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Posted

5 Blu-ray movie deal extended

With the change in seasons also comes a change in promotions. Many have already taken advantage of the Summer Blu-ray Offer - getting 5 free movies with the purchase of a Blu-ray player. That offer ended yesterday, and today there is a new offer - the Winter Blu-ray Offer. As the name suggests, the only thing that has changed is the season and the selection of title. So, from now until January 31st, purchase a Blu-ray player (or PS3) and get 5 free movies by mail.

For full offer details, selection of titles, and order form, visit BluraySavings.com. If you took part in the Summer promotion, you can visit this site to check on your order status.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=548

The site to check the summer promotion is here:

https://portal.archway.com/run/Lookup?key=BVISTA

Posted
If that were true, I would have bought one of the many CRT HDTV's at Best Buy a year or two ago.

It's true with monitors in that an LCD monitor will have a maximum resolution and be capped at that, whereas a CRT monitor can have very high resolutions (how viewable they may be is another matter).

How that translates to TVs, I'm not sure considering TV resolutions are not really user adjustable as far as I know.

Posted

My point was that CRT 16:9 HDTV's have insanely low horizontal resolution. As in you can see gaps between each columns of phosphors. It's that bad.

Posted

I wonder, do they offer an "exclusive two plus month waiting period!" for these free movies? :p

Posted
It looks like a whole new offer. Same deal as before in that you buy a Blu Ray player and get 5 free movies but the movie selection is different.

... and this new movie selection sucks even worse than the previous one. :ph34r:

Groups 3, 4, and 5, sure. But Pirates of the Carribean: The Good One, Swordfish, the Prestige, and Superman are all worthy picks. I'd have gladly traded two fo the ones I picked in the summer one to have two of those four instead.

Posted (edited)
It looks like a whole new offer. Same deal as before in that you buy a Blu Ray player and get 5 free movies but the movie selection is different.

... and this new movie selection sucks even worse than the previous one. :ph34r:

Nah... there are some kickass titles in there. It's just that they're separated into groups so you're screwed.

I'd take:

1) The Prestige

2) (Toss up between) Superman/Full Metal jacket

3) American Psycho

4) Crappy selection

5) Another crappy selection... Species, maybe?

Edited by the white drew carey
Posted

I still think the new selection stinks. The only movie in that entire offer I'd want is Pirates. The rest are either shoddy movies or shoddy HD transfers. These special offers are pretty much "hey what isn't selling? Let's offer people those!"

Oh and just a word of warning to possible buyers, Full Metal Jacket on Blu Ray is abysmal. The transfer is utter crap. They are going to release a supposedly new version of it soon (like they did with Fifth Element) but until they do avoid it like the plague.

Posted (edited)

Ya the new version of Full Metal Jacket on Blu-ray comes out this month. A Clockwork Orange will be on Blu-ray this month too. I think for the first time.

That add on Bluray savings.com reveals a new PS3 model..I guess the 40 gig is coming.

EDIT Ha they changed it already lol :lol:

Here's the original pic

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3163278

Edited by dejr8bud
Posted
My point was that CRT 16:9 HDTV's have insanely low horizontal resolution. As in you can see gaps between each columns of phosphors. It's that bad.

Check out the blacks on a CRT and then on an LCD. No competetition. CRT wins. Not only does HD material look better but SD material also looks WAY better. The only advantage of LCD is you can get bigger screens.

Posted (edited)
Check out the blacks on a CRT and then on an LCD. No competetition. CRT wins. Not only does HD material look better but SD material also looks WAY better. The only advantage of LCD is you can get bigger screens.

Ya blacks are better on my CRT but the HD picture overall is better on my LCD. No question. SD material..meh could go either with way that

Edited by dejr8bud
Posted (edited)
Ya blacks are better on a CRT but the HD picture overall is better on my LCD. No question. SD material..meh could go either way with that

Blacks are usually most of the picture!

you aren't going to get a better picture on an LCD. even the best LCDs (at least 2x as much as a cheap, fast TN-Film (limited viewing angle) that are popular) fall short of the full color range of a CRT, let alone "response" of a CRT. sure you can get good colors by exagerating contrast and saturation, but you'll get overblown images and colors that look the same between, say, 80% red and 100% red visible.

When will people realise that NEW DOES NOT ALWAYS EQUAL BETTER.?!?!!

SDF Macross is in SD btw... ^_^

Edited by MilSpex
Posted

The greatest benefit I've seen of LCD and Plasma to a CRT unit IMHO is their perceived clarity. To a human eye the newer "digital" LCD and Plasma screens appear vastly "clearer" than the CRT HD units. They do indeed suffer poor black levels but they have actually begun to overcome that with variable backlighting and other tweaky features. I'm not saying it's true of all CRT HDTV's as I've only seen the one my friend has but his is actually kind of... blurry. The set just has this "fuzziness" about it, this lack of fine definition. Sure it's HD and it looks "good" but there is just something "off" about his picture. It's not his settings as he has the thing tweaked out to all ends of the spectrum, it's just the "CRT"-ness of his monitor. After watching something on his CRT HD set for an afternoon in 1080i and then going home to watch my plasma in 1080i I can't help but feel my picture is just... "sharper". I don't know why... his set is good, but it just seems to be lacking in it's definition. It's all personal perception in the end but it just seems to be "off".

If you press your face right up against the glass on both units mine has the usual "tiny color cells surrounded by black" and if you stare hard you can see the "rainbow shotgun" as I call it, the rainbow colored static that lives in the off-blacks. It's not all that noticeable when watching something but when you have a "dead signal" on the screen and it's that off-gray color you can really notice it. My friend's CRT does not have that problem, his blacks and grays are ink blank... but when you look close at his screen the color dots sort of bleed into each other "fuzzily". I think that is the spot where the LCD and Plasma screens gain all their perceived sharpness is in the per pixel level. Those little black corrals really go a long way to creating "false" sharpness in an image compared to a CRT that has basically a lot of color bleed going on.

Another thing that bothers me about his CRT is that it can't properly display 4:3 images. It displays them but it's almost like the ray guns in the thing can't properly "focus" on the truncated image aspect ratio and the top and bottom edges of the side "letterboxed" image actually warp. So instead of seeing a perfect square inside a rectangle like you do on my Plasma you see a square with jumpy, "leaking edges" at the top and bottom on his CRT. I don't think your average man on the street would notice but I'm kind of nitpicky about picture and the minor distortion that caused at the top and bottom drives me nuts. He doesn't care though. I thought his unit was defective but he told me "all HD CRT's are like that". I myself don't really know... it looks like the thing is broken to me but it displays proper 16x9 HD material very well so...

I myself am shopping for a new, bigger LCD monitor to replace my 42" Plasma. Before I moved we had the Plasma in a smallish living room and it was not that bad. But now it resides in a large room and it looks totally dwarfed. Plus I'm a videophile and I can't stand 1080p24 lording it's "betterness" over me. It must be mine... :ph34r:

Posted

^fascinating as always ArcLight

You almost convinced me to buy a plasma instead of a CRT. :)

Posted

"Blackness" is a non-issue to me, as no TV to me is truly black. Even my CRT when SHUT OFF isn't black. It's dark grey. LCD's are dark grey, and plasmas show dark grey. So they're all the same, just slightly different shades of dark grey. Only thing to watch for is the "purple" LCD's---which are pretty much limited to cheap/old sets. For the past 2 years or so, any decent LCD has had "as black as I need" blacks. (I actually prefer plasma due to it actually emitting light, but they just don't make them small enough--and the smaller ones actually cost more)

Anyways--I just heard that HD-DVD's let you specify your own chapter stops etc. True? How many can you make? Can Blu-Ray do this?

Posted

I'm not sure about letting you "make your own chapter stops" but HD DVD does let you assemble "clips" of your favorite scenes in movies using a feature called "My Scenes". The way it works is you more or less watch the movie regularly and as you watch you can "bookmark" scenes by pushing a button on your remote. The player then "remembers" those bookmarks and when you go to the "My Scenes" selection from the menu of the HD DVD it will play back all the scenes you bookmarked.

