Blu-ray, in General

[fdm]

The synopsis for the latest Pat Metheny release has me highly curious as to something. Is it possible to have a 3D film and the 2D version on the same disc?

Yes, both were available as options on the recent Underworld Awakening 3D single disc blu-ray.

[flyonthewall2983]

That's incredible. Surprised this hasn't caught on with the major studios still doing separate 3D releases.

[manicsounds]

The UK discs of "Piranha" and "Hugo" as well.

[David M.]

Yes, totally possible.

MVC is designed to be backwards compatible. There is a base view (left eye) and dependent view (right eye).

The right eye view is constructed using the left eye as a base. Only the differences are stored.

So, to play back in 2D (on an older 2D-only player, or a 3D player connected to a 2D only TV), the right eye just has to be ignored.

The reason it's not often done is because the 3D versions of films often include other differences, on animated films for example, "floating windows", different levels of background blur, etc.

[captveg]

For new releases, it's actually cheaper for studios to produce a separate 3D disc than to include it on the 2D versions. A typical new release will have 6-7 different territorial versions of the disc. Menu programming, compatibility issues, etc. are greatly reduced if the 2D and 3D are separate releases. It also makes it far easier to package various retail exclusives.

Catalog 3D titles (Dial M, IMAX films) rarely have more than one version of the disc produced, so including the 3D version on the same disc is far more reasonable.

[colinr0380]

The UK discs of "Piranha" and "Hugo" as well.

I can testify that the Fox UK disc of The Darkest Hour has both 3D and 2D on the same disc as well.

[domino harvey]

Echo Bridge is releasing eXistenZ outside of it's 3-film single Blu-ray squeeze on December 4th. Hopefully the company knows how to allot bit-rate once it's actually an option and this ends up looking okay

[Zot!]

Echo Bridge is releasing eXistenZ outside of it's 3-film single Blu-ray squeeze on December 4th. Hopefully the company knows how to allot bit-rate once it's actually an option and this ends up looking okay

The only review I can find says the combo-pack was 1080i, so lets hope they alleviate that.

[Minkin]

PD bandits are at it again, this time with Max Fleischer's Superman.

Holy cow, this thing needs to be seen to be believed: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Max-Fleis ... 79/#Review" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Gaiam is so proud of their "restoration" that they must watermark it.

Which reminds me - I remember that somebody said that another PD bandit company stole one of Criterion's transfers. Does anybody recall which film it was and which release resulted? I suppose you can PM me the answer, so that the release doesn't get anymore press, since nobody should be buying it. Thus my PD bandit descriptor is all too appropriate.

[Props55]

While I never actually saw or viewed the disc in question, I'm about 99% certain that I read somewhere online several years ago that the Alpha version of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME was a direct rip of the Criterion including the Bruce Eder commentary.

[Zot!]

Echo Bridge is releasing eXistenZ outside of it's 3-film single Blu-ray squeeze on December 4th. Hopefully the company knows how to allot bit-rate once it's actually an option and this ends up looking okay

The only review I can find says the combo-pack was 1080i, so lets hope they alleviate that.

FYI, botched worse than the 3-pack.

[warren oates]

Zot! could you elaborate on how this upcoming release of eXistenZ is worse. Do you have a link to a newer review or have you seen a copy yourself?

[Zot!]

Voila

In short, still 1080i, even lower bitrate (horrible compression), brightness boosted, but does add 5.1 surround.
There are some screen comparisons and technical details around page 4.

[Zot!]

For anybody on the fence, I bought the multipack version of ExistenZ, and although it does at times suffer from compression artifacts due to being starved for a bitrate, I didn't spot anything else much to complain about (besides the lack of 5.1 and extras). I would recommend this to anyone keen on the film. To be honest, even if you bought both editions you would be out less then $20. Of course I would have paid double that if they could have just gotten their act together.

[David M.]

Voila

In short, still 1080i, even lower bitrate (horrible compression), brightness boosted, but does add 5.1 surround.
There are some screen comparisons and technical details around page 4.

Ew.

[Drucker]

Arte's Lola gets sub-par marks on Bluray.com, and looks to be another botched job.

[hearthesilence]

David Hare told me this in another thread. I was massively disappointed. I had just seen a new print at MoMA - Anouk Aimée was even there to introduce it - and was really looking forward to owning it. Coutard's photography was beautiful, particularly in the apartment scenes where the only light seemed to be the natural sunlight flooding through the windows. Very grainy and diffuse, not sure if it was just the film stock, pushing the film or a combination of both, but to me that overall look was great and the idea of filtering out that texture just because it's the result of grain is just asinine.

[David M.]

It doesn't look awful from the screen grabs, but not outstanding either.

Maybe they felt that filtering out some grain made sense given that they don't have access to the negative...

[Drucker]

It doesn't look awful from the screen grabs, but not outstanding either.

Maybe they felt that filtering out some grain made sense given that they don't have access to the negative...

Is it just me, or does anyone else see some very noticeable grey lines in the black on screenshot 10?

[David M.]

Yes, it's bad compression. The low-detail area has been aggressively quantized by the encoder. Whether that's on the disc, or perhaps exarcerbated slightly by the screen grab, I'm not sure.

[Matt]

"Mastered in 4K" is the new Superbit

[Brian C]

"Mastered in 4K" is the new Superbit

As a commenter astutely notes, it's tough to know what this even means, because Total Recall was finished on a 2K digital intermediate to begin with. This is probably true of most of the other listed titles, too, since 2K is basically the current industry standard.

[manicsounds]

So what does that mean? Will these re-releases have no extras and push all disc space for the movie itself? They are not going to get me to repurchase "The Other Guys"....

I never liked Superbit DVDs since I always liked having extras to watch.
Some Criterions are from 4K masters as well. But they have their extras covered well.

[eerik]

"Mastered in 4K" is the new Superbit

As a commenter astutely notes, it's tough to know what this even means, because Total Recall was finished on a 2K digital intermediate to begin with. This is probably true of most of the other listed titles, too, since 2K is basically the current industry standard.

Are you sure? Sony's new 4K TVs come with pre-loaded Total Recall in 4K.

[Brian C]

Are you sure? Sony's new 4K TVs come with pre-loaded Total Recall in 4K.

Well, I know for 100% sure that the movie was distributed in 2K in the US. And I know that this is standard, so it would be very surprising if Sony secretly mastered the movie in 4K and then distributed 2K files theatrically for no reason, only to unleash the 4K version for a niche early-adopter home video market where only a handful of people will ever see it.

Seems far more likely to me that Sony is running a little con here. I mean, a 4K TV is basically a con job anyway, especially with a measly 84-inch screen. At that size, not even the most discerning videophile can reliably tell the difference between 2K and 4K, yet they're asking for some extremely credulous suckers to shell out $25K for the privilege of saying they own one.

It's a scam.