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Post by The Doctor on Aug 4, 2009 17:03:47 GMT
'Bullet time' was not a new effect. It had been done previously in the 'Lost in Space'... Gah I'd forgotten about that. Even more unjustified then. I recall being amazed when I saw the effect in Lost In Space. Then I saw it again in The Matrix and thought 'I've seen this before, yawn'. -Ralph |
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Post by jameso on Nov 2, 2011 1:17:14 GMT
Is Bluray going to ultimately dominate film and tv in terms of home media like dvd did to video tapes, or is it going to be some kind of optional extra like laserdisc was? I don't often want to get a new film on dvd anymore, but when I do I'm getting sick of seeing the bluray full of extra features that seem to be there not because they can only possibly be presented on bluray but are there to force me to want to buy the more expensive, and harder to watch, bluray version.
And more and more recently films I've already had on video and then dvd and then special edition dvd are on bluray. Enough is enough in these cases.
One of the more trivial things I also don't like about blurays is the packaging, which makes me feel I'd be getting a bluray product rather than the actual movie/tv show.
I'm just wondering if there will be a day soon when just getting the dvd even if it is inferior in terms of content won't even be an option and there will just be the dvd.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Nov 2, 2011 6:44:30 GMT
One good thing is that Blu-ray players will play DVDs (R2 ones, at least), whereas DVD players do not play video cassettes.
I _may_ get a Blu-ray player when I replace my TV, probably in the new year, but I'll need to keep my DVD players in order to play all my R1 DVDs.
I can't tell the difference in quality between watching a DVD and looking out of the window, so I doubt I'd perceive any improvement in picture quality from Blu-ray unless I get a bigger TV or sit closer to it.
According to my "Triple Play" X-Men set, the Blu-ray is for family viewing while the DVD is for the playroom or car...
Martin
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Post by Philip Ayres on Nov 2, 2011 7:02:47 GMT
Did you see what the BD of the Prisoner looked like when you came here Martin?
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Nov 2, 2011 7:09:26 GMT
Did you see what the BD of the Prisoner looked like when you came here Martin? No, what did it look like? Martin |
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Post by The Doctor on Nov 2, 2011 8:10:54 GMT
Like Patrick McGhoohan.
-Ralph
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Post by Bogatan on Nov 2, 2011 8:39:47 GMT
One good thing is that Blu-ray players will play DVDs (R2 ones, at least), whereas DVD players do not play video cassettes. I _may_ get a Blu-ray player when I replace my TV, probably in the new year, but I'll need to keep my DVD players in order to play all my R1 DVDs. Actually it depends on the player. Same as DVD players many BD players can be turned multiregion for DVDs by entering a code. We got a BD player from Asda last year for under £100 that we were able to change. The other advantage of BD is that quite a lot of the US discs will play on any UK player without any messing around. As for the discs themselves I've slowly being getting them over DVD more often. The main reason is the better picture we have a nice new TV that means you can see the difference in a lot of cases. But the other reason is that they dont cost that much more and many of the ones we buy come with digital copies and often a DVD copy in the case as well. I do agree the marketing angle is wrong. DVDs are visibly poorer if you have a TV that can show it, but they are still more than sufficient. Upgrading is really pointless for a lot of people. |
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Post by legios on Nov 2, 2011 12:59:17 GMT
Neither my DVD player, nor my TV are broken so I am in no hurry to buy a Blu-Ray disc. It would involve buying a whole new piece of equipment to do what my DVD player already does, and would result in exactly the same experience. So it isn't really a compelling idea for me.
(A lot of the large media companies don't want Blu-Ray to be around as a long-term format anyway. Their ideal situation is one in which we stop buying physical copies of things in favour of purchasing a limited license to stream them from their servers to our televisions, Slate computers and telephones. From their point of view the idea of a world without a physical media copy of the product changing hands is the ideal situation.)
Karl
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Nov 2, 2011 17:22:37 GMT
I want to own the thing and have permanent access to it offline, not a temporary licence to view the thing reliant on remote delivery.