I used it once on Hot Fuzz... and that was about it.

I mean it's really a useless feature as all it does is allow you to play back a movie scene by scene as you selected them. If I want to see specific scenes I'll just select them from the "Scenes" menu. Having the ability to see them all "in order" is kind of... well... not all that useful. I can see it's pseudo usefulness for "demo-ing" your HD rig for people, but most of the time you only want to show them like 5 minutes of a movie (that one really great, clear, really "HD" scene) and not a long string of clips.

I myself prefer it when the HD discs make their own "HD Demo" settings. Like POTC on Blu Ray... it has it's own little "play me to make your friends envious" option which automatically goes to the most impressive sections of the movie and lets them have it.

Posted

My main issue is that most discs don't have enough scenes/chapters. 20 or so is never nearly enough. It's pointless to me to select "chapter 4" then fast-forward through 6 minutes to get to the actual part I want to see. (The whole discussion started based on a preview of the Transformers chapters---the entire desert sequence appears to be just one chapter---and I commented I don't want to watch the fat guy push people out of the shower 50x while waiting for Blackout to transform)

Star Wars are among the few discs that really have good chapters---they have twice as many as most others, you can almost always get exactly what you want.

Posted

I guess I must just be unusual. I rarely if ever even use the preprogrammed chapters. I generally just stick in a disc and hit play, unless I'm showing off the system to someone then I have my "go to" discs (POTC for Blu Ray and Hot Fuzz for HD DVD) which have their "go to" chapters (The boat fight in POTC and the big shootout in Hot Fuzz).

Posted

Pan's Labyrinth on Blu-ray dec 26th

New Line Home Entertainment has announced that they will bring the critically acclaimed film 'Pan's Labyrinth' to Blu-ray on December 26th. Video will be presented in 1.85:1 1080p, with Spanish 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio (with optional English subtitles). Extras include enhanced video commentary and everything from the 2-disc DVD release.

Following a bloody civil war, young Ofelia enters a world of unimaginable cruelty when she moves in with her new stepfather, a tyrannical military officer. Armed with only her imagination, Ofelia discovers a mysterious labyrinth and meets a faun who sets her on a path to saving herself and her ailing mother. But soon, the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur, and before Ofelia can turn back, she finds herself at the center of a ferocious battle between good and evil.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=561

this should look excellent. Even the SD DVD looked awesome. Cool movie.

Posted

The HDD guys have been running that story for a few days now. HD-DVD guys are going nuts over it. Blu-Ray guys are saying this is another PR firm screwup like when the HD group originally touted Speilberg movies then retracted them after Speilbergs group refused to endorse those movies. Me, I'm going to wait and see what Speilberg has to say about this latest offering.

Posted

I still fail to believe the Japanese arm of Universal would mock up something like that and display it at a trade show if something was not in the works for their market.

Posted
I still fail to believe the Japanese arm of Universal would mock up something like that and display it at a trade show if something was not in the works for their market.

And Speilberg just shut down this Japan HD-DVD rumor.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Uni...DVD_Rumors/1046

Today, however, in a statement to Blu-ray.com, Spielberg spokesperson Marvin Levy put the rumors to bed.

"There are no plans to release these titles on HD DVD," said Levy. "It was a mistake and someone inadvertently put those titles into a presentation."

Levy went on to tell Blu-ray.com that Universal would be making a public statement regarding this mistake in the coming days.

From Speilbergs site itself.

http://www.spielbergfilms.com/dreamworks/1538

October 8, 2007

Universal Japan prematurely touts Spielberg HD-DVD

Just a quick note to put a kibosh on some news that circulated online this weekend: An image from a presentation held by Universal Japan has been lighting up the Internet with talk of some major Spielberg films coming to HD-DVD, top-tier titles such as “Jaws,” “E.T.,” “Jurassic Park” and more.

