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Sporadic posted:About goddamn time. Oh sweet jesus thank you. I just watched this on netflix for the first time, a few months ago. I had never heard of it but I loved every minute of it. Also made me appreciated hackman's character in Enemy of the State a lot more.
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Aug 3, 2011 02:12
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Hahaha, I don't think blu-ray.com is even trying to be credible with film reviews (wait, yes they are, they actually rate films now... for some reason...): http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Soul-Surfer-Blu-ray/23779/#Review Soul Surfer, 5.0 for movie review.
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Aug 3, 2011 13:57
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VoodooXT posted:
One thing I've learned about goons is that they are really, really fearful when it comes to old people travelling.
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Aug 3, 2011 14:51
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Is there a reason why I shouldn't get Dead Man for $8?
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Aug 3, 2011 15:24
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GrandpaPants posted:Is there a reason why I shouldn't get Dead Man for $8?
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Aug 3, 2011 15:41
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Okay, I've been amassing a blu-ray collection for about 2 years now, and I've probably got around 100 discs. However, I've got this nagging suspicion in the back of my head that before blu-ray really catches on and becomes the standard (honestly, it hasn't, most people do not have hdtvs and BD players) something else will come along, possibly all-digital, and make the collection obsolete within 5 years, with no new discs or players being produced. Is this an irrational worry? Has anyone else put any serious thought into this? Is there any market research showing a solid trend in any direction? It feels like the public at large has not bought into the upgrade that BD offers and are kinda waiting for the next best thing. Thoughts?
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Aug 3, 2011 17:51
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Colonel Whitey posted:Okay, I've been amassing a blu-ray collection for about 2 years now, and I've probably got around 100 discs. However, I've got this nagging suspicion in the back of my head that before blu-ray really catches on and becomes the standard (honestly, it hasn't, most people do not have hdtvs and BD players) something else will come along, possibly all-digital, and make the collection obsolete within 5 years, with no new discs or players being produced. Is this an irrational worry? Has anyone else put any serious thought into this? Is there any market research showing a solid trend in any direction?
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Aug 3, 2011 18:14
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metallicaeg posted:Sales numbers indicate that this really isn't the case. 3D isn't doing well and might flop, but Blu is doing just fine. Is "just fine" going to be enough to sustain it for the long haul? I wonder how it compares to DVD at the same point in its life cycle. I know this is just anecdotal, but I know almost nobody who has a BD player. I feel like people thought of DVD as a permanent fixture, and that the general sense is that BD is more of a transitory step to something else. Again, these thoughts are based on no hard data, but a quick Google search didn't return much besides comparing BD sales to previous months' BD sales. I'm more interested in the big picture, and whether things like streaming or iTunes-type downloads are gaining steam.
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Aug 3, 2011 18:24
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GonSmithe posted:Hahaha, I don't think blu-ray.com is even trying to be credible with film reviews (wait, yes they are, they actually rate films now... for some reason...): goddamnit what the gently caress. That movie is a 5/10 at best. I really wish someone would have warned me that there were strong religious undertones.
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Aug 3, 2011 18:30
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TO UNDERAGE GYMNASTS
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I think, based purely on anecdotal evidence, that a lot of people don't think that the cost of upgrading to BD from DVD is worth it. They need A) possibly a better television, B) a Blu Ray player ($100ish for a standalone?), and C) Blu Rays, which are still generally 2-3x more expensive than a DVD, barring sales and bundles and whatnot. The jump from VHS to DVD was huge in terms of quality and added extras and convenience (be kind, rewind!), but the jump from DVD to BD is less significant. Most people probably don't care enough about video quality and all that to justify the cost increase. However, I think BD should stick around for a while. I doubt it's going to crash and burn like beta (and HD DVD), as there is a market for these high quality transfers, and they are a noticeable jump. I also think that there's no technological infrastructure for the next jump in quality, in that the actual cables and whatnot can't transfer more data than blu-ray, but that is just something I heard about from a friend and may or may not be true. Basically, I hear things from other people.
