Category Archives: DVD & Blu-ray

DVD & Blu-ray, Impressions, Movies & TV, Tech

HD-DVD Impressions

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Serenity on HD-DVD

The first HD-DVD players on the market, Toshiba’s HD-A1 and HD-XA1, have been out for a couple of weeks in the US now, and although they’re not due for release here until the autumn I’ve just been to see the HD-A1 in action. A friend got one off eBay ($800 including shipping!) so I went to his house to check it out.

While I wouldn’t pay that much, I’ve been considering importing for a couple of weeks since the early players are apparently region free, but also because that old trick of swapping out the $ for £ when setting prices has reared its ugly head again according to HDTV UK. $499 is £285: £214 ($375) less than the UK RRP. Disgusting, even for Serenity and Batman Begins in HD.

But holy crap, HD-DVD looks amazing. Obviously it looks sharper and more detailed than DVD since this is 1080p video (I saw it in 1080i), but what impressed me equally was how fantastic the colours were. It just looks colourful and vivid with a real three-dimensional quality to the picture. No artifacting that I could see either, even during scenes that push DVD like the rainy scenes in The Last Samurai. The landscapes in that movie were absolutely beautiful on DVD, and it was just accentuated in HD.

The menu system is especially cool. After the ubiquitous copyright messages and a good HD-DVD promo (including HD footage of The Matrix, amongst others) Samurai goes straight into the movie – no main menu. Pressing the menu button displays the options for scene selection, languages, and extras along the bottom, and they can be fiddled with while the movie continues uninterrupted in the background. Serenity’s slide out from the left very much like the Xbox 360 guide. Very slick.

The main thing that’s keeping me from getting on board immediately is the hardware. Besides the fact that it has the most godawful remote on the planet which becomes indecipherable in anything less than direct sunlight, the HD-A1 takes around 30 seconds to go from standby to actually playing the movie which is something that will inevitably be improved with future hardware generations. The other thing is that it’s pretty much the same size as my LaserDisc player despite only playing standard 12cm optical discs. Annoying that the only obstacle to HD bliss is my lack of space, but I suppose I’m going to succumb to a moment of credit card-induced monetary inhibition before too long.

DVD & Blu-ray, General, Movies & TV

Progressive Scan PR

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HD-DVD, the first HD video disc format is now on sale in the US and I want one, even to the point of considering importing one. A friend of mine actually did that ($800 including shipping!) and should be getting his player any day now, so I’ll probably be posting some impressions of the format when I get the chance to steal a peek.

What I really want to talk about though, is this report. Not how orgasmic Kong would look in 1080p, but this section:

Universal’s next-gen HD bonus content will fully integrate online interactivity into the movie watching experience, “opening up new promotional opportunities” for studios by allowing HD-DVD users the option to learn more about on-screen items in a movie and even make purchases online.

One example of HD bonus content Kornblau illustrated was for the studio’s upcoming day-and-date release of ‘Fast and the Furious: Toyko Drift’ due later this year. Viewers could connect to the internet via the player, “trick out” a car seen in the film, then reinsert their creation back into the movie. Users could also click on the tire of a car seen in the film, then go online to purchase it and other related products.

They don’t miss an opportunity, do they? It’s pretty low how they force copyright messages and ads at the beginning of DVDs that you’ve paid for, but I sincerely hope this doesn’t mean that when a new car appears on screen you’re going to get a Sky Digital-style “Press the Red Button to Learn More” in the top corner. Or a New York promo in the opening scenes of King Kong.

Not that a new Fast and the Furious is going to have much integrity to speak of (at least it’s not named as absurdly as 2 Fast 2 Furious), but crap like inserting custom promotional content into a movie isn’t a good precedent to set. Just let us pay our money and get the movie we pay for, and if you want to put this stuff in there you’d better be dropping the price of the movies. Which I doubt they will…

DVD & Blu-ray, General, Movies & TV

MPAA: The MP Means “Missing the Point”

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BoingBoing are reporting on a new download service that will allow the legal downloading of Hollywood movies. The caveat is that not only can they only be played in Windows, but they cost twice the price of buying a DVD, and burnt copies can only be played on a PC. Somehow they justify calling them DVDs despite this.

I’m not a fan of digital distribution since I like having DVDs/games/CDs on my shelf which I can browse through but I see it as an inevitability, and I sincerely hope that they start to show the consumers some respect if they expect people to buy into this. iTunes has the right idea by making downloading a matter of clicking a button and bundling in fairly permissive DRM (if we must have DRM that’s the kind to have) while making the price reasonable, but nobody will pay double the price of the physical media for such a crippled copy.

The assertion that people will pay that for the convenience is just laughable as well. I hear people saying that they use iTunes to get new albums for the convenience, even though it’s usually cheaper than actually going to the shop and buying it. Double the price isn’t the cost of convenience – it’s extortionate. Not to mention that, like the comment on BoingBoing says, the files are going to be big (you need at least 700MB for a passable quality movie) and it’s never going to be more convenient to sit and download for a couple of hours than it is to go five minutes away and buy the shiny new DVD…for half the price.