Thing is, all of this is news to Amblin/DreamWorks who have a say in the format and issuance of Spielberg’s work on any home video format. Unfortunately, this is the second time in less than six-months that the very anxious HD-DVD group (of which Universal is a very key member when it comes to software content) have prematurely announced Spielberg titles coming to HD-DVD.

At this time, there are no official plans to release any Spielberg-directed titles to the HD DVD format, except for tomorrow’s release of “Twilight Zone The Movie” (a feature that includes the short Spielberg film “Kick the Can”).

Beyond “Twilight Zone” (that will be released in both HD-DVD and Blu-ray), Spielberg fans have November 13th’s high-def debut of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” to look forward to exclusively on the Blu-ray format. Beyond that, any other talk of Spielberg films on high-def at this time is premature, no matter the source, even Universal.

Posted

Well, that ends that.

It makes me wonder what kind of rights retention Speilburg has over his movies (that little to none of his own money was used to make) if he can tell a studio, who by all accounts "holds the keys" to that movie, that they can't release it on a certain format.

Posted
HD-DVD beating Blu-ray in hardware sales.

Don't think those numbers include PS3s, though. And I don't know about sales of discs, but with Heroes on HD-DVD and Transformers next week, I guess they're getting a boost. I'm sorely tempted to buy the 360 HD-DVD player now.

They don't. See PS3's don't count as standalone players since the average J6P doesn't use it or know its a Bluray player(about 50%). That's fine. PS3 #'s DO count when it comes to amount of software sales though because BluRay with those large numbers(that include PS3 #'s) are only beating HD by about a 60:40 margin. BUT WAIT, if we don't include the PS3 #'s then the ratio jumps to 80:20(exaggerated ratio since I can't be bothered to do the math) in favor of Bluray. It's all spin. Toshiba wins standalone sales for a recent week so "HD-DVD beating Blu-ray in hardware sales" is true. Year to date HD DVD players are more prolific then BluRay stand alone players. What wasn't mentiond was that HD:BD hardware ratios were something like ~55:45 early in the year (NUMBERS ARE NOT EXACT. Go to AVSforum.com or highdefdigest forums for the numbers game) but they are only leading by about 52:48 now.

Make no mistake both sides in this high def war are spewing out alot of FUD. No surprise there. Truth I want Bluray to win because I like the specs and see more potential there AND own a PS3 but I will buy an HD DVD player Dec. 2008 if Universal hasn't released Heroes on Bluray by then.

Besides that article was based on what one of Toshiba's VP of marketing is saying. VP of Marketing. Tells you alot right there since she obviously isn't going to put out a press release saying their format isn't doing as well as expected. It's all spin. ALL spin.

I'm off to enjoy Surfs Up on Bluray now. It's a great movie.

Posted

Another thing to take with a grain of salt in all the "HD Media Versus" arguments that pop up is that both Blu Ray and HD DVD only account for something like 0.5% of all the movies sold. For instance, if 1,000 movies are sold at retail there are only 5 BD and HD DVDs sold... TOTAL. Everyone gets so wrapped up in saying their side is "winning" or their hardware is "outselling" the other when in reality the actual sales numbers of both formats are abysmal. These things are still super niche indie formats, no matter how much ballyhoo they tout. At this point it's still like Ferrari and Lamborghini arguing over who sold more supercars while the whole time millions of Toyota Camrys roll off assembly lines. People also seem to not be switching over to the new formats in enough numbers to really declare one side or the other a "winner"... and judging by recent reports that the mass consumer base, and even retailers, do not properly understand what "HD" actually IS only point towards a longer, protracted format war as really only tiny handfuls of people are adopting HD media and buying HD media. From articles I've read and just my own gut feeling I see this format war lasting the lifespan of this media teir. I fully expect the "next generation" (movie downloads) to emerge sometime soon which will spell the death of thes confused and (for most people) very expensive formats.

