Sony Pictures Home Entertainment presents 'Tears of the Sun' in 2.40:1 widescreen and 1080p video, as per usual on Blu-ray. However, while the format has suffered its share of critical slings and arrows ever since its launch earlier this summer (and I've been among some of the most vocal), I can honestly say this is the first transfer I've seen on the format that has totally and unequivocally blew me away. Maybe it is just because my expectations were unfairly lowered these past weeks, but I really thought this is among the best high-def I've yet seen, and frame-per-frame, it is certainly an equal with anything I've yet reviewed on HD DVD.
'Tears of the Sun' already looked great on standard DVD, so I was not surprised that the source material was pristine. I spotted approximately one single white speckle during the film's entire 121-minute runtime -- that's about as good as it gets. Blacks are dead-on and contrast excellent, with the image always perfectly balanced -- whites never bloomed and even the darkest scenes boast terrific shadow delineation. Colors are wonderfully saturated, from the lush greens of the jungle to the deep, midnight blues of the nighttime scenes. Fleshtones, too, are a perfect shade of orange, and thankfully not overpumped. And if that isn't enough, detail is exquisite, with the presentation never looking anything less than three-dimensional throughout. 'Tears of the Sun' is full of close-ups of grizzled military men, and you could spend hours just freeze-framing images and counting every last follicle of stubble on Bruce Willis' five o'clock shadow. Even a friend who popped over unannounced, and who is about as tech-saavy as my grandmother, couldn't help but exclaim, "Wow, that is one #@$&! kