@gamecrazychris: But that is different. Dreamworks has to start up BR production again, whereas Warner never stopped making BR. Transformers should be on the shortlist for Dreamworks, though. It should be one of the first movies they transfer over, unless Dreamworks makes it take forever to come out on BR just to spite Michael Bay. Transformers 2 on HD-DVD: CONFIRMED

c-lin' Fanboy

I don't know about you guys but I'm waiting 'til June for the PS3/MGS4/Dualshock 3 controller/MGS online beta bundle for $499. That's one hellova deal.

daftrok

@Silent_Shark: Hell yes to Serenity and Transformers.

"I'm a leaf on the wind, watch me fly...."

frostoy

The first movie on my 'must migrate to Blu-Ray' list has done the switch.

Now, Serenity and Transformers please.

Silent_Shark

@iridius: ME TOO, ACTUALLY!

Jason Chen

I liked it better when the writer's names were in CAPS, like JASON CHEN. Change it back!

iridius

Just get a PS3, you got Profile 2.0 support, and it can stream from your computer. Oh and play games, if you like that.

Knight-Zero

I was just saying to my fellow Christians the other day that I was scared the studios would be afraid to eat crow after they bailed on HD DVD. Glad I won't have to be robbin' from Peter to pay Paul with that nice movie credit. Hope they keep belting out BR players with ever-increasing utility, too.

Think about it. It takes a minute.

scarbrtj

@newgalactic:
If you are treating $$$ as a premium don't bother getting a HD-TV. Unless you are happy with over the air content. HD cable will cost you from 50-100$ in most markets.

There is no advantage in upscaled dvd's on a HD TV avd dvd's on a SDTV.

Most download services deliver reasonable picture quality but no way to own them and lots of drm.

Honestly for high quality picture content ,even at $400, BD is the best for now.

Techguy1138

Sweet! This one is a must have. It also reserves a spot on the shelf as "Demo Material" (this motion was seconded by HiDefDigest.com)

frostoy

Now about Transformers......

gamecrazychris

I can't wait to pick this up, As long as its not $50. Hopefully Amazon will have it for $25.

chaismus

Nice, I will be picking this up to add to my collection.

dashyt2dafulliz

@AJ_Syrinx: Nice, me too (maybe longer). Honestly, when I get a HD tv, I'm going to be investigating possible ways to get a decent picture, while treating $$$ at a premium. And no, I don't feel that BD currently is the answer. Maybe upscaling DVD, maybe something else. I have no intention of bailing out Sony and friends quest for format dominance by buying an overpriced BD player at 2008 prices. Maybe, if they play nice, I'll see them in 2009.

newgalactic

Nice. Too bad it'll be over a year before I own a BD player.

AJ_Syrinx

@daftrok: if you wait for the bundle you don't get the beta, you get actual game. You pre-order the game to get the beta a month before the bundle comes out.

Knight-Zero

@Scaramanga: Except HD-DVD never paid for this to be exclusive. Warner waited to release this movie until 2.0 or at least 1.1 BR profile was ready. Warner said they were going to release these movies on BR long before they dropped HD-DVD.

c-lin' Fanboy

@frostoy: It's "watch how I soar" dammit!

Kaiser-Machead

Maybe this will get to be the default show-off movie for BD, much like The Matrix was ALWAYS the movie people showed their DVD players off with.

SMSDHubbard

glad to see it one of the movies the HD-DVD group paid WB to have exclusive to its format (such as Matrix trilogy) coming out on Blu-ray; sad to see its taken so long.

Scaramanga

Wait! Standard and Special Edition? Not this shit again.

hiroyukibatosai

@vertibraker: Indeed, Transformers did suck.

zeezrom82

Transformers Suck! Michael Bay shouldn't be allowed to direct.

vertibraker

Actually, if they can get LOTR on the shelves within 2008, that leaves plenty of time for consumer's wallets to recover enough for the inevitable special editions that will accompany the Hobbit theatrical release. After that, I would expect a stand alone release for the Hobbit and, a few months later, a "Complete Tolkien" box set.

CircusSeal

Upscaling regular DVD's is just a mind-trick to make you save your money. DVD doesn't compare at all to good quality HiDef discs. My advice is don't get an HDTV until you can afford a good one, with a couple good sources (HD satellite AND a hi-def disc player with some media).