Posted

Another "quirk" to point out is that my own HD media purchases mirror the "truth" of the industry as folks like to tout it. I own both format players and when I look at my movie shelf my Blu Ray to HD DVD ratio is something like 2 to 1. I own in the ballpark of 30 HD movies and the split is practically 20/10. When I look at my "future purchase" list the split remains, 2 to 1. Is that because Blu Ray is "better"? Absolutely not. It's because right now there just happen to be more "format exclusive" Blu Ray releases coming up that I want above HD DVD releases. I should also point out that out of every 10 movies on my "look into buying" list only about 3 actually "make the cut" and get purchased. That is almost entirely the fault of the crappy next gen media renditions we are seeing these days. Some notable "rejects" on my list lately have been:

Robocop on Blu Ray, marginal picture, ZERO bonus features and a $30 price tag equals a pass.

Red Dawn on Blu Ray, not actually out yet but will also have ZERO bonus features and a $30 price tag. Again... pass.

Halloween on Blu Ray, they used an altered master of the movie that is not the "true" movie resulting in a "compromised" rendition. Pass.

The Last Starfighter on HD DVD, once again marginal picture and a $30 price for such equals a pass.

Streets of Fire on HD DVD, supposedly a decent video and audio transfer but ZERO special features and a $30 price tag. Pass.

Royal Space Force on HD DVD, poor picture, paultry special features and an outrageous $80 MSRP equal one massive pass.

On the flip side of the coin:

Surfs Up on Blu Ray, outstanding picture and sound, all special features in 1080p meant automatic purchase.

Dawn of the Dead on Blu Ray, noticeably improved picture and sound over the DVD, a good set of bonuses meant automatic purchase.

Posted (edited)

JsARCLIGHT - What`s your opinion on LD played back on a decent player with a comb filter? Since its an analog uncompressed source some say its more "film like" to watch than DVD and even BR/HD-DVD. Do you agree?

Edited by MilSpex
Posted

I personally have never owned a Laser Disc player to be familiar with their traits. I have seen LDs at friends' houses many, many years ago but my memory of their picture quality is foggy at best.

Personally for me the Blu Ray\HD DVD display parameter of 1080p/24 is optimal. That is supposed to be the closest (actually dead on) to actual film presentation one can get... provided you have a TV that can accept that 1080p/24 signal and display it property without 3:2 pulldowning it or doing some other conversion shenanigans to it.

Posted
I personally have never owned a Laser Disc player to be familiar with their traits. I have seen LDs at friends' houses many, many years ago but my memory of their picture quality is foggy at best.

Personally for me the Blu Ray\HD DVD display parameter of 1080p/24 is optimal. That is supposed to be the closest (actually dead on) to actual film presentation one can get... provided you have a TV that can accept that 1080p/24 signal and display it property without 3:2 pulldowning it or doing some other conversion shenanigans to it.

Hmm thanks for your reply. I guess if the electronics companies made it easy for us to choose optimal equipment that will last our lifetime they`d go out of business..

Posted

I always see it this way: The electronics market is varied and diverse. It has to not only consider us, the crazy nuts Videophile junkie uber dork fanboys, but it also has to consider the teen who just wants to watch her Hanna Montanna DVDs and the mom or dad who doesn't want to spend two grand on a TV just to watch broadcast TV or analog cable.

When you think about it, any off the shelf item has to meet a certain "minimum operational parameter" so that everyone, even some knob who doesn't know how to tie his shoes, can open the box and get it up and running. But the really high tilt "tuner" items have to possess the extra function to get us "enthusiasts" to tweak them out. When viewed as a whole, the market primarily caters to the masses... the apathetic, uneducated (in the ways of HD), "I just want to watch my NBC in color with my over the air antenna with no static" masses. A good 90% of the consumer electronics market is geared towards them. The remainder of the market is geared towards us, the nuts, who actually know what all the terminology means, know how to hook up their systems and love every minute of it.