Martin
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Post by Philip Ayres on Nov 2, 2011 18:35:36 GMT
I only got a BD player when my DVD died and an HD TV when the older CRT TV died.
So far I only owjn a dozen or so BD titles and can really see the difference. The Prisoner and Space 1999 are jaw droppingly good compared to what went before.
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Post by The Doctor on Nov 2, 2011 18:39:42 GMT
Blu-ray is a pointless dead-end. Online streaming and/or purchasing digital copies is the future. Cheaper, less space. I'm already used to HD that way.
-Ralph
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Nov 2, 2011 18:53:12 GMT
Online streaming and/or purchasing digital copies is the future. Maybe, but it's not for me (any more than mobile phones or electronic books). Martin |
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Post by legios on Nov 2, 2011 18:53:50 GMT
I want to own the thing and have permanent access to it offline, not a temporary licence to view the thing reliant on remote delivery. Martin I tend to feel like that myself. If it is something I want to keep then I would prefer to have it on physical media. On the other hand I see so much be means of rental these days that I know that I am only going to want to see once or twice. Things like that I would be quite happy with the "no physical copy" model. I guess I am a bit of a middle-ground with this. Karl |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Nov 2, 2011 18:56:57 GMT
If it is something I want to keep then I would prefer to have it on physical media. On the other hand I see so much be means of rental these days that I know that I am only going to want to see once or twice. Things like that I would be quite happy with the "no physical copy" model. Oh sure. If it's something I don't want to own, I don't need to own it. Just like watching stuff on the telly. Happy to use iPlayer for that stuff. But anything I like enough to want to have lifetime access to, it's got to sit on my bookshelf. Martin |
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Nigel
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
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Post by Nigel on Nov 2, 2011 20:01:43 GMT
I'm getting sick of seeing the bluray full of extra features that seem to be there not because they can only possibly be presented on bluray but are there to force me to want to buy the more expensive, and harder to watch, bluray version. I feel the same. I'm interested in filmmaking, so I like extra features. But I have no desire or need to buy a BluRay player. Lately I've been looking at "double play" packages but from the few I've seen it seems the case that the full extras are only on the BluRay discs and not on the DVDs. As for "triple play" packages, I have no use for digital copies; to some extent, they just seem like a marketing gimmick to me. The fact that double/triple play bundles exist seems to indicate that the market is in a directionless mess at the moment, especially when the separate formats are also being released alongside them. |
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Post by legios on Nov 2, 2011 20:38:22 GMT
The fact that double/triple play bundles exist seems to indicate that the market is in a directionless mess at the moment, especially when the separate formats are also being released alongside them. I do wonder whether some of it due to a combination of the fact that they failed to whip up an artificial format to make DVD go away, and the fact that take up of Blu-ray is still nowhere near where it was expected to be. The original strategy seems to have been the same as with the VHS - DVD transition - get everyone to upgrade the hardware and then they will want to rebuy their existing libraries in the new format. That doesn't seem to have happened to the same extent, partly due to solid economic reasons - leaving us in a bit of an extended interregnum where the supposed to be superseded format won't die and continues to exist alongside its successor, and the development of that's intended successor. We haven't really seen this level of overlap before and I really think that the studios don't really know how to respond to it. Karl |
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Post by The Doctor on Nov 2, 2011 22:38:48 GMT
Space is also a premium. I no longer have the physical space to store stacks of anything.
I really do think online streaming is the game changer, not Blu-Ray.
-Ralph
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Dave
Empty
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Post by Dave on Nov 3, 2011 11:11:47 GMT
Whilst I do own a Blu-Ray player, the extra extras annoy me. I've seen titles where the main feature does not benefit from being on Blu-Ray, but if I were to purchase it, I'd have to go Blu to get all the features. On the other hand there are Blu-Ray releases of older titles that don't feature all the extras that were on the previous DVD release which is just daft.