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Aug 3, 2011 18:38
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Frankly, if you can answer that question, there's people out there ready to pay you a lot of money. You're looking at a problem with several variables, the world-wide economy has dipped and luxury items (like Blu-ray) are some of the first to hit the chopping block for most families. There's the common conception among consumers that the difference isn't worth it, the advent of streaming content, piracy, etc. 3D was pushed pretty hard because only a few companies had the capabilities of producing 3D capable [everything] so they had incentive to develop and push the technology as they were set to reap the lion's share of the benefits. It's kind of like when the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray wars were going on, Sony had a vested interest in seeing the format continue and the market went it's way. But now everyone from Emerson to GenericChineseKnockoff make blu-ray players and that's leading to the average price per player to dip. Anyway, with HD content, for anything considerably higher in resolution we're all gonna need 60" tv's to notice it so I think you're fine. Multiplesarcasm fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Aug 3, 2011 |
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Aug 3, 2011 18:50
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Colonel Whitey posted:Is "just fine" going to be enough to sustain it for the long haul? I wonder how it compares to DVD at the same point in its life cycle. I know this is just anecdotal, but I know almost nobody who has a BD player. I feel like people thought of DVD as a permanent fixture, and that the general sense is that BD is more of a transitory step to something else. Again, these thoughts are based on no hard data, but a quick Google search didn't return much besides comparing BD sales to previous months' BD sales. I'm more interested in the big picture, and whether things like streaming or iTunes-type downloads are gaining steam. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/tech-news/film-studios-scramble-as-digital-sales-cool/article2093351/ Personally, I think digital downloads are far too fragmented to become the new standard. Between Vudu, Amazon, iTunes, CinemaNow, and Warner's upcoming UltraViolet digital locker system, there's just far too many ways to own. If I have a blu-ray, and I take it over to a friends house with blu-ray, we can watch it. Hell, most blu-rays come with dvd's these days, so if I go to a friends house without a blu-ray player, I can still pop in A version of the film. Example: I recently bought Rango on blu-ray. If I go to a friends house, I bring the movie with me, and whether he has blu or dvd, we can watch it. If I bought it on Amazon, digitally, I have to go on his computer and sign in to view it. If he has a Roku? Forget about it. I'd have to go online and register my account with HIS roku (which would overwrite his account on his device). If I bought on CinemaNow? He may not have any devices that support it. Same with VuDu. And NONE of this addresses the issue of the growing number of ISP's that force bandwidth caps on their customers. Point is, until buying digitally means the same thing as buying blu-ray in terms of access, it's EXTREMELY short-sighted to start treating digital as anything more than an additional (albeit, very large and lucrative) stream of revenue for the studios.
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Aug 3, 2011 18:50
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GrandpaPants posted:I also think that there's no technological infrastructure for the next jump in quality, in that the actual cables and whatnot can't transfer more data than blu-ray, but that is just something I heard about from a friend and may or may not be true. The 2 year old HDMI 1.4 standard supports 4K (4096x2160), 36-bit colour. DisplayPort supports even greater bandwidth. And the next jump in quality already exists.
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Aug 3, 2011 19:31
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Also, in most parts of the U.S, ISP speeds are not high enough to let most families stream in full speed HD, without losing connection. Digital distribution hasn't fully won me over yet. I imagine it's the same for a lot of people. The service isn't fully what it could/should be, and connection speeds are not perfect everywhere. As mentioned before, it's still considered a bit of a luxury item, and once the economy recovers (if it does at all) we'll see an increase in such items.
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Aug 3, 2011 19:34
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The idea of "HD" has gone pretty mainstream, and so I think a lot of people intuitively understand that Blu-ray is better even if they haven't made the leap yet. They probably will eventually. (Even though they still won't understand why it's better, and will most likely be playing their blu-rays in stretched 4:3 SD with bars on the side, double-bars vertically, and 120Hz filtering, and say that it looks 3D or something.)
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Aug 3, 2011 20:00
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frumpsnake posted:The 2 year old HDMI 1.4 standard supports 4K (4096x2160), 36-bit colour. DisplayPort supports even greater bandwidth.
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Aug 3, 2011 22:09
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Ineffiable posted:Also, in most parts of the U.S, ISP speeds are not high enough to let most families stream in full speed HD, without losing connection. Never mind that most ISPs are going to bandwidth caps and are going to be pushing hard for metered billing at some point, moving BD-quality 1080p streaming into dreamland for most people for at least the next decade. Fiber (to the pole/home) build-outs have also pretty much ceased for most of the large ISPs, so we're going to be stuck with the speeds being offered now for a while yet.
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Aug 3, 2011 22:12
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Yeah, I mean, I don't think really anyone is running out and replacing all their DVDs with BDs, it's more a question of whether BD is the next capital-S Standard like DVD was. Like, are we eventually going to see stores stocking ONLY BDs and NO DVDs, and will it stay that way for a while? But yes, above poster was right, nobody can really predict this, and if they could they would make a lot of money. However, interesting to ponder for those of us who have invested in the format.
