Entertainment For Lively Minds
New Release of 'Grindhouse': Is this the Beginning of the End for DVD?
Posted by kidpresentable on 6 January 2011 - 11:20pm.
The Rodriquez/Tarantino 'Grindhouse' double-feature is finally getting a UK release in it's original intended form. There were limited cinema runs, but mostly this was split into separate, extended versions of the two films within, and only these separate versions are currently available to purchase.
However, I note with both interest and disappointment that this is only being released in Blu-Ray, with no DVD release planned. It's the first example I'm aware of where this is the case. Is this the beginning of the end of DVD?
If so, I'm not ready!
Are you?
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we shall overcome
Blu-Ray never took off likr they hoped it would. Now those who invested so heavily into its development are trying to bully us into blu-ray by taking measures like this (and it's not the only case)but it won't work. this format is taking waaaaay too long to gain traction.
Blu-Ray
Blu-Ray penetration is running at 20%. HDTV is over 60%, so there's plenty of people who seem to want a higher definition image. Given that a decent Blu-Ray player will upscacle your DVDs, and that prices are now down to affordable levels, it's logical to assume that most people buying a new machine will go for Blu-Ray. I think there's plenty of growth left.
Seeing is believing
I'm amazed by the number of people who still haven't seen even an in-store demo of HD or Blu-Ray. Based on data from the admittedly limited universe of people coming round to my house, I've found that as soon as they see for themselves just how much better a standard DVD looks when played on a decent upscaling Blu-Ray player, they go "Bloody hell". Then, when they realise how little a decent upscaling Blu-Ray player can now be had for, they go "Bloody hell" again and promptly go out and buy one.
My admittedly limited experience of HDTV
is that sport looks great. Everything else doesn't.
Some things look better than others
Footage shot on standard video, for instance, won't benefit. But anything shot on film will.
It's almost a cliche
nowadays, but wildlife footage looks great on HD.
The problem with Blu-Ray..
..is that when you first see it, it's not as impressive as the first time you saw a DVD.
Can vividly remember first DVD I saw. It was Blade and the opening nightclub scene was an amazing improvement on anything seen on dusty old VHS tapes. You just had to buy a DVD player.
Think first Blu-Ray I saw was Star Trek (new movie) and thought: well, it's a bit better but it's not that much better. I can actually live without this until ye olde DVD player packs in.
Therein lies the problem. Most people won't upgrade to Blu Ray until their DVD player breaks down. And by then we could all be watching movies in that cloud thingy the tech heads are getting so excited about.
That's me...
I don't see the point of replacing my CRT until it's beyond repair.
There's no point in me getting a blu-ray player before that happens.
Given the TV is 25 years old and still going strong, I have no idea what will be current technology when it finally needs replacing.
Bugger!
I bought the Japanese 6-DVD set of Grindhouse over a year ago. It was hard to track a copy down and a second mortgage was required. Now I'm expected to buy the Blu-Ray as well? Grrr. But at least the DVD set contains all 3 versions of the films.
Meanwhile, those of you who don't have Blu-Ray players - just get one. The Philips machine that I use (under £200) upscales my old DVDs to the point where replacing them is not altogether worth it.
Maybe I won't get Grindhouse on Blu-Ray after all. But it is one hell of a movie...
blu-ray
was bit of a last hurrah for physical formats surely, won't we be downloading/streaming high quality films soon. Filling up the shelves of charity shops in a year or two with guff like "grindcore" triple discs box sets seems a bit of waste really.
Surely
If they were going to take Grindhouse to its logical conclusion, it should have only ever been released on third generation dub VHS with dodgy tracking and a photocopied cover
Blu ray players
can be bought for as little as £50 now. Disc prices arn't far off DVD prices (well as long as you buy online.) Buy a Playstation 3 and you get a blu ray player/media streaming/movie downloading\iplayer/itvplayer/4od/Loverfilm/internet on your telly device. (That also plays games)
So there's no reason not to go all 1080 by now.
"No reason not to..."
Is my utter indifference to just how shiny my telly pictures could be reason enough?
Or is "I'd have to buy a new telly and a PS3 in order to get shinier telly, about which I do not give a flying hatstand" acceptable?
yes but what pisses me off...
is that if a title only comes out on BluRay you have to pay the BluRay premium of 33-50% on the normal DVD price. I've got a PS3 and a 32" HD telly (although I gather you don't really get HD, per se, on a screen that small).
Even if I buy material on BluRay, I'm never going to get the benefit, not on the telly I have. My room won't take a bigger telly, which is why I bought what I did.
So, Grindhouse. Looks like I'll be giving it a miss then...
Deathproof
isn't very good. I believe Planet Terror's better, but I haven't seen it.
The fake trailers are good though. Especially Werewolf Women of the SS.
I really enjoyed Death Proof
Thought it was loads of fun - I was laughing out loud (along with it) by the final car chase.
Don't confuse HD with telly size
Any screen that is 1080 pixels high is HD. Bigger tellys have bigger pixels, but still have 1080 of them. I have a 32" 1080p Sony and I think the picture quality far outstrips my friend's 42" (oo-er) because the pixels are smaller. I can't sit far enough away from the 42" in his house to not see the pixels still. In a small terraced house like mine, a 32" is perfect. Besides, massive tellys kind of look a bit chavvy don't they? Just need to make sure you are using HDMI connectors on any device that outputs 1080 HD otherwise it's a bit pointless.
I can also vouch for the PS3 route - Blu-rays look excellent, DVDs look better than on my standard DVD player, the menu interface is glorious (and in HD!). The LoveFilm streaming thing works but there's not much choice yet and the service is often 'busy'. The games aren't bad either.
thanks for that...