As such there are varying degrees of "perfection" for people. Some folks will stop at SD broadcast stuff on an SD TV and say "I can't see any difference". Then there are folks who will just run out and buy anything that says "HDTV" on it and they will probably enjoy their 720p low refresh rate LCD television. Then there are the crazies. The people like me who are over analyzing every piece of equipment making sure we get the optimal, best possible picture out of our rigs. I've almost gotten to the point that the high end consumer electronics store people here my town know me by name and probably say "oh crap here comes the professor". It's actually quite shocking when I (who still considers himself "learning" about HD) know more about the tech, the specs and the terms than the salesmen do.

But in the end, it's "whatever works for you, your tastes and your budget". Most normal people will never notice the difference that a $4000 HDTV rig will net you above a $1500 HDTV rig. Once you pass a certain point you reach the zone of limited return on money invested and it becomes what I call "douche bag zone". I myself live in the "douche bag zone", that place inhabited by Ferrari owners and 40 foot schooner captains. People who buy "only the best" and feel slighted when something better comes out. The cutting edge, also known as the bleeding edge, is a rich man's sport... and the benefits of that bleeding edge are rarely worth their costs to most people. The leap from702p or 1080i to 1080p is not all that drastic and most people will not even notice. As such the gap between 1080p/24 and 1080p/60 is also nearly indistinguishable to the common man. So obsessing on the "perfect" specs is more or less "douche bag zone"... but if you are of that mindset as I am it's the cats pajamas. As they say, speed is simply a matter of money... how fast can you afford to go? But at the same time driving 150 and driving 180... once you pass 100 everything's a blur anyway.

Posted

You know, HDTV sales are good. And a lot of people own an Xbox 360 or a PS3. But people are still buying DVDs, as JsARCLIGHT pointed out.

I honestly don't blame a lot of them. That same Xbox 360 and PS3 do a nice job of upconverting DVDs, and there are plenty of HDMI-out DVD upconverting DVD players out there for under $50. (I bought a second one for my bedroom because it came with an HDMI cable, and was only $5 more than buying the cable separately). And while an upconverted DVD doesn't look as nice on my system (alas, my Toshiba 52" DLP set only goes up to 1080i) as a Blu-ray, most of my family can't tell the difference, even if I can (and even though I can tell the difference in video quality, I think the difference in the audio quality of an uncompressed audio track vs. Dolby Digital that's a bigger deal).

So, even when you've got a great TV and audio rig, sometimes it comes down to $15 for the two-disc DVD set loaded with bonus features, or $30-$35 for the Blu-ray or HD-DVD with just the film and, if you're lucky, a commentary track. And sometimes the transfer's not even that good to begin with. That's one of the reasons why, after I buy the HD-DVD player for the 360, I'm still a lot more interested in the newer DVD release of Serenity than I am in the HD-DVD.

Now, if the HD-DVD-exclusive studios were smart, they'd stop selling HD-DVDs for $30-$35 and start selling them for $20... one of the big advantages with HD-DVD was how they weren't supposed to cost much more than DVDs to produce, right? They'd make all of their HD-DVDs the dual-disc type that has the HD version on one side and the regular DVD version on the other. And then they should stop selling stand-alone DVDs all together. Then people without an HD-DVD player, or even an HDTV, would be buying the HD-DVD versions of Transformers or Heroes for the DVD side of the discs. When they realize how many HD-DVDs they own later when they do decide to get that HDTV, the format choice would already be made for them.

Honestly, you'd think that since I own a PS3 but no HD-DVD player that I'd be pulling for Blu-ray, but I don't really agree with Dangard Ace. Blu-ray and HD-DVD use different software for the same results, so in terms of specs, the only advantage to Blu-ray is storage. Looking over my entire collection, most movies don't say how many layers they're using, but X3 proudly proclaims that it's a single-layer Blu-ray. So, as far as movies go, at least, it looks like storage is moot, and more extras could just be put on more discs. I think the biggest advantage is that some HD-DVDs (I wish it was all of them) have the HD version on one side and the regular DVD version on the other. Even for people like me that have an awesome set up in the living room might still want the regular version to watch on the regular DVD player and SDTV in the bedroom, or to rip to my iPod or something.

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