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Aug 3, 2011 22:19
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Schpyder posted:Never mind that most ISPs are going to bandwidth caps and are going to be pushing hard for metered billing at some point, moving BD-quality 1080p streaming into dreamland for most people for at least the next decade. Fiber (to the pole/home) build-outs have also pretty much ceased for most of the large ISPs, so we're going to be stuck with the speeds being offered now for a while yet. Thanks for reminding me about the metered billing. I almost forgot about that. I mean, this is only a rough guess, but buying blurays (especially at good amazon preorder prices or when its on sale) is almost as cheap than an online subscription and the 1-2 gigs allocation from your entire service (if it is metered). But you can rewatch blurays, and watch bonus features, and let friends/family borrow them. And it's not dependent on your internet connection working or not, or being slowed down by family's other streamings or your roommate torrenting. Streaming is a nice service, but it's not going to replace blu-rays. I've heard that the next jump in technology for disc based media may be just a blu-ray player that uses ultra-violet laser to access even more data. Just means it'll be backwards compatible for DVDs and Blu-rays. So it's not like your collection will be packaged up in a basement and probably never touched again, which is a main thing with things like Beta-max or VHS, since your standard dvd player doesn't play them. But your standard blu-ray player will play cds, dvds and blurays. Sorry for all the talking, I just wanted to cover every detail about worrying about Blu-rays.
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Aug 3, 2011 22:26
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Colonel Whitey posted:Yeah, I mean, I don't think really anyone is running out and replacing all their DVDs with BDs, it's more a question of whether BD is the next capital-S Standard like DVD was. Like, are we eventually going to see stores stocking ONLY BDs and NO DVDs, and will it stay that way for a while? But yes, above poster was right, nobody can really predict this, and if they could they would make a lot of money. However, interesting to ponder for those of us who have invested in the format. Does it really matter? Studios are still releasing new Blu-Rays and even if Blu-Ray died tomorrow, you will still be able to watch the ones you have. If you enjoy them, keep buying and watching. If you don't, get rid of them and move into streaming or whatever the next big thing is. (Coming from the guy who still has over 100 HD-DVDs  )
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Aug 3, 2011 22:30
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My gut feeling is that blu-ray will coexist with DVD's for the forseeable future, and they will both coexist with streaming. Blu-ray will never completely replace DVD because there will be too many people who want their movies cheaper. DVD manufacturing became cheaper than VHS which is why it was able to match and eventually beat VHS on price. Blu-ray will always cost more and so it will never beat DVD on price. As people mentioned already, streaming requires a connection and so we'll always have a place for physical media in the market. Maybe it will shrink, but there will be enough demand for physical media for a very long time. I think we're heading into new territory here where the three formats will coexist for a long time.
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Aug 3, 2011 22:32
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But can we all agree that 3D has failed miserably? I know literally no-one with any sort of 3D capability, Blu-Ray owner or otherwise. Nobody I know cares.
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Aug 3, 2011 23:16
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Quantum of Phallus posted:But can we all agree that 3D has failed miserably? I know literally no-one with any sort of 3D capability, Blu-Ray owner or otherwise. Nobody I know cares. My TV and PS3 support it but I have no content nor the glasses for it. Also I think my TV is just a smidge older than the current push because apparently I would need a PC hooked up to the 3D emitter and the TV as well, or some such nonsense. That doesn't really make me want to rush out and get the 3D kit, especially with the compatibility issues that may or may not exist. Nothing seems to be standardized between manufacturers yet. The only things I'd want to see in 3D at the moment are Coraline and How To Train Your Dragon, anyway.
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Aug 3, 2011 23:35
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My Coraline bluray was 3D. The red & blue kind.
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Aug 3, 2011 23:52
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Steve Yun posted:My Coraline bluray was 3D. Red and green, actually.