Since I'm purple, and already have these titles, I'd prefer that instead of focusing on re-releasing HD-DVD discs on Blu-ray, they get going on releasing the mega-titles that haven't made it to HD yet due to the format war: like Lord of the Rings, for instance, or anything by Steven Spielberg not called "Close Encounters".

Unfortunately, I'm guessing that the trilogy won't be released till a month or so before "The Hobbit" hits theaters ... marketing tie in and all ... but damn, that's a long time.

FLskydiver

Watched 3:10 to Yuma DVD upscaled tonight. Looked beautiful. I won't be touching BR for a long time.

BostonPimpDaddy

But I do hope you're right. I don't want to wait till December, 2010.

FLskydiver

What could possibly be added to a special edition that hasn't been added already? Peter Jackson was pretty forthcoming with the two DVD versions that they included pretty much all that there was. I don't think, big a fan as I am, that I'd really care to see anything more than the movies themselves (extended versions of course) in glorious HD.

FLskydiver

@adaorardor: You obviously don't have a good upscaling DVD player. I have the Toshiba XA2 with the Silicon Optix Reon HQV chip and it friggin' rocks for SD DVD's. HD DVD combo disc are great for being able to really see the difference, just flip it over and you can easily compare SD vs. HD DVD (try THAT BluRay) and yes, HD is spectacular but a GOOD upconverted SD disc is still pretty damn good, much better than non-upscaled.

Yes we all know "you can't add elements that aren't there" "it is a processed picture, not natural" "HD has 6 times the resolution" Yada yada, we know. But to dismiss upscaling as a hoax is childish. A good upscaler can do impressive things and no, the PS3 is not a good upscaling machine to judge by, mine pales in comparison to the XA2 - there is a difference.

ItsDon

Vistorq seconding motion why does everyone not just buy a PS3 , its microsoft that killed HD DVD. If bill put HD DVD in every Xbox 360? then because it was released before the PS3 then they will have a strong user base and topple the mighty blu, but no they made a crappy add on. the majority of people are waiting, those we call xbox 360 owners, people who have not relised the PS3 is the best thing since sliced bread and the people who are skint, its a bit like the dvd player in the ps2 that was my first dvd player it was useless but it got me buying dvds. And DVD toppled the vhs thank you Sony for helping the whole of technology.

Oh by the way is it a gizmodo policy to hire people with cool sounding names

visitorq

@BostonPimpDaddy:
having seen portions of "3:10 to yuma" upscaled from a regular dvd, and then watching the br version in my home, i feel pretty confident in saying that you're missing out on quite a bit. dvd upscaling is largely a hoax it seems, all it does is basically blow the picture up and apply a photoshop-like 'smart blur' filter to the image, leaving you with a picture that looks ok but still looks worse than it would on an sd tv (as others have pointed out). blu-ray is easily the highest quality solution we have right now, and for what it's worth, the cheapest now that hd-dvd is kaput (especially if you rent from someplace like netflix), though prices of both media and players need to drop by about 1/3 of their price at least.

adaorardor

@fastmike: Exactly. Read my last post.

BostonPimpDaddy

We are NOT saying upscaled is comparable to HD, it's NOT. The point is it's GOOD ENOUGH for me(for now) and for most consumers.

Everyone is yelling about how BR is full 1080p while digital download is not as good. I tell you, to most consumers they won't notice that difference because most consumers are not buying 52+ inch HD TVs. Digital download is getting easier and most consumers want it. Look at the popularity of OnDemand, DVR/TiVo and Netflix.

I don't think BR is going to be adopted as fast as most people think, unless the price goes much further down.

The "just buy a PS3" argument is moot because #1 it's sold as a gaming machine, not video player, #2 it's still expensive to most people #3 There's still a large group of people who do not like Sony.