I own Wall-E and Cars on BluRay and have to say that they do look absolutely stunning in that format. I'll have to have a root around my drawers (oo-er yerself!) to see if my telly is 1080 or 720. I thought that 32" tellies didn't go to 1080, but I'll bow to your superior knowledge!
I hear ya on the HDMI. When I got my PS3 first, I was a bit, er, un-blown away until a kindly soul pointed out the need for the €20 cable.
As for Lovefilm - we don't get it in Oireland. We do have the RTE player though; If only they'd broadcast Sharon NiBheolain pouting during the six o'clock news in HD, I'd be laughing. Or having a Lenny...
I have a 1080 32 inch tv
so they must exist.
Sharon looks great on it.
i'm upgrading the telly to a 42"
as soon as Siun Nic Gearailt lands the Six One gig...
With
KIrsteen O Sullivan doing the sport and Anna Daly the weather?
the million dollar question is...
how does Jean Byrne look in proper HD in one of *those* dresses during the weather?
Is upscaling DVDs killing Blu-Ray?
Yes, the upscaling ability is one very good reason to buy a blu-ray player, but is also a very good reason to keep buying DVDs in preference to blu-ray discs.
Why pay the blu-ray premium when an upscaled DVD looks so good?
Because
Blu-rays do look better than upscaled DVDs
Yes they do
But by a sufficient margin, on a sufficient range of material, to justify the additional outlay?
Not often enough, for these eyes (and ears) anyway.
YMMV, of course...
You're right of course
I was going to post something about how only certain types of film truly benefit and look great in Full HD. The animated stuff, Toy Story etc, and heavy CGI stuff like Avatar tend to lend themselves to the format really well. Quite frankly, I'm not sure I need Pride and Predjudice in Full HD. It's not really a 'visual' thing is it? Funny because most stuff I watch is of the drama genre rather than the shoot-'em-up-loads-of-animation-and-robots-yeah! stuff. I do like the crisp-ness of HD but it's not always 'necessary' is it?
Funny though isn't it? Here we are all being told to go HD on our tellys whereas in music, if we're all listening to downloads/ripped CDs now, the sound quality, technically, isn't as good as CD. I personally can't really tell the difference when commuting on a noisy tube train when I'm half asleep in the morning! I do know that it beats a Walkman and a rucksack of tapes!
Recordable Blu-Ray DVD players
Are there any recordable blu-ray players that'll let you copy DVDs from the HD sports channels yet?
That's what put me off - I'd like to burn the occasional football match and TV show from the HD channels like Doctor Who. The only blu-ray player I looked at, about 18 months back, was a Panasonic one that was nearly £1,000 and wouldn't record off Sky+. (It had built-in freeview HD for BBC/C4's HD channels, but not Sky/Sky Sports.) Er, no.
Ironically
I want to buy last year's John Hughes-esque comedy Easy A on Blu-Ray and it's only being released on DVD in the UK!
Maybe it's because
the film studio think Easy A is a chick flick and geeky HD boys just wouldn't buy it.
Well
It's out in the US on Blu-Ray. So just seems plain odd to me. There's a HD master, so why not shove a few copies out?
One of those daft situations, where I could steal the thing I want (a HD copy) from the interwebs almost certainly, but nobody will let me pay for it.
Blu-Ray Unseen
I'm not sure there is much point in my getting a Blu-Ray player yet then, as long as this doesn't become a trend with new releases. Like Stimpy, my main TV is far from new, but I'm still very happy with it. I have a smaller HD TV/Monitor for my pc, which looks good, but a DVD on my main TV looks just fine to my eyes too. I do sit futher back from that though, as you do. So I have seen HD, but not Blu-Ray.
Question: If I connected a Blu-Ray/Upscalling DVD player to my relatively old "main TV" (a biggish boxy mid 90s Panasonic), would the difference be all that noticable, or am I most likey at it's maximum capacity already? Not that I've ever felt DVDs were laking in picture quality.
I'd concider a PS3, but I know a few people who've had problems with them (a "yellow light of death" apparently) so it's put me off a bit. I also thought they'd be a bit cheaper by now.
with regards to the 'capacity' of your screen
there's 4 variables in playback - the machine, the wire, the output device and the connections between them. If you have a BluRay player, the best means to output it is via the HDMI slot at the back and to use a dedicated €20 HDMI cable. Now, your telly probably doesn't have an input for that kind of wire. The next down is (I think) Scart (or perhaps you can do that component RGB cable thing), and next down again is Coax cable. If your telly isn't HD, essentially you're not going to see a hell of an improvement, or so I gather.
As for the PS3 - yup, there's a risk it'll stop working. I've heard of other peoples packing in. Mine is 3 years old, and it was one of the oldskool 60Gb models when i bought it, it regularly gets pressed into service as a games console, a music player (using an external HD), a movie player (external HD), a movie player (DVD player) and a BluRay player and it's still working fine.
I've recently purchased a ......
Sony BDPS370 Blu-ray Player from Tesco for less than £100. In addition to the Blu-Ray and DVD upscaling, it also has BBC iplayer access (and Five on Demand) as well as Eurosport, Sky News and YouTube along with Lovefilm Streaming. The iplayer gets a fair bit of use, and you can watch the content in HD where available also.
I thought about the PS3 route, but the price is still high and I couldn't see myself spending much time playing games. The Blu-ray quality is excellent, especially on the kids films like Toy Story 3.
Highly recommended piece of kit.