I too like physical copies of things but I think streaming is where we are heading. I would love it if I got my rentals this way (well I get 1 this way, but I mean all) but I'd hate any purchases to be done like this. My internet connection could be slow or completely dead when I decided to watch something. The company I've purchased my film from could go out of business or lose the rights to the film and suddenly I'm unable to watch my purchase.
Downloads would be a bit better but again a company could loose the rights before I'm able to buy a copy. This is currently happening with games, where titles are disappearing from online eshops, so there are games that were available before but not any more. If these had been on physical media you could at least track down a second hand copy.
I buy a lot of digital comics so maybe I'd quickly adapt, but I can see streaming/downloads being very frustrating.
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Nigel
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
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Post by Nigel on Nov 3, 2011 11:32:06 GMT
It just occurred to me that the most practical physical medium for the consumer is currently a USB stick, but that is less attractive to the manufacturer than a disc because it's (presumably) more expensive to produce. Which is better for the retailer is hard to say because it depends on how the stick is packaged and hence how much shelf space is takes up.
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Stomski
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
YOU INTERRUPTED MY SPEECH!! But don't worry. It won't happen again.
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Post by Stomski on Nov 3, 2011 12:03:44 GMT
Unless it's a new film, always check the reviews of the transfer to HD of the film.
Predator BD had excessive noise reduction on the picture making skin look like plasticine and the original grainyness of the film removed. Both bad imo so I skipped it preferring my DVD copy.
Alien and Aliens on the recent BD box set however benefited a lot, going back to the original film and cleaning up before transfer.
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Post by The Doctor on Nov 3, 2011 12:44:18 GMT
I buy a lot of digital comics so maybe I'd quickly adapt, but I can see streaming/downloads being very frustrating. I agree with your points, which is why I have held off on streaming/digital downloads until I felt the market is at a place where losing access is less likely. For instance I buy a lot of audio drama from Big Finish. But they've been on the go since 1999 so seem secure and their terms and conditions allow for unlimited downloads of a production once it is purchased. So recently when a laptop went bust I was able to still retrieve all the plays I had bought and download them to another machine. I had been buying CD's from them but when my current subs run out I'll switch to digital downloads only. -Ralph |
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Post by Pinwig on Aug 23, 2015 22:10:15 GMT
Why is it that beyond big feature films so little gets released on Blu-Ray? are sales really so poor? Are the powers that be already assuming we've moved into the download age? People keep telling me that DVD is dead, yet whenever I go to buy something I've enjoyed I can't actually buy it in the HD resolution I watched it in on TV.
Maybe there's an argument that kids TV shows will sell better on DVD than Blu-Ray, so we don't get stuff like Transformers: Prime released here in HD. But I absolutely LOVED the new Thunderbirds, and would equally love to own it on disc to rewatch. Surely there's an adult market for that big enough to support a Blu-Ray release? but no... if I want to own Thunderbirds physically I have to buy a DVD and enjoy it in glorious standard definition, when on my Sky box I could record it in 1080p.
But I do see the argument kids' TV won't sell on Blu-Ray. Other things baffle me totally though. The BBC needed a petition to see the light when it came to releasing An Adventure in Space and Time properly, but at least we got that. I've watched stuff recently though that I'd buy in HD to watch again at some point - two notable examples the missus and I have just binge watched to clear off the recorder: BBC2's Banished, which was awesome, and Channel 4's Humans, which was nicely thought provoking. Both cracking, both worthy of a second go, both big prime time dramas, both only released commercially on DVD. Yonderland is another one. The humour in that is totally adult aimed, and I find it hysterical, but it's only available on DVD.
What gives? Is it really that people who still buy physical discs are regarded as geriatric enough only to have reached the DVD age? That the HD generation don't actually buy discs? I've had a PS3 since they first came out, but it's only been this year that I've had a Blu-Ray player under the living room TV, and now I've got one I'm finding I can buy bugger all to play on it.
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Post by Toph on Aug 23, 2015 22:48:42 GMT
Yeah, I agree. Dvd isn't as dead a format as they say.
