The world as frankps sees it!
Posts tagged Blu-ray
Trends of 2009
03 years ago
The year has more or less come to an end. It has been a very exciting year for me, as I have been working with projects like accessability, web standards and Internet trends. So let me dedicate one of this years’ last blog updates to the trends that I think we will see appearing next year.
And yes, you can comment on this blog now in 2008 and come back to it in 2010, and then criticize me for all the wrong predictions that I made.
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Firefly coming to Blu-ray
0Fox is planning to bring my favourite TV-series, Firefly, to Blu-ray. An online rumor mill started buzzing a couple of weeks ago, after ‘Firefly’ cast member Jewel Staite revealed to an Australian convention crowd that she’d recently been contacted by Fox in regards to contributing to a new box set release of the complete ‘Firefly’ series.
A Fox representative confirmed the rumor with “news travels fast”, and that the Blu-ray release currently was in early development stages. I bought Universal’s Firefly spin-off Serenity on as one of my first HD DVD disc, and I will sure by Firefly on Blu-ray, even though I already have it on DVD.
I cannot wait!
Paramount CTO Speaks Out On Switch to HD DVD
0In a new interview, Paramount’s chief technology officer offers up the most detailed explanation yet of the studio’s technical rationale for switching to HD DVD.With reports swirling that Paramount and sister studio DreamWorks received up to $150 million dollars in incentives to drop Blu-ray, Alan Bell, executive vice president and CTO for Paramount Pictures says there’s more to his company’s decision to dump Blu-ray than simply business dealings.
HD DVD vs. Blue-ray
1Untill now only Universal has been releasing their movies on HD DVD, all others have either been releasing their movies exclusively on Blue-ray (FOX and Disney) or on both formats. That led to Blue-ray outselling HD DVD. Many already thought the winner of the format war was Blue-ray. With right reason, Blu-ray title sales were outpacing HD-DVD sales by nearly a 2 to 1 margin. But out of the blue, Paramount and (sister studio) Dreamworks Animation announced (press release) that they will be releasing new movies exclusively on HD DVD, which is a major set back for Blu-ray.
I already have chosen my format, and for once it seems that I have done the right choice. I chose HD DVD, and can now look forward to also see Paramount and all of its subsidiaries (including DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films) publishing movies for this format, including ‘Shrek the Third’. Excluded are all movies directed by Steven Spielberg. The article is not mentioning Aardman, which have been working closely with Dreamworks Animation on productions like the Wallace & Gromit movie and Flushed Away. Will they also be releasing their movies (for instance Chicken Run) exclusively for HD DVD? The news is top-news on all the web sites that I daily read, for instance Betanews, Engadget, Golem and High-Def Digest.
There are technical reasons to choose HD DVD instead of Blue-ray, such as for instance picture-in-picture and network capabilities. Both the HD DVD and Blu-ray version of “300” include a “blue screen” extra that allows the viewer to see how the complex battle scenes were actually filmed. But only the HD DVD version lets you watch the blue screen version alongside the actual movie, and the comparison is what makes the extra actually interesting to watch. HD DVD’s networking (Blu-ray is network capable, but it’s not required) opens the door to quite a few possibilities. On 300, one of the first films with such capability, viewers can set bookmarks and upload their favorite scenes to a central location, where other 300 owners can watch them. Ringtone and wallpaper downloads are available as well, which get sent to a cell phone automatically. Well, I don’t care about favourite scenes uploads, ringtones and wallpapers, but about HD DVD owners eventually being able to download new subtitle languages, trailers, and other extended content for films. I mostly buy U.K. imports of my HD DVD movies, being able to later get Norwegian subtitles for my movies is not a sales gimmic. These downloads are kept on the player’s built-in storage, another requirement of HD DVD.