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Aug 4, 2011 00:19
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Quantum of Phallus posted:But can we all agree that 3D has failed miserably? I know literally no-one with any sort of 3D capability, Blu-Ray owner or otherwise. Nobody I know cares. There's a few problems with 3D, but the biggest one is that it does not allow for passive viewing. If you are watching something in 3D, it literally demands your attention. You have to put on glasses. You have to watch the screen intently. Take sports. Most people think "Oh, Sports in 3D would be a huge thing." But think about it. Most people I know who watch sports rarely just watch it. They are usually doing something else, and have it on as background noise, or are hanging out with a bunch of friends. Well, in order for 3D to work, you have to have the glasses. And they work best in a small environment. And for what? A marginal difference. I know for myself, when I watch a 3D feature, I tend to "forget" that it is in 3D and stop noticing the 3D effects, unless it is either a really badly done feature, or it is less than 5 minutes long. I have yet to see a 3D film that added anything to the experience (and I am not hinting that this won't happen). It's funny, I said that 3D wouldn't light up like people said it would after "Avatar." And all my friends laughed at me and said "They said the same thing about color and sound," and I just shrugged.
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Aug 4, 2011 00:49
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Color and sound were easy to introduce because they had been part of film since the beginning. Silents were almost always given live music scores. Even the earliest films had hand tinting on prints. Vitaphone was even invented as a means to provide quality scores for films when an orchestra was not available. Early Technicolor wasn't exactly flashy, either. By the way, Ernst Lubitsch's The Loves of the Pharaoh is supposed to be out before the end of the year. It's a rediscovered 1922 silent made for UFA that just underwent a 2K restoration by the same team that worked on Metropolis.
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Aug 4, 2011 01:14
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Egbert Souse posted:Color and sound were easy to introduce because they had been part of film since the beginning. Silents were almost always given live music scores. Even the earliest films had hand tinting on prints. Here's the other thing: the 3D we are talking about is an optical illusion. We're not tricked into believing there is color on the screen, and sound and vision do naturally go together. There's a reason why most of what you say is your pose and how you say it. In a sense, every film already has a 3rd dimension capability. Nobody watches Star Wars and says "OH MY GOD, THAT REBEL SHIP IS SHRINKING!" Nope, we all know that it's moving away from the screen.
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Aug 4, 2011 02:15
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Quantum of Phallus posted:But can we all agree that 3D has failed miserably? I know literally no-one with any sort of 3D capability, Blu-Ray owner or otherwise. Nobody I know cares. It's starting to be advertised as a feature of current-gen TVs rather than the main event, a huge step down from last year at this time where it was all 3DTV and nothing else. I can't say where it's going to be next year at this time but the sooner it dies the better.
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Aug 4, 2011 03:50
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Egbert Souse posted:Just watched a few minutes of The Blues Brothers. Universal finally does a remaster without a bunch of digital bullshit. It's beautifully dingy, just the way it was meant to be seen. I bought it after work on release day and they were already down to only one copy at Best Buy. Yeah it was in the ad as being on sale but I doubt they got more than a handful of copies to begin with. But yes, very happy with how it turned out. Now do Slap Shot, dammit.
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Aug 4, 2011 05:16
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I really like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and saw this review on the Amazon page.guy on Amazon posted:I rented it from Netflix, and have unfortunately found my fears confirmed. While it certainly looks better than the SE DVD, it is not the best this movie can look. The over-zealous Digital Noise Reduction that has been applied completely robs many scenes of the fine detail we might otherwise have seen in 1080p. I put the old SE DVD in my Xbox and flipped back and forth between the Blu-Ray and DVD on a single scene (Blondie stands alone against some hills in the background in the final scene). While the Blu-Ray looked "cleaner" (that is, the digital artifacting visible on the DVD was gone), there was actually no further detail to be seen on the Blu-Ray! It was as if you took the DVD image and smeared it until the noise was gone, then bumped it up to 1080. I looked specifically at Blondie's eyes to see if any more detail was visible on the Blu-Ray, but there wasn't. The bushes on the hill in the background, too, looked like sharpened up-scaled blobs rather than bushes captured on film by a camera.
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Aug 4, 2011 05:21
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Pyruvate posted:I really like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and saw this review on the Amazon page. Blu-ray.com's review on it describes the situation pretty well: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Good-the-Bad-and-the-Ugly-Blu-ray/4355/#Review It's not a very good transfer, but it looks fine enough. It has much room for improvement, though.
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Aug 4, 2011 05:30
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Basically, the US Blu-Ray looks like poo poo and the Italian Blu-Ray looks pretty great. The problem being, the Italian Blu-Ray is not in English, and not even the same cut, so getting the good looking version in English requires a bit of work and isn't just an audio track swap. There's an AviSynth script around for anyone who owns both discs, and presumably a pirate copy floating out there somewhere. frumpsnake fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Aug 4, 2011 |
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Aug 4, 2011 05:31
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I'm not sure how those screens were captured, but it looks considerably better in motion. There is definitely a lot of room for improvement, but I thought it looked decent and noticeably better than any DVD version I've seen. I doubt we'll see anything better anyway until the film's 50th anniversary in a few years.
