Another “haven’t bothered to update this site” post. Last comment on HD DVD was back when Paramount were going exclusive! Lol.
Anyway, state of play obviously is that HD DVD is no more, but my position now is how best to move to Blu-Ray and what of existing HD DVD players and titles.
Continue reading HD DVD, Blu-Ray and what now
I’m much neglecting this site, and also neglecting the very film I campaigned to see!
Anyway (as I’ve posted over in the HTF): having finally gotten around to watching the Donner cut (after I was begging for it so long!), though have to say I did hold out to get it in HD…
A huge massive big thank you to all involved in making this happen!
Wow.
Not sure how to feel about it really. I love it, but it’s certainly quite a different film. It’s going to take a little getting used to.
What stuns me is just how much footage there was, and how much had been reshot by “the other guy”. It’s quite weird in places as it’s a case of watching the film you know but something is just different, and of course it’s because the same scene but shot by someone else.
The test footage and bits of CGI don’t bother me at all. They work pretty well. Much of the new footage is fantastic. Some a little rough around the edges, where perhaps at the time would have been polished off had it made it into the theatrical release. Some perfect though. Everything with Brando is excellent.
A sense that things are missing of course because of knowing the other version so well, but nothing really major sticks out. The ending I’m not so sure, but then I never really bought it in Superman either. It looks great though regardless.
Anyway, once again, many thanks.
So, thought the format war was over?
Think again.
Blu-Ray is apparently “winning” the format war. Much of that is down to aggressive marketing and self promoting “news” articles that Sony peddles all over the net, and the rest down to the public who believe in Sony and in part think the name sounds cool (remember these are the geeks who know about HD. Joe Public hasn’t got a clue what “Blu-Ray” means).
The following article spells out what’s really wrong with Blu-Ray. The differences between the formats are hardly technical but mostly down to the politics and behaviour of the backers. Sony could win this war having lost just about all the other unnecessary format wars in the past (all of their making), and they would win through sheer desperation and forcefulness. The loser in this war wouldn’t be HD DVD however, it’s the consumer. If Sony et al had played ball early on and negotiated a deal we wouldn’t have had the war and we would have had the best of both worlds (and hopefully none of the worst anti-consumer points from Blu-Ray).
Edit: Sadly the above site appears to have gone. Wouldn’t be Sony’s lawyers at work by any chance? !
In other news. A “win” for HD DVD as far as I’m concerned is the announcement that Battlestar Galactica (2004) Season 1 is coming to HD DVD on December 4th just in time for Christmas. Exclusive because it’s a Universal title who currently only back HD DVD. One in the eye for those who believe the war is over and Universal are about to fall to Blu-Ray come Christmas when they come out with this cracking Christmas HD DVD promoting set (considering the very poor selection of releases on both sides at the moment).
Not content with killing off retailers because they are a threat to Sony’s market protection business model (Google: Lik-Sang and Sony), or putting rootkit viruses on CDs to infect consumer computers just to stop people copying their CDs, Sony are at it again with DVDs by producing a disc that won’t play in some players… including their own brand players!!!
More here: http://sonystrikesagain.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/hello-world/
Update: Lost the links to most of these and they were flash video as well which is now slowly dying (thankfully). If I can work out what they were and find them again, I’ll update them.
Trawling around for all things Kubrick on the now trendy video web (of YouTube and similar fame) here are a few things of interest I’ve dug up.
The first is another Lego classic. There are many Lego spoofs about and I was looking for one I saw a while a go but found this instead (sorry for any adverts that may occur)
Then I found the one I was looking for anyway…
and along the way I came across this clip of Kubrick accepting a DWG award during the making of Eyes Wide Shut before his death…
And finally this news article about an 80s audition video for Full Metal Jacket that’s been doing the rounds on the web and the subsequent tracking down of the guy who made it.