HD DVDs arrive

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-01-06 01:15pm

VideoBusiness wrote: JAN. 4 | The Mission: Impossible and Lord of the Rings trilogies as well as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Peter Jackson’s King Kong all will be released on high-definition digital discs this year.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, almost every studio is expected to announce the first slate of high-def digital disc titles coming to market in 2006. More than 75 new and old movies and TV shows are expected with the introduction of the first DVD player, with dozens and maybe hundreds more by the end of the year.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, the studio with the most at stake in its Blu-ray Disc format, is being the most aggressive with plans to introduce the upcoming theatrical release Underworld Evolution day-and-date with the DVD in late spring/early summer. The studio will have 20 Sony and MGM titles including XXX and Robocop ready to go even earlier, when players are expected to be released as early as March.

Sony also will release four catalog titles each month beginning this summer, every new theatrical release day-and-date on DVD and Blu-ray Disc and the first high-def version of a TV series to be announced so far from a major studio, Stargate: Atlantis.

Additionally, Sony is going out on a limb and committing to the debut of two titles--Bridge on the River Kwai and Black Hawk Down--using the 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray Disc, which has been running behind development time from the standard 25GB single-layer disc.

The studio also is announcing plans Wednesday for summer titles featuring advanced interactive gaming using the BD Java software, which has sparked some dissension from Hewlett-Packard within the Blu-ray Disc camp. SPHE president Ben Feingold said the process is too far along now to turn back and not use BD Java.

As for the 50GB dual-layer disc, Feingold said both movies have long running times as well as hours of bonus features that the studio has produced but been unable to release on DVD because they take up too much space.

Sony also will take advantage of the enormous additional capacity to use uncompressed audio on some of its Blu-ray Disc titles, including two Sony/MGM titles in the first wave--The Fifth Element and The Last Waltz. Sony execs say that even movie theaters do not offer uncompressed digital audio.

Feingold said he expects to ship 50,000 to 100,000 units of each of the first titles, as compared to the 60,000 or so units for each of the first five movies shipped for PSP.

Other Blu-ray Disc backers, 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate and Paramount, announced their lineup of titles as well. Disney will announce its titles and other plans at a Blu-ray Disc media event at CES on Thursday evening.

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment president Mike Dunn said the studio will have five titles, including Fantastic Four and Ice Age, in stores two weeks prior to the release of the first Blu-ray Disc player by any manufacturer. Fox will release 20 titles by summer, also debuting most new theatrical titles day-and-date on DVD and Blu-ray.

Each title will have at least one feature unique to the new format and will include 10% to 20% of the bonus features from previously released or new DVDs and 80% new bonus elements, such as advanced branching and menus and including added value programming accessed through connections to other devices such as the Internet.

Fox also is preparing two sci-fi titles to be announced later that will take advantage of the extra capacity of the 50GB dual-layer disc.

“We have material that we set aside a long time ago for these,” Dunn said. “We’ve been working up to this and cataloging content for two years.”

Lionsgate will release its traditional new-format driver Terminator 2 among its first wave of high-def movies. Company president Steve Beeks said Lionsgate will be ready to release as many as 10 titles as early as March or April or whenever the first players hit the market.

Beeks said the studio already has plans to encode some features using the new technology, which he said will represent the “killer app” for the format, but he declined to discuss those components.

Paramount is one of several studios opting to release titles in both the Blu-ray Disc and its incompatible rival, HD DVD. The studio is announcing Wednesday at CES that it will have more than a dozen titles ready to go for both formats at launch and later this year, including the Mission: Impossible trilogy, the most recent of which is being released in theaters this summer.

But Paramount president Tom Lesinski said the studio will determine its own definition of what constitutes a “launch” of high-def digital disc players in the market.

A few hundred or a few thousand players at select retailers will not be enough to motivate Paramount to release product, he said.

“When we know there’s enough product out there, we will determine that to be a launch and will then put out product,” Lesinski said.

He predicted that timeframe will be summer or possibly late spring.

Title announcements are expected late Wednesday at CES from other studios planning to release on both formats. Those include Warner, New Line and HBO, as well as the lone studio supporting only the HD DVD format, Universal, though Universal is said to be close to announcing it also will release in Blu-ray.

Amazon.com lists many of the titles from those studios already, including Universal’s King Kong and The Bourne Supremacy; Warner’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Batman Begins and Friends; New Line’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Seven; and HBO’s Band of Brothers.

Studios would not confirm the accuracy of those titles Tuesday.