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Aug 4, 2011 06:28
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Se7en (normal not digipack case) dropped down to $12.99 on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Se7en-Blu-ray/dp/B004XKVPG6 Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Aug 4, 2011 |
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Aug 4, 2011 15:31
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Steve Yun posted:Blu-ray will never completely replace DVD because there will be too many people who want their movies cheaper. DVD manufacturing became cheaper than VHS which is why it was able to match and eventually beat VHS on price. Blu-ray will always cost more and so it will never beat DVD on price. There's also the fact that literally anything you put on a DVD is guaranteed to be better than its equivalent on a VHS. Just being on DVD makes it better. Blu-ray vs. DVD isn't quite the same because there are some things that either don't have HD-capable source material or they require more effort than the studios are going to put in, and so there isn't necessarily room for improvement over the DVD. So I don't think Blu-ray can ever be as big as DVD in that respect. But I see no reason for it not to become the standard for new movies, and I think eventually, everyone who really cares about having a decent movie collection will be on board. Ineffiable posted:I've heard that the next jump in technology for disc based media may be just a blu-ray player that uses ultra-violet laser to access even more data. Just means it'll be backwards compatible for DVDs and Blu-rays. So it's not like your collection will be packaged up in a basement and probably never touched again, which is a main thing with things like Beta-max or VHS, since your standard dvd player doesn't play them. But your standard blu-ray player will play cds, dvds and blurays. Another good point. Blu-rays are much more future-proofed than DVDs ever were. If there's ever a push to go beyond HD (which I don't see happening, but it'd be foolish to say it never will), there are ways to increase the capacity of blu-rays without requiring a whole new format.
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Aug 4, 2011 17:22
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A bunch of cheap preorders just popped up on Amazon. Pulp Fiction - October 4 - $13.99 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...ASIN=B001AQT0Z4 Jackie Brown - October 4 - $13.99 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...ASIN=B001AQO3YW The Crow with digital copy - October 18 - $13.99 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...ASIN=B005EY2XFC - edit Price drop Sporadic posted:
Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Aug 5, 2011 |
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Aug 4, 2011 19:39
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Colonel Whitey posted:I know this is just anecdotal, but I know almost nobody who has a BD player. I feel like people thought of DVD as a permanent fixture, and that the general sense is that BD is more of a transitory step to something else. Interestingly enough (counter-anecdote!), almost everyone in my social circle has upgraded. Or, if I go down the hall naming co-workers, 8 out of 10 are upgraded to Blu. And the same goes for our production workers (it's not just the white collar folks). I'm of the belief that Blu-Ray is the "44khz 16 bit stereo" standard of video. It's noticeably better than the previous tech to a majority of people, and while there are higher definitions available, those are the ones that won't have a wide market, much like 96khz high definition audio. I think 1080p is what a vast majority of consumers will consider the practical peak only because it's obviously better than 480i, but the next step is so indistinguishable. And it's driven by our physiology, rather than a technical limit. As in, there comes a point where even though you know it's technically a better picture or sound, your eyes and ears can't really tell. That's why I personally didn't invest in DVDs but have jumped with both feet into Blu-Ray. Steve Yun posted:Blu-ray will always cost more and so it will never beat DVD on price. Are you talking about the overall cost of adoption or just the media price? Because the media price has nothing to do with the hard costs, the margins are huge on either disc. But yeah DVD will never die, because even people with BD in their living room aren't going to put one in their car. Not for a 7 inch screen that plays Pocahontas for the munchkins every day. This is why I'm enjoying all these BD + DVD combos lately. I don't have a car player for my kid but I can imagine the day that I do. And even now, if she wants to take a movie to a friend's or on vacation, we just pull the DVD and leave the precious BD at home.
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Aug 6, 2011 07:01
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Whenever anyone questions the necessity of my Blu-Ray collection, I show them Speed Racer. The most beautiful film ever made.
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Aug 6, 2011 12:30
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scary ghost dog posted:Whenever anyone questions the necessity of my Blu-Ray collection, I show them Speed Racer. The most beautiful film ever made. I hate that film so much.
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