HD DVD vs blu-ray by genre

[ScoBro828]

Originally Posted by damonous

I'm actually a big Carpenter fan and own most of his movies on DVD.

What was that mars zombie movie of his?

[Citizen Erased]

Originally Posted by ScoBro828

I hope Halloween II comes out as well.. and for that matter Season of the Witch too. If you remove the title Halloween and take it as a movie unto itself it was cheeky fun (and overlooked, I think)

Agreed on Season of the Witch, fun movie for what it's worth - not really a real Halloween sequel. I love the ending

[Citizen Erased]

Originally Posted by ScoBro828

What was that mars zombie movie of his?

Ghosts of Mars. Some good "Carpenter" moments, but it's very close to being a transported remake of his earlier Assault on Precinct 13.

[Citizen Erased]

Originally Posted by damonous

Considering that imports are not READILY available for most consumers (especially the vast majority of shoppers who actually still use B&M stores), and that they cost 2-3x that of regular titles --I don't think it's a fair comparison. Besides, it is only a handful of Blu-ray's that are actually region-coded; so trying to 'objectively' sort out what's actually playable in the States is kind of a long-winded exercise, no?

The point is with HD DVD there is never any need to 'research' the region locking status on a particular disc. This opens up importing greatly. I do conceed that for people who never look beyond the 'bricks and mortar' stores, it's a null issue. Personaly I buy 80% of my DVDs and HD DVDs at online stores like play.com and amazon.com/amazon.co.uk. To simply order from (let's say) Xplited.com isn't that big a deal. It's been a growing market for a long time.

As for price, Import prices are inline with best buy / circuit city instore prices for European titles (when importing into the US). If you do a like for like comparison with Amazon it's still only a 1.5x multiple most of the time. Japanese discs (a much smaller market) are more expensive, around 2/2.5x. This all due to the very weak US dollar.

But what many people are forgetting, the best deal on HD media is had by those in the UK and mainland Europe. They can freely import US HD DVD titles for less than the shop prices for SD DVD!

Originally Posted by damonous

The fact is, I don't think Toshiba has any intention long-term of maintaining open region. If you look at their spec, it was intended to allow even more strict region locking, and future spec modifications. Sure, we could debate all day on this. But, honestly, how many people are actually ACTIVELY importing (especially if they own both formats). Importing in HD right now (unlike with DVD) is just a rather ridiculous and expensive 'crutch' so that you can say: "See, I don't need that other format!".

I don't see it happening. Maybe for the Chinese variant only. I could be wrong but my support for HD DVD will severely diminish if they do this. Until then it's a big, big gating factor for me adopting blue ray, or going purple as they say.

Look at region coding on DVDs. It just an inconvenience, not a real barrier. For most dedicated players there are region unlock codes to be found with a simple google search. For this reason alone I would argue region has been a massive failure for DVD and I was not surprised the DVD Forum skipped it for HD.

[Warbie]

Originally Posted by HD Guru

That's a little more accurate.

Come on now. I'm format neutral but can't help point out that virtually every single Blu-ray comedy in that list is complete and utter shite. Seriously.

Hitch, RV, Wild Hogs, Night at the Museum, Are We Done Yet, Little Man?!!!??!! I watched Night at the Museum with a bunch of drunk mates and the only scene that got anything approaching a laugh was the monkey slapping scene - the rest was greeted with a kind of open mouthed, silent bewilderment.

Hell, I like Jay & Silent Bob and Ricky Bobby (and love Kung Fu Hustle, although I wouldn't class it as comedy), but how can anybody compare them to the likes of The Big Lewbowski, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz? If you want the format with the largest selection of rubbish comedy, then currently Blu-ray is the easy winner.

And while i'm here, shouldn't we be comparing lists of decent movies for each genre rather than trying to get the greatest tally? If anything, films like Broken Arrow, Bulletproof Monk and GI Jane should count as minus points!

[HD Guru]

Originally Posted by Warbie

Come on now. I'm format neutral but can't help point out that virtually every single Blu-ray comedy in that list is complete and utter shite. Seriously.

Hitch, RV, Wild Hogs, Night at the Museum, Are We Done Yet, Little Man?!!!??!! I watched Night at the Museum with a bunch of drunk mates and the only scene that got anything approaching a laugh was the monkey slapping scene - the rest was greeted with a kind of open mouthed, silent bewilderment.

Hell, I like Jay & Silent Bob and Ricky Bobby (and love Kung Fu Hustle, although I wouldn't class it as comedy), but how can anybody compare them to the likes of The Big Lewbowski, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz? If you want the format with the largest selection of rubbish comedy, then currently Blu-ray is the easy winner.

And while i'm here, shouldn't we be comparing lists of decent movies for each genre rather than trying to get the greatest tally? If anything, films like Broken Arrow, Bulletproof Monk and GI Jane should count as minus points!

Go read the first post and figure out how this all got started and then go bitch at the right person.

