warner to demand better transfers ...

Consider this: If Blu wins this war, Warner will make HD transfers from scratch and quality should improve then. Be patient and do the smart thing: support Warner now

I agree, sending an email or letter is the best way to address this issue IMO. This sends a doubly strong message: "I support your movies by buying them and I've also sent this letter asking you to make them better because I want to continue to buy them."

I'm right there with you intelectually Tron, selling us BD's based on the limitation of the lesser format doesn't show off the true beauty and potential of Blu-Ray. But to boycott Warner, even soon after the holidays, may come back to bite us in the butt.

[OokieSpookie]

What are you, some kind of HD plant or something?
Some (all of the rest of us) of us would like Warner to keep supporting Blu, boycotts are asinine.

[patrick99]

Originally Posted by NutsAboutPS3

You have to see the long game. Put up with it for now, buy Warner movies, DO NOT boycott Warner, and hope that this helps Blu-ray to win and Warner to go Blu-ray exclusive. Once that happens you will get the optimised Warner releases you want.

Boycotting them now will just make them more likely to stay neutral and carry on giving us HD ports, or worse still, go HD exclusive.

My attitude as well, and believe me nobody finds the horrible PQ on Warner releases more painful than I do.

[J6P]

Originally Posted by tron3

Well, Wickywoo says that their Microsoft friends wrote the conversion software to resize the HD DVD sectors to play on blu-ray. Why not do the opposite? Shave some of the bitrate and downgrade it to HD DVD, not the otherway around.

I assumed they were just taking the HD DVD encode and transfering it straight over to Blu, and that the only process involved was translating the sectors so that Blu hardware could read it. This is different from the time that it would take to painstakingly regulate and time the bitrate so that throughput and peaks are maximized for Blu (or for HD DVD, in the other direction).

It's my understanding that the encoding process is anything but 'hands-off'. The engineers are constantly evaluating the bitrate moment-to-moment for each format, so it would take more than translation software to produce a throttled down HD DVD disc from a Blu master. Wicky would certainly know better than me, but I don't think it's that simple.

In any event, I don't think having BOYCOTT WARNER in big bold letters on the most infuential Blu-ray enthusiast site gets us where we want to be right now. You should certainly be allowed to buy or not buy whatever you want, but the appearance of this is counter-productive in my opinion.

[Paden]

Originally Posted by tron3

Well, Wickywoo says that their Microsoft friends wrote the conversion software to resize the HD DVD sectors to play on blu-ray. Why not do the opposite? Shave some of the bitrate and downgrade it to HD DVD, not the otherway around.

Precisely. They're starting with the original film which is in much higher resolution than even Blu can support. They effectively dumb it down to the precision desired and then sell that product. They could just as easily set the precision to a higher standard and then reduce it for HD DVD. That market is SMALLER than the Blu market anyway!

I'm not going to boycott, however. I am, though, only re-buying my current DVD's when the quality of the new versions demands I do so. Otherwise, if I'm getting an upscaled DVD anyway, why not save the money and just watch my upscaled DVD! On the other hand, Disney is getting a lot of my money on products I already own because they're earning it.

[tron3]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

... Third, the quality is not bad! Yes its the same as HD-DVD and could be better, but it is not so bad that I would not buy a WB title. Besides, they might some day make a re-released edition with better stats.

Did you even read the post saying it was originally a 15GB transfer? Have you even bought The Polar Express? Have you seen it yet? If not, buy it, I dare you. Go ahead, make your "contribution" to Warner for "the cause". I triple dog dare you. (A Christmas Story)

I agree, the 30GB transfers are not terrible, but still not what for which we paid. We pay a little extra just for the disc, but where is the quality? This is like buying a CD of Luciano Pavarotti songs and finding out they are actually sung by Slim Witman!

[sj001]

Originally Posted by tron3

In any case, this is a threat Warner will recognize and they will wake up. You really think Warner wants to loose market share with blu-ray if they know how to fix the problem? They aren't going to spite us. They know why something sells or not. They don't WANT to drop BD, nor are they going to cross their arms and arrogantly tell us, "This is what we have. Take it or leave it." Suppose Sony did that with "The Fifth Element" and basically every other movie? They know we would eventually wise up and leave it.

Warner can't operate under the guise of "consumers are stupid" forever. That is Toshiba's mantra.



Have any proof of that? IE: Links, statements by Warner, articles, etc.


In any case, The Bi-Polar Express was my one Warner BD support for this Christmas season.

The proof is mainly in their newer, more recently encoded releases, most of them finally have PCM audio, and the picture quality has improved quite a bit, 2001 was stellar IMHO. Obviously I want them to up the ante in quality, but we need to try our best to get them over in our camp by keeping up sales. Boycotting is counterproductive, when they come to BD exclusive, we won't have to worry about this.

[jsb_hburg]

We are stuck with having to support as many WB titles as possible to make WB go Blu. I am certain WB knows our collective displeasure as to their failure to optimize for Blu. A boycott is self-defeating.

[sj001]

I feel the pain too, I ordered Polar Express a week ago, and I know that is one of the titles that was an "older" transfer.

[mdm1699]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

A boycott will do nothing. First, loss in sales right now will convince them Blu-exclusivity is not for them. Second, anything we boycott will be minor and they would likely not notice. Third, the quality is not bad! Yes its the same as HD-DVD and could be better, but it is not so bad that I would not buy a WB title. Besides, they might some day make a re-released edition with better stats.

Who has the money to waste? I have said before that our achilles heel is that Warner knows that we buy movies, regardless of studio. Blu-ray is the bigger format and growing by the hour. They aren't going anywhere.