I have only noticed a HDTV rip of Die Another Day. It can't be long though. There must be a bit of money in a hd collection. Just depends how good they can get the earlier films to look. Will probably take them a while to do.
Sweepy the CatHalifax, West Yorkshire, EnglaPosts: 986MI6 Agent
I have only noticed a HDTV rip of Die Another Day. It can't be long though. There must be a bit of money in a hd collection. Just depends how good they can get the earlier films to look. Will probably take them a while to do.
Actually, I'm pretty sure the last Ultimate Bond set was mastered at HD resolutions and downscaled for the standard DVD releases. I'd expect that those same masters will be used for the inevitable BluRay releases.
As to when they'll be released, my guess would be in conjunction with the home video release for Bond 22, probably some time in mid-2009. By then, there hopefully will be enough support for the format to warrant a large release.
It really depends on the type and quality of the TV you're using and the the film's transfer. For some films, like the recently released 2001: A Space Odyssey, the difference in clarity and color depth is startling.
I would say the difference is amazing in most and unbelievable in some. on my tv anyway. If you watch a couple of HD films then go watch a SD film, you really miss it.
That's is good news to hear that most of the work has been done. I'd love to see some of the other films in HD. I can see them being quite pricey though as a set.
I would say the difference is amazing in most and unbelievable in some. on my tv anyway. If you watch a couple of HD films then go watch a SD film, you really miss it.
I find certain types of films just lend themselves more to HD. Movies with a strong color palette or more daring production design - comics adaptations like Ghost Rider and Fantastic Four for example - really shine in the format. On the other hand, I don't see how something like a Woody Allen movie - which is more about the writing and acting rather than the look of the film - would merit the HD treatment.
That's is good news to hear that most of the work has been done. I'd love to see some of the other films in HD. I can see them being quite pricey though as a set.
Generally speaking, the more films are bundled together into a set, the lower the cost per movie usually is. If I were to wager a guess, I think they'll release 4 sets of 5-6 movies each with an MSRP of around $100 US per set. That would come out to around $20 a movie which is what the recent Spiderman hi-def trilogy worked out to be.
Sweepy the CatHalifax, West Yorkshire, EnglaPosts: 986MI6 Agent
The problem is my TV is a big square box about 15 years old! I should get the latest Dolby Digital 5.1 with a LCD screen and HD quality, 50 inches and built in the wall with surround sound, a PS3 and sky digital for only just £5000, I think not. (I am so jealous)
To be honest I don't notice much of a difference between a Blu Ray or HDDVD and a movie on a standard DVD when using a very nice upconverting DVD player. A good upconverting player can make DVDs look great on a widescreen HDTV and considering that technology will only continue to improve and upconverters become even better I think this is the most cost effective thing to do at the moment. After all, by the time this Blu Ray vs. HDDVD thing gets resolved there will probably be another even better format or we may soon just start getting HD downloads from the internet straight to a harddrive.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 26,744Chief of Staff
To be honest I don't notice much of a difference between a Blu Ray or HDDVD and a movie on a standard DVD when using a very nice upconverting DVD player.
Your not too far off the mark !
I have both Blu~ray and HD~DVD and both deliver super pictures. Blu~ray can deliver pictures at 1080p and HD~DVD up to 1080i, while the latest up~scaling DVD's proport to up~scale to 1080p (certainly 1080i). The up~scaling DVD player I have can up~scale to 720p and the Bond Ultimate Edition DVD's look so clear I'd be surprised if they could improve (too much) on the current batch.
Ooh I haven't seen an up-scaling DVD player doing its thing- I'd be interested to see that.
I watched a bit of Casino Royale on a friend's setup and the difference was startling; it's like watching a poster moving- the resolution is more akin to print than screen. The titles look like they're being viewed on a computer in their vector form- stunning. Plus you can actually see the Universal Exports logo on the folder in Dryden's desk!
Of course the tradeoff is the bad bits of the film which become obvious- such as Daniel Craig's unmoving head being crudely stuck on the stuntman doing the first crane jump!