[bruceames]

Comedy
HD DVD
Clerks II
Knocked up
40-year old virgin
Hapy Gilmore
Fast Times are Ridgemont High
Dazed and Confused
Mall Rats
Big Lebowski
Liar Liar
National Lampoon's Animal House
The Jerk
Patch Adams
Nutty Professor 2
Nutty Professor
Smokey and the Bandit
Scary Movie 4
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Blades of Glory
Bruce Almighy
The Frighteners
Shaun of the Dead
Monty Python's the Meaning of Life
Meet the Parents

blu-ray (your list, not mine)
Hitch
RV
Wild Hogs
Night at the Museum
50 First Dates
Are We Done Yet?
Click
Benchwarmers
Employee of the Month
Happily N'Ever After
Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back
Kung Fu Hustle
Little Man
Ricky Bobby
Stranger Than Fiction
The Holiday
Van Wilder
Waiting...

Verdict: HD DVD wins easily.

[Liqwid]

Originally Posted by bruceames

More HD DVD exclusive horror movies

Slither
The Hitcher
Van Helsing
American Werewolf in London
The Host
Feast
Hulk
Fragile (import)
Silent Hill (import)
An American Haunting (import)

The Silent Hill import is actually dual format from Concorde, not exclusive.

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by bruceames

More HD DVD exclusive horror movies

Slither
The Hitcher
Van Helsing
American Werewolf in London
The Host
Feast
Hulk
Fragile (import)
Silent Hill (import)
An American Haunting (import)

I have The Host on Blu-Ray.

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by Rob71

I have The Host on Blu-Ray.

Both The Host and Silent Hill were already pointed out to me as being on Blu-ray in an earlier post

[Warbie]

Originally Posted by HD Guru

Go read the first post and figure out how this all got started and then go bitch at the right person.

I'm bitching in general to those who are listing obviously rubbish movies to make one format look better than the other.

[Atomic Age]

Originally Posted by HD Guru

So you've only read the review from this site whose not actually reviewing the PQ of the movie, but rather what he thinks should have been the correct color scheme?

The PQ on Halloween is excellent.
DVD Talk - 4/5 PQ "Highly Recommended"
Home Theater Forum - 4/5 PQ "This is the best I've ever seen Halloween"
Hi Def Preview - 4.25/5 PQ "Halloween has never looked so good."



Look around - you'll see that sometimes one site's reviewers personal attachment to the film may prevent them from writing an unbiased look at the disc.

HD Guru and I don't often agree, but I'm going to have to agree with him here. Halloween on blu-ray looks fantastic. By far the best I've ever seen this movie looking. Also it has the new 5.1 sound mix, and the original mono. All and all a very good presentation.

Doug

[Atomic Age]

Originally Posted by damonous

If you're basing this on the post I listed, I do not own or necessarily recommend all of those. As stated in the post, the listings were based upon combing through ALL titles. If you just do a count, the Blu titles far exceed the Red for DRAMA and ACTION. Now, if we're going to be "subjective" about things, then there would be crap from both sides coming off (but then we have as with the OP: an unbalanced subjective look at titles, instead of a relatively objective one).


Funny. The post was already excessively long, so I actually excised an explanation for that which I was originally intending to include. But, as they say: give the people what they want! ....

Considering that imports are not READILY available for most consumers (especially the vast majority of shoppers who actually still use B&M stores), and that they cost 2-3x that of regular titles --I don't think it's a fair comparison. Besides, it is only a handful of Blu-ray's that are actually region-coded; so trying to 'objectively' sort out what's actually playable in the States is kind of a long-winded exercise, no?

Besides, I'm actually a big Carpenter fan and own most of his movies on DVD. But, I have not opted for The Fog because ...well... I like shopping at B&M stores, and I dislike waiting days/weeks to receive my movie at exorbitant prices.

The fact is, I don't think Toshiba has any intention long-term of maintaining open region. If you look at their spec, it was intended to allow even more strict region locking, and future spec modifications. Sure, we could debate all day on this. But, honestly, how many people are actually ACTIVELY importing (especially if they own both formats). Importing in HD right now (unlike with DVD) is just a rather ridiculous and expensive 'crutch' so that you can say: "See, I don't need that other format!".

There is no region coding in the HD DVD spec. It was specifically left out because of problems with region coding in Europe.

Doug

[damonous]

Originally Posted by Atomic Age

There is no region coding in the HD DVD spec. It was specifically left out because of problems with region coding in Europe.

Doug

Actually, not entirely true:
http://www.dvdforum.org/images/Requi...n-July2005.pdf

Originally Posted by pg30

..."the HD DVD Video application layer will support and improve upon features offered in DVD such as regional coding,..." ... "...important requirements that may be out of scope of HD DVD Video Specifications 1.0, however are integral to developing a successful next generation packaged media format and should not be precluded by the HD DVD Video Specifications 1.0."

Also, some technical discussion on a site with an HD-DVD FAQ:
http://www.emedialive.com/articles/r...rticleid=11915

Yes, it's not entirely 'fresh' info... but my original point was that I only think HD-DVD is "region free" right now because they're behind the '8-Ball'. One has to wonder, if they were indeed 'top dog' (like they were with DVD), would they be as 'generous' with region free? I mean, they were the ones who came up with the concept of 'region coding' to begin with, right?

[bowl-o-rama]

Where's T2? one of the best action movies of all time