I don't know about there, but over here the most popular thing for them to do is release a DVD, Bluray, Download combo.
And it's similar here, that kids shows rarely get bluray releases. That's honestly not an issue for series that existed pre-hd, but those after, it's annoying.
(My rule of thumb is that a movie or series that predates HD doesn't really benefit from Bluray without major work)
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Post by Philip Ayres on Aug 24, 2015 7:57:11 GMT
Define Major Work.
Anything shot on film will automatically look better on BD just from a new scan. Throw in some clean up too and it looks superb as Space 1999, The Professionals and the Prisoner proved.
Anything shot on video is probably taking your money under false pretences as the line resolution is built into the format. You might be able to get a decent upscale from it, if the upscale was done before the BD was recorded and not in the player.....
DVD is easily the most successful physical format of all time with a massive uptake rate. BDs not done badly, it just hasn't matched DVDs uptake rate. There are some people who genuinely can't see the advantage to it. In some ways it's also suffered by being out at a time of economic downturn which isn't going to convince people to upgrade their kit. There's also the massive rise in non physical media (iTunes, Netflix etc etc)
Amusingly though BD is the first major format upgrade that still lets people play their old media (DVDs)
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Post by Toph on Aug 24, 2015 8:17:12 GMT
Well yeah, anything put on bluray will automatically be better quality. Same as transition from video tape cassette, to digital dvd. But that doesn't mean anything recorded on film is digital quality.
By major work, I mean the kind of digital enhancement and clean-up done to Next Generation.
As an example, Ghostbusters has been released on Bluray, but I don't believe any actual work was done to the "print" from it's DVD release. And since bluray players play DVDs (which also get a boost from the equipment), I really feel no need to buy it a second time as I doubt there's anything more than a *slightly* better picture quality from the equipment playing my dvd.
I mean DVD is still a pretty damned high quality format.
In contrast, when I got my Bluray player, I felt the need to get the 2009 Star Trek movie on bluray, even though I have the DVD, Because that movie *was* filmed in high def.
(That said, I'm sure that they will do a remastered version to coincide with the upcoming movie)
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Post by The Doctor on Aug 24, 2015 10:18:16 GMT
35mm film still has a higher resolution than any digital video format. This is why many pre-digital films can have the same (or more) clarity than recently-produced produced films when a good-quality remaster job is done on the original print.
Some film makers still shoot in 35mm film. Christopher Nolan being a high-profile example. His last film (Interstellar) was shown in some cinemas in 35mm for a better picture quality.
The release of Ghostbusters on Blu-Ray was done via brand new 4K restoration. This version of the film was also given a limited theatrical release.
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on Aug 24, 2015 10:22:42 GMT
35mm film still has a higher resolution than any digital video format. Technically Film doesn't have resolution as there isn't a number of lines to it being an analogue format. Definition is probably a better word here. |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Aug 24, 2015 10:29:03 GMT
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Post by The Doctor on Aug 24, 2015 10:37:43 GMT
35mm film still has a higher resolution than any digital video format. Technically Film doesn't have resolution as there isn't a number of lines to it being an analogue format. Definition is probably a better word here. Gah! Yes, you're right. I got my terminology mixed up! As this is an area of interest for me I hang my head in shame! -Ralph |
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Post by Pinwig on Aug 24, 2015 10:38:02 GMT
I agree with this entirely, but I'm not quite sure about this line:
Film has no real “resolution.” The actual resolution has been debated for many years, and Wizard of Oz was scanned in at 8K during the restoration process, meaning 7680 x 4320 was the output resolution (or thereabouts). It needed to be scaled down to 1080p for Blu-ray, meaning that yes, Wizard of Oz can still look better than it does now.
Shoving more pixels in an image doesn't automatically equate to a 'better' picture. A bigger picture, yes, but not necessarily better. There needs to be a degree of film restoration/remastering too. For example my phone can take pictures at 8MP, but that doesn't give me a better image than a proper digital SLR shooting at even half that amount.
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