I have both Blu Ray and HD, both are excellent. If you have a high end HD TV the difference between a regular DVD and Blu-HD is enormous. Of couse the source material must be decent, garbage in garbage out and sadly some Blu-Ray/HD movies are not that great. For example the Transporter really does not look any better than the regular DVD.:s
I have both Blu~ray and HD~DVD and both deliver super pictures. Blu~ray can deliver pictures at 1080p and HD~DVD up to 1080i, while the latest up~scaling DVD's proport to up~scale to 1080p (certainly 1080i). The up~scaling DVD player I have can up~scale to 720p and the Bond Ultimate Edition DVD's look so clear I'd be surprised if they could improve (too much) on the current batch.
But they'll tell us they can )
Actually Sir Miles, HD-DVD can also go up to 1080p, provided your player supports that resolution. Toshiba's high end models and the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on both do 1080p and the picture does look positively amazing on many movies (Transformers comes to mind).
As to the whole HD-DVD/BluRay vs. Upscaled DVDs, I own a couple of upscaling DVD players and they definitely do make the picture visibly better for a lot of movies; but there's only so much you can do with the image encoded on the DVD. Standard def DVD's have a resolution of 720x480; and while upscalers can blow the image up to 1080p and apply all kinds of filters to tweak the image, in the end you can you can only improve the image so much. It's akin to taking a 720x480 photo and enlarging it thru Photoshop; you'll get some nice results but it probably will never look as good as a picture taken at that higher resolution to begin with because the extra detail just wasn't there to begin with.
The HD formats are 1920x1080. When the HD masters are done right and authored at a good bitrate, there's just no comparison. The image is visibly sharper and the colors much more vibrant. I just picked up the BluRay version of Blade Runner and when comparing it to the standard def edition (which I also have) thru the same player (a PS3 running at 1080p over HDMI) you really start to notice just how much more information is stored on the disc and subsequently displayed on the screen.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 26,744Chief of Staff
Actually Sir Miles, HD-DVD can also go up to 1080p, provided your player supports that resolution. Toshiba's high end models and the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on both do 1080p and the picture does look positively amazing on many movies (Transformers comes to mind).
I thought that was the case, but as I wasn't 100% certain, I thought it better to defer to a resolution I had proof of - ie. my HD~DVD player only goes up to 1080i, but that's all the TV it's hooked up to will run at anyway. My Blu~ray is hooked up to a 1080p TV.
You also need to 'tweak' the TV's own settings as well - and therein can lie a world of hurt Never leave the TV settings to the 'default' settings - the contrast, colour and brightness are always ramped up incase it's used in the shop.
Warner Bros. announced today that they are releasing thier HD movies in Blu Ray format. Many articles I saw stated that this makes Blu Ray the clear leader in the format wars as the majority of the studios have sided with the Blu Ray format. Sony (a company I can't stand) appears to be the winner. However, I still believe most folks will eeventually just download their HD movies and players will be obsolete.
Warner Bros. announced today that they are releasing thier HD movies in Blu Ray format. Many articles I saw stated that this makes Blu Ray the clear leader in the format wars as the majority of the studios have sided with the Blu Ray format. Sony (a company I can't stand) appears to be the winner. However, I still believe most folks will eeventually just download their HD movies and players will be obsolete.
Paramount and Universal are the only studios still sticking exclusively with HD-DVD. They've both steadfastly rejected BluRay for a variety of reasons; it'll be interesting to see if they rethink their strategy in light of WB's decision.
Both formats are technically superior to standard DVD; so no matter which one eventually wins out, the viewer will still get a superior viewing experience. But as long as they continue to compete and cannibalize one another, nobody wins.
Personally, I'm not much of a fan of downloading movies for a number of reasons. I'm one of those people who likes to collect DVD's and actually have a tangible disc in hand, rather than an amorphous license to view something for a limited time. Also, given the current bandwidth limitations, downloaded movies will not look or sound as good as hi-def DVDs for some time to come (services like Xbox Live encode movies at 720p, not 1080p). And of course, getting at any extras will be a chore. As such, I think there will always be a market for physical media. Music downloads still haven't killed CDs and I don't expect the DVD or its eventual successor to become extinct any time soon either.
Technically not a BluRay post, but still of interest to Bond fans: it was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show that Microsoft has inked a deal with MGM to begin showing their movies in HD over the Xbox Live network service. According to the MI6 article below, the James Bond films will be part of this deal.
The Xbox Live service lets you download movies and and TV shows to an Xbox 360's hard drive; you then have a limited license to watch the movie as often as you like over the next 72 hours. The pricing usually works out to something like $3-4 per rental.