BostonPimpDaddy

I download films and watch em on an upscale DVD player....and while the quality MAYBE isnt as good as BR ..it sure beats forking out a load of money

fastmike

@ItsDon:
to really compare upscaled to HD, watch them side by side. I'm pretty sure you'll agree that upscaled won't look as good as you thought it did.

myasir

@ItsDon: which does nothing to refute the fact that upscaling simply blows the image up and applies a 'smart blur' filter. from demo units to my parents oppo upscaling player (don't know which model fwiw), it smooths out some jagged lines and calms down some compression artifacts, which is fine, and it is better than the image when it's not upscaled... that said, the same image still looks better on a 26 inch sd tv than on any larger hd screen upscaled, to my eyes at least. so people who say 'upscaled sd is good enough for me', great, i'm glad for you. just don't pretend that it comes anywhere near blu-ray (which i realize you're not, but people often do), or that it's even any better than watching the same content on an sdtv.

as for digital downloads, sure, they're probably going to gain in popularity and at some point replace discs. however, right now the quality is pretty awful (again, not substantially better than sd, at least according to the comparisons on this very site), the cost of storage for the purchased media is completely insane, and the cost of a digital rental is pretty pricy as well; i figure it would cost me about twice as much as netflix, if you figure i watch about 8-10 movies a month.

adaorardor

@myasir:

HD or BluRay = Great Picture
GOOD Upscaled Picture (XA2) = Very good picture
Average Upscaled picture (PS3) = Good picture
Non-upscaled picture (Wal-Mart player) = average picture

For the bulk of America (not enthusiasts like you and I) an average or good picture is perfectly acceptable. They wouldn't even recognize or know what to do with a true HD picture.

ItsDon

@adaorardor: I do not understand why you assume because software interpolation is used that the picture will look better on a SDTV than HDTV? I have a copy of Batman Begins on DVD and HD-DVD, and I'll tell you that the DVD looks MUCH better on the HDTV (upconverted using HD-A2) than on the non-upconverting player on my 32" SDTV Panasonic. The upconverted image is a bit sharper in the dark areas, most of the moire effects from the darkness are gone (visible in the cargo container scene mainly), as the picture is sharper (you can make out fine details, notable scene, Spray painting the batsuit). Yes, the HD-DVD looks better, but not much better, I'd say the upscaled DVD is 1/3 of the way from DVD to HD-DVD (HD-DVD equals Blu Ray in picture quality).

It sounds as if your definitions of quality are based on theory rather than fact. I've done a few comparisons, and with two players hooked up to the HDTV (one converting, one not), I have yet to find a DVD that does not look better upscaled. With most of my library on DVD (a more convenient format than Blu Ray currently), I do not feel the need to switch of buy a new library, which is why I invested $500 in a good upscaling DVD player. Oppo makes hi-end ones too, I'm surprised the tests with your parents' unti didn't fair better.

Lizard_King

@Techguy1138: Thats just not true.

bigMoneyMIKE

I have found that the picture quality can also depend on the quality of the compression in determining whether a standard DVD looks better on an HDTV when it is played on an upscaler or on an SDTV with no upscaler. Take the movie "The Astronaut Farmer." It's a standard DVD that we played through my PS3 connected to our 50" Panny. It looked awful. Turned off the PS3's upscaler, still looked awful. Popped it into my standard DVD player (no upscaler) on my SDTV and it looked fine. Go figure.
Other DVDs look great using the PS3 upscaler.

Sora57

I'm kind of nervous to watch this movie again. I get the feeling that it wont be as good as It was when I saw it. Please tell me that the movie holds up after the honeymoon period is over.

ibelli

@Lizard_King: well, as sora57 noted your mileage may vary. anecdotally, i also have a fairly large dvd collection, and i've had an hdtv in the house for a little over a year now (first a samsung dlp, after that died a sony lcd). of the dvd's that i've rewatched in the past year they all looked better on my old sdtv, to my memory at least. sd content upscaled (through the ps3 in my case) on an hdtv generally looks fairly lackluster. there are some sd dvds that i've watched recently that i thought generally looked pretty good upscaled, like hbo's big love season 1, but it still didn't look as good as hbo's hd feed of the show.

also, fwiw, im pretty visually sensitive, which leads me to be pretty snobbish about what i feed my eyes.

adaorardor

maybe google will release a set top box OS that takes advantage of those open access rules and blast out movies over the air for your download pleasure.

swipe your credit card/points card for movie purchases.

this concept is copyright by me, pay me now.

I still don't get the concept of having to own something in a physical object, but I wonder if studios will stop releasing movies in DVD format.

skulldriveshaft