None of the studio execs believe the new high-def format will drive any meaningful revenue for their studios this year, but they say it will entice the early adopters and set up more significant growth in 2007 and 2008. But Lionsgate’s Beeks said high-def, which he describes as a “replacement” format, will not grow as fast as DVD, which was more of a dramatic shift from videocassettes.

Beeks noted that high-def discs require two purchases by consumers: a high-def TV/monitor and a high-def player.

Studio execs also are not announcing pricing for the new titles yet, though Feingold said Sony might announce pricing as early as next week or as soon as release dates are set.

Can I join everyone here and say FUCK YES! Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, argue all you want but that is just awesome.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-01-06 01:29pm

Stargate: Atlantis? Why not BSG? Bah!

Of course without a High Def TV I guess it doesn't matter anyway.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2006-01-06 05:33pm

Does anyone have some screenshots of just how different the pictures are? If it results in dramatically clearer pictures during the space scenes of NeoBSG, it would be worth it.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2006-01-06 06:11pm

Does this mean a massive SW 1-6 HD box set earily release for only $200 is not to long down the road?

Plus I'd like to see old BoB vs new HD BoB.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-01-06 06:21pm

From the demos I've seen, full-HD is ridiculously, ridiculously better than DVD, even across a room. However, I'd question if some of these TV shows have source material of high enough quality to really show the full effect. Not that I know anything about TV show image quality.

Medic · Post by **Medic** » 2006-01-06 07:21pm

I've looked forward to this for a while but I'm still embarassingly ignorant on some points.

The new discs require new players, right? I'm inferring as much from previous posts. As a laptop owner (again, [sigh]

) that's not so great; I can't just put in a new drive. Looks like I'll get my first dedicated DVD player though I'm sure HD will be worth it.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-01-07 03:34am

Stark wrote:From the demos I've seen, full-HD is ridiculously, ridiculously better than DVD, even across a room. However, I'd question if some of these TV shows have source material of high enough quality to really show the full effect. Not that I know anything about TV show image quality.

I'm pretty sure most movies they are pimping can't really utilise the new resolution, but LOTR,HP, SW, BHD can use it.

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2006-01-07 04:50am

Realistically, I can't see HD players leaving the hi-end, extra-expensive market for many years. Many people are just getting comfy with their DVD collection, now that prices are way down across the board. There was every reason to switch from VHS to DVD, I think we can all agree on that. But buying a new player for HD? What does that offer? Insane picture and sound on movies and TV shows made in the past few years? The average movie buyer just isn't going to care enough about that. Hardly anyone even has the necessary TV yet. Extra features? They overdo it with current DVDs as it is, relative to demand.

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » 2006-01-07 05:05am

Ace Pace wrote:
Stark wrote:From the demos I've seen, full-HD is ridiculously, ridiculously better than DVD, even across a room. However, I'd question if some of these TV shows have source material of high enough quality to really show the full effect. Not that I know anything about TV show image quality.
I'm pretty sure most movies they are pimping can't really utilise the new resolution, but LOTR,HP, SW, BHD can use it.

Actually they could numerise 35mm (70mm) movies in 720p (or even 1080p) i think, but i guess it will mostly depend of the will of the studios when you see sometimes the shitty transfert quality they made to the DVD (the french edition of The Bridge on the Kwai River or some Buster Keaton DVD spring to my mind)

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-01-07 09:42am

In a related question, how do those crazy 'resolution increaser' thingies work? How does a super-expensive box improve the image quality of things like DVDs without using filters which either lose quality or introduce artifacting? One of my mates is one of those insane audio-visual types, but he couldn't explain to me just HOW his ludicrously expensive box 'stepped-up' DVDs to 1080p without using magic or Gummi berries.

Ace, are you saying even most modern movies arent recorded in high enough quality to fully take advantage of HD? That's nuts crazy. I assumed many TV shows would be too low-quality, but surely movies have a greater investment in things like film quality and processing?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-01-07 09:50am

Stark wrote:In a related question, how do those crazy 'resolution increaser' thingies work? How does a super-expensive box improve the image quality of things like DVDs without using filters which either lose quality or introduce artifacting? One of my mates is one of those insane audio-visual types, but he couldn't explain to me just HOW his ludicrously expensive box 'stepped-up' DVDs to 1080p without using magic or Gummi berries.

Ace, are you saying even most modern movies arent recorded in high enough quality to fully take advantage of HD? That's nuts crazy. I assumed many TV shows would be too low-quality, but surely movies have a greater investment in things like film quality and processing?

I didn't say modern movies, but the lineup mentioned some movies such as Robocop that definetly don't have anywhere near the film quality to take advantage of HD. But most MODERN movies can easily use HD, provided they were filmed on something with good enough quality.

With that, Anandtech has images of the first PC blu-ray player.