This will be interesting since it will give us a rough idea of what the picture quality of the eventual hi-def DVD release of the movies will look like since they will both probably come off the same master.
I mean, everyone knows, that SC wore a wig, but the YOLT sleeve looks more like Roger Moore than SC.
And LALD reveals very much the female sides of RMs personality...
If Roger Moore would have been looking even far away close, I am sure, that he would never have gotten the role of 007...
President of the 'Misty Eyes Club'.
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 26,744Chief of Staff
A good idea, just badly executed - like the person who came up with the pictures should be
Wow, those are really bad. I repeat the question I asked when I saw the cover art for the previous Ultimate Edition set, who said "hey those covers look great, we'll go with them."
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,993Quartermasters
The worst covers yet, IMO X-( I wish they'd just use the classic (original) poster art!
I don't have a Blu-Ray player yet, but even when I do...I won't be getting the Bonds in that format. With the Ultimates, I've bought my last copies of Bond 1-20 for quite a while...
Of course, they're gonna get my cash for the 3-Disc CR
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
My brother and I will be picking those up as soon as they become available so I'll put up some impressions about how they compare to the UE's once they come out.
In fact, the brother has already unloaded the standard-def Ultimate Editions and is even talking about getting himself a new plasma TV and BluRay player so he can view them properly.
Nothing is too good for Bond. :007)
Sweepy the CatHalifax, West Yorkshire, EnglaPosts: 986MI6 Agent
Poor Rog got some bad cutting and pasting, a 6-year-old could've done better than that. I know he may have outstayed his welcome but jeez.
If the DVD covers really bother you that much, you can always print your own. There are lots of sites on the net with custom DVD covers. One I recently came across is DVD Covers Fuzion though there are many others. As long as you have a pretty good printer and some appropriate paper (which you can get at office supply stores like Stapes) you can get some really impressive results.
To be honest I don't notice much of a difference between a Blu Ray or HDDVD and a movie on a standard DVD when using a very nice upconverting DVD player. A good upconverting player can make DVDs look great on a widescreen HDTV and considering that technology will only continue to improve and upconverters become even better I think this is the most cost effective thing to do at the moment. After all, by the time this Blu Ray vs. HDDVD thing gets resolved there will probably be another even better format or we may soon just start getting HD downloads from the internet straight to a harddrive.
I did a back to back comparison of CR Blu-Ray vs standard disc) with my local Bang & Olufsen store. We could not discern any appreciable difference at all. That said the B&O standard DVD is of exceptional quality so I guess it depends on equipment. I certainly wouldn't expect older Bond movies to benefit much, In fact in terms of sound I though that the 5.1 surround on the latest Bond 'Best of Ultimate, we will never try to prise money out you again, honest we won't' releases was really very poor, over egged and soggy.I reverted to standard stereo and was much happier.
To be honest I don't notice much of a difference between a Blu Ray or HDDVD and a movie on a standard DVD when using a very nice upconverting DVD player. A good upconverting player can make DVDs look great on a widescreen HDTV and considering that technology will only continue to improve and upconverters become even better I think this is the most cost effective thing to do at the moment. After all, by the time this Blu Ray vs. HDDVD thing gets resolved there will probably be another even better format or we may soon just start getting HD downloads from the internet straight to a harddrive.
I did a back to back comparison of CR Blu-Ray vs standard disc) with my local Bang & Olufsen store. We could not discern any appreciable difference at all. That said the B&O standard DVD is of exceptional quality so I guess it depends on equipment. I certainly wouldn't expect older Bond movies to benefit much, In fact in terms of sound I though that the 5.1 surround on the latest Bond 'Best of Ultimate, we will never try to prise money out you again, honest we won't' releases was really very poor, over egged and soggy.I reverted to standard stereo and was much happier.
Upconverters are very nice, but if the film is mastered properly, and the equipment it is being viewed on is properly calibrated, the difference can be quite startling. Sometimes a store isn't the best place to do that type of comparison as the TVs are often set to "torch mode" a very bright setting to make them stand out to potential customers.
I did a comparison of CR for my brother after we bought the BluRay and on my rig (a 52" Sony XBR2 LCD and PS3, which is a great upconverter itself, for playback) and when viewed back to back the difference was quite noticable to us. Everything was crisper, more focused and the color palette was much richer. During the scene at the end where Mr. White is at the villa, you can easily read his license plate on the BluRay version whereas it is fuzzier in the standard def edition.