DVD & Blu-ray, General, Movies & TV

DVD Rot

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DVD rot in action

This pisses me off…I just lost my second DVD to the little-known phenomenon that is DVD rot. Most people don’t even know it exists but my Terminator Special Edition succumbed a couple of years ago and I just tried to watch Silence of the Lambs only for it to start skipping less than half an hour in. It can’t be coincidence that they’re both MGM special editions released around the same time.

There are varying stories regarding what causes it but from what I can tell the consensus seems to be that it’s to do with the adhesive that holds the disc layers together failing/oxidising/being shit. That doesn’t seem to fit with my experience however, which is that the actual surface of the disc goes foggy as if someone someone had breathed on it (click the image for a bigger version to really see what I mean). It’s only when you notice that it doesn’t wipe off and that it feels slightly rough to touch that you realise that you’re going to be rebuying that movie. Just for the record they’re stored in the same place as the rest of my 350+ DVDs, all of which are perfectly fine.

I managed to blag a free replacement of The Terminator when that happened (bought a new one from HMV, swapped discs over, took the rotted ones back for a refund) but my version of Silence of the Lambs is OOP. Thankfully CD Wow still have it in stock for £6.99 so I’m hardly breaking the bank to replace it.

The moral of the story? Check your MGM DVDs and back those bastards up.

DVD & Blu-ray, Impressions, Tech

Logitech Harmony 525 Impressions

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Logitech Harmony 525

The need for a universal remote became apparent to me recently because when I’m juggling so many devices it’s a real pain to change all the inputs and switch everything on with five different remotes, but research taught me that they can be really expensive if you want one with the ability to do more than switch between the TV and VCR.

Well I just bought the Logitech Harmony 525, the cheapest of the Harmony series which can be had a little under £50. It lacks the colour screen (a real necessity on a remote control), favourite channel memory, rechargeable battery/dock, motion sensor, and extra buttons of the more expensive models but otherwise is functionally identical. Plus it has one of those snazzy blue backlights of which I’m such a fan.

The aesthetics and build quality are acceptable for the price, if a bit creaky sometimes, but what I really like about these remotes are how they’re set up and keep the functionality updated. The remote connects to a computer (Windows or OS X) via USB and setup is done through the Logitech site. It asks you to select the make and model of all the devices that you want it to control – if it has an IR port, chances are it’ll be compatible – and then makes programming macros (called “activities” here) almost automatic.

Without me doing anything it had set up hotkeys to watch TV, watch a DVD, listen to a CD, play the 360, play the PS2, and watch a Laserdisc, and any of these could be tweaked further. The programs are just downloaded straight to the remote and it’s ready to go. Almost. Mine had some problems changing to the correct inputs because the TV requires you to either go through a menu system or press a button to cycle through inputs, but will skip certain ones if nothing active is connected to them, meaning that the number of button presses to a certain input is rarely the same. A little digging around showed that the TV actually does have IR commands that skip straight to a certain input that aren’t present on the standard remote, so with a bit of testing I programmed those in and it works perfectly now. It was also set by default to send a stop command to the DVD player before switching it off which would stop it saving my place in the movie, so that needed solving too.

Something that gets the thumbs up from me is that it’s infinitely better laid out than the horribly convoluted remote that came with my DVD player, which still has me pressing the wrong buttons two months after I got it. It does a great job of acting exactly how you’d expect it to, switching inputs and button functions and turning devices on and off when they’re needed. It’s very intuitive, and can all be customised if you want to change the default functions. I’ve also heard great things about the free support line, but I (thankfully?) haven’t had the need to use them.

If you’re a perfectionist it can take a while to get them set up exactly how you want, but the setup process is one of the best I’ve seen for a remote, and it’s superb once it’s working right. Definitely recommended.

DVD & Blu-ray, General, Movies & TV

Deadwood

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I picked up the second season of Deadwood on DVD yesterday, and I have to say that I think this is one of the finest shows on TV at the moment. I don’t get to watch it until it comes out on DVD because it’s shown here on satellite, but I’m not bothered because I love DVD as a medium for TV shows.

Deadwood

I’m always up for a good western, preferring the more gritty ones like Unforgiven to the older, more quixotic ones, and Deadwood does nothing if not fall into that bracket. I’m not entirely convinced that conversation in the real Old West was quite as populated with “fucks” and “cocksuckers” as it is in Deadwood, but the setting is still remarkably authentic. The characters are similarly believable, all painted in varying shades of grey and subject to their own numerous vices. If you haven’t seen it and like westerns at all, definitely check it out.

The show is obviously a western but often seems to turn into something of a political series, as much of the storyline is based on the struggle for power and wealth in a soon-to-be-but-not-quite legitimate frontier town, complete with the necessary negotiations and murders that this entails, usually with an especially gruesome method of disposal. Even though HBO DVDs never seem to drop in price, the first season is still readily available and worth every penny.

Now I just want to see HBO’s Pacific War miniseries. It’s the spiritual follow up to Band of Brothers, which probably is the finest thing ever to be on TV.