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david hare wrote:Imagine every single Uni horror title in Blu. Paradise!

Why stop with Universal? Let's get White Zombie restored.

Double Indemnity's up on Amazon for August 28, with one of those ugly 'Universal 100th Anniversary' covers. Listed as a single disc, color? No extras, but it's probably the transfer they gave MoC.

onedimension wrote:Double Indemnity's up on Amazon for August 28, with one of those ugly 'Universal 100th Anniversary' covers. Listed as a single disc, color? No extras, but it's probably the transfer they gave MoC.

It's also just a DVD + digital copy.

Hope this is a mistake or there will be a separate listing for the Blu. I know MOC's version is great, but it's region locked and I would be aghast if Universal shat upon this masterpiece by not releasing a special edition Blu.

warren oates wrote:Hope this is a mistake or there will be a separate listing for the Blu. I know MOC's version is great, but it's region locked and I would be aghast if Universal shat upon this masterpiece by not releasing a special edition Blu.

So it's exactly the same thing they did with Touch Of Evil.

Why bother, American consumers don't need BDs, they can't tell the difference anyhow! ](*,)

Unfortunately Universal may have a point. Yesterday I spoke with a young man who is an aspiring filmmaker wanting to go into the animation field and when I asked him why he bought a Studio Ghibli disc in DVD format only, he said he doesn't see the value in BD, since "unless you put it side by side with DVD, you don't see a difference anyhow".

I went on to educate him on the film like qualities that BD can bring that DVD doesn't and talked with him about some technical differences, but it became clear that neither would sway his mind - and this guy was way more knowledgeable about film than most folks I meet.

vsski wrote:Why bother, American consumers don't need BDs, they can't tell the difference anyhow! ](*,)

Unfortunately Universal may have a point. Yesterday I spoke with a young man who is an aspiring filmmaker wanting to go into the animation field and when I asked him why he bought a Studio Ghibli disc in DVD format only, he said he doesn't see the value in BD, since "unless you put it side by side with DVD, you don't see a difference anyhow".

I went on to educate him on the film like qualities that BD can bring that DVD doesn't and talked with him about some technical differences, but it became clear that neither would sway his mind - and this guy was way more knowledgeable about film than most folks I meet.

Any time I talk about blu ray in any capacity (this is often with record snob peers or music-equipment gearheads) I always seem to get an eye roll. Blu Ray is to them synonymous with like...being a yuppie. I don't know where it comes from, but I certainly feel this sort of...anti hi-def vibe with many folks I chat with. It's a shame!

Drucker wrote:Any time I talk about blu ray in any capacity (this is often with record snob peers or music-equipment gearheads) I always seem to get an eye roll. Blu Ray is to them synonymous with like...being a yuppie. I don't know where it comes from, but I certainly feel this sort of...anti hi-def vibe with many folks I chat with. It's a shame!

Never, ever have a conversation about non-audio technology with checkbook audiophiles. Their contempt for "Home Theatre" is long running and deep seeded. Serious followers of art spend thousands on black boxes the inner workings of which they don't understand (and only want to discuss in terms usually reserved for analyzing the I Ching) in order to determine the direction of the London Underground trains that ran under Kingsway Hall for some of Kenneth Wilkinson's Decca recordings. Watching movies is bread and circuses for the masses.

Given that Universal saw fit to issue ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT and the forthcoming CLASSIC MONSTERS set on Blu-ray, I'm don't think they regard all pre-1960 films as unworthy of HD treatment. All the same, it's hard to imagine DOUBLE INDEMNITY or TOUCH OF EVIL being seen as less important works than ALL QUIET...

Universal UK are selling the films in the Monster set individually as well. Considering that I only want the James Whale titles and am happy to wait for these to go down in price, I think I can safely skip the boxset.

Jaws Blu-Ray.com Review

Given the rather heated video section, I'm afraid that Jeffrey Kauffman is going to wipe out all of the people on this thread with a machete.

The Narrator Returns wrote:I'm afraid that Jeffrey Kauffman is going to wipe out all of the people on this thread with a machete.

Or at least remove their grain and slather them with edge enhancement.

Beaver gives it high marks. I'm a Universal detractor for sure but this disc looks very good.

Going by the Beaver caps, I'm not seeing the sort of Universal-standard DNR I was fearing. Looks pretty good, actually.

Robert Harris @ HTF gave it a perfect score.

By the way, UK is also getting another version of the Monsters boxset.

Citizen Kane gets a UK release on November 19th

FWIW, I watched the Jaws blu ray the other night and was mightily impressed. The daytime scenes look great, and vary from sunny beach, hazy feel to incredibly sharp (which I assume is how it looked theatrically). The night time scenes (such as the first time they look for the shark at night) show plenty of nice grain.

The thing that stuck out the most for me however, is that the score sounds incredible. Maybe it's just the first time I've watched the film on a proper set-up, but to my ears it sounded wonderful and stuck out to me in a way it never has before.

I was probably not going to buy the Hitchcock set anyway, but given what Nick's been discovering about the Blu-rays in the UK Hitch set, I'm getting a little worried about the quality of the Classic Monsters set.

Matt wrote:I was probably not going to buy the Hitchcock set anyway, but given what Nick's been discovering about the Blu-rays in the UK Hitch set, I'm getting a little worried about the quality of the Classic Monsters set.

I've been having the same anxiety (though I'm awaiting a final tally to decide if I want to get the Hitchcock set -- many thanks to Nick for his excellent on-the-fly impressions). The scary (no pun intended) thing is that the Hitch box seems to be all over the map -- some of them look pretty good and others are comically botched. So there's no way to know what the trend/probability is (other than Classic Monsters being a similar mixed bag).

B&W productions seem to be fine in Universal. Think of Shadow of a Doubt (and Harvey).

Have you forgotten about To Kill a Mockingbird and All Quiet on the Western Front already?

What was bad about All Quiet?

Gregory wrote:What was bad about All Quiet?

I'm don't know either. Seemed a pretty good disc to me, even though there was a little DNR at times, but nothing that really harmed the viewing experience.