I've done back-to-back comparisons of other movies that I've upgraded like BladeRunner and 2001: A Space Odyssey and notice the same thing.
As for BluRay's benefit on older films, it really depends on the original material. Film is itself a high-def medium and if a movie was shot on good film stock and properly preserved and mastered and the picture itself lends itself to a high definition presentation, you can get some pretty intense results. I remember being blown away at Thunderball's jump in quality in going from the old DVD to the UE edition; I have a feeling that the jump to BluRay will likewise be pretty dramatic and noticable.
Paperbill
FloridaPosts: 810MI6 Agent
Comments
Actually, I'm pretty sure the last Ultimate Bond set was mastered at HD resolutions and downscaled for the standard DVD releases. I'd expect that those same masters will be used for the inevitable BluRay releases.
As to when they'll be released, my guess would be in conjunction with the home video release for Bond 22, probably some time in mid-2009. By then, there hopefully will be enough support for the format to warrant a large release.
It really depends on the type and quality of the TV you're using and the the film's transfer. For some films, like the recently released 2001: A Space Odyssey, the difference in clarity and color depth is startling.
That's is good news to hear that most of the work has been done. I'd love to see some of the other films in HD. I can see them being quite pricey though as a set.
I find certain types of films just lend themselves more to HD. Movies with a strong color palette or more daring production design - comics adaptations like Ghost Rider and Fantastic Four for example - really shine in the format. On the other hand, I don't see how something like a Woody Allen movie - which is more about the writing and acting rather than the look of the film - would merit the HD treatment.
Generally speaking, the more films are bundled together into a set, the lower the cost per movie usually is. If I were to wager a guess, I think they'll release 4 sets of 5-6 movies each with an MSRP of around $100 US per set. That would come out to around $20 a movie which is what the recent Spiderman hi-def trilogy worked out to be.
Your not too far off the mark !
I have both Blu~ray and HD~DVD and both deliver super pictures. Blu~ray can deliver pictures at 1080p and HD~DVD up to 1080i, while the latest up~scaling DVD's proport to up~scale to 1080p (certainly 1080i). The up~scaling DVD player I have can up~scale to 720p and the Bond Ultimate Edition DVD's look so clear I'd be surprised if they could improve (too much) on the current batch.
But they'll tell us they can
I watched a bit of Casino Royale on a friend's setup and the difference was startling; it's like watching a poster moving- the resolution is more akin to print than screen. The titles look like they're being viewed on a computer in their vector form- stunning. Plus you can actually see the Universal Exports logo on the folder in Dryden's desk!
Of course the tradeoff is the bad bits of the film which become obvious- such as Daniel Craig's unmoving head being crudely stuck on the stuntman doing the first crane jump!
Actually Sir Miles, HD-DVD can also go up to 1080p, provided your player supports that resolution. Toshiba's high end models and the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on both do 1080p and the picture does look positively amazing on many movies (Transformers comes to mind).
As to the whole HD-DVD/BluRay vs. Upscaled DVDs, I own a couple of upscaling DVD players and they definitely do make the picture visibly better for a lot of movies; but there's only so much you can do with the image encoded on the DVD. Standard def DVD's have a resolution of 720x480; and while upscalers can blow the image up to 1080p and apply all kinds of filters to tweak the image, in the end you can you can only improve the image so much. It's akin to taking a 720x480 photo and enlarging it thru Photoshop; you'll get some nice results but it probably will never look as good as a picture taken at that higher resolution to begin with because the extra detail just wasn't there to begin with.
The HD formats are 1920x1080. When the HD masters are done right and authored at a good bitrate, there's just no comparison. The image is visibly sharper and the colors much more vibrant. I just picked up the BluRay version of Blade Runner and when comparing it to the standard def edition (which I also have) thru the same player (a PS3 running at 1080p over HDMI) you really start to notice just how much more information is stored on the disc and subsequently displayed on the screen.
I thought that was the case, but as I wasn't 100% certain, I thought it better to defer to a resolution I had proof of - ie. my HD~DVD player only goes up to 1080i, but that's all the TV it's hooked up to will run at anyway. My Blu~ray is hooked up to a 1080p TV.
You also need to 'tweak' the TV's own settings as well - and therein can lie a world of hurt
Paramount and Universal are the only studios still sticking exclusively with HD-DVD. They've both steadfastly rejected BluRay for a variety of reasons; it'll be interesting to see if they rethink their strategy in light of WB's decision.
Both formats are technically superior to standard DVD; so no matter which one eventually wins out, the viewer will still get a superior viewing experience. But as long as they continue to compete and cannibalize one another, nobody wins.
Personally, I'm not much of a fan of downloading movies for a number of reasons. I'm one of those people who likes to collect DVD's and actually have a tangible disc in hand, rather than an amorphous license to view something for a limited time. Also, given the current bandwidth limitations, downloaded movies will not look or sound as good as hi-def DVDs for some time to come (services like Xbox Live encode movies at 720p, not 1080p). And of course, getting at any extras will be a chore. As such, I think there will always be a market for physical media. Music downloads still haven't killed CDs and I don't expect the DVD or its eventual successor to become extinct any time soon either.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2008/tc2008014_928006.htm?campaign_id=yhoo
http://www.mi6.co.uk/news/index.php?itemid=5748&catid=7
The Xbox Live service lets you download movies and and TV shows to an Xbox 360's hard drive; you then have a limited license to watch the movie as often as you like over the next 72 hours. The pricing usually works out to something like $3-4 per rental.
This will be interesting since it will give us a rough idea of what the picture quality of the eventual hi-def DVD release of the movies will look like since they will both probably come off the same master.
http://www.mi6.co.uk/sections/dvd/index_ue_2008.php3?s=dvd&id=01998
I mean, the actors look like they're in a hall of mirrors! 8-)
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I mean, everyone knows, that SC wore a wig, but the YOLT sleeve looks more like Roger Moore than SC.
And LALD reveals very much the female sides of RMs personality...
If Roger Moore would have been looking even far away close, I am sure, that he would never have gotten the role of 007...
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
And just who is that on the cover of TLD ?:) X-(
I don't have a Blu-Ray player yet, but even when I do...I won't be getting the Bonds in that format. With the Ultimates, I've bought my last copies of Bond 1-20 for quite a while...
Of course, they're gonna get my cash for the 3-Disc CR
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
My brother and I will be picking those up as soon as they become available so I'll put up some impressions about how they compare to the UE's once they come out.
In fact, the brother has already unloaded the standard-def Ultimate Editions and is even talking about getting himself a new plasma TV and BluRay player so he can view them properly.
Nothing is too good for Bond. :007)
If the covers could be bought seperately from the DVDs I'd buy them to slip over my existing boxes.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I did a back to back comparison of CR Blu-Ray vs standard disc) with my local Bang & Olufsen store. We could not discern any appreciable difference at all. That said the B&O standard DVD is of exceptional quality so I guess it depends on equipment. I certainly wouldn't expect older Bond movies to benefit much, In fact in terms of sound I though that the 5.1 surround on the latest Bond 'Best of Ultimate, we will never try to prise money out you again, honest we won't' releases was really very poor, over egged and soggy.I reverted to standard stereo and was much happier.
Upconverters are very nice, but if the film is mastered properly, and the equipment it is being viewed on is properly calibrated, the difference can be quite startling. Sometimes a store isn't the best place to do that type of comparison as the TVs are often set to "torch mode" a very bright setting to make them stand out to potential customers.
I did a comparison of CR for my brother after we bought the BluRay and on my rig (a 52" Sony XBR2 LCD and PS3, which is a great upconverter itself, for playback) and when viewed back to back the difference was quite noticable to us. Everything was crisper, more focused and the color palette was much richer. During the scene at the end where Mr. White is at the villa, you can easily read his license plate on the BluRay version whereas it is fuzzier in the standard def edition.
I've done back-to-back comparisons of other movies that I've upgraded like BladeRunner and 2001: A Space Odyssey and notice the same thing.
As for BluRay's benefit on older films, it really depends on the original material. Film is itself a high-def medium and if a movie was shot on good film stock and properly preserved and mastered and the picture itself lends itself to a high definition presentation, you can get some pretty intense results. I remember being blown away at Thunderball's jump in quality in going from the old DVD to the UE edition; I have a feeling that the jump to BluRay will likewise be pretty dramatic and noticable.
http://s2.cdcovers.cc/21ee14475dc887a616e81f540644000b/291dba5603b6505ad4018a43c69a8fe3/48c6f43b/James_Bond_Collection_Special_Edition_1-%5Bcdcovers_cc%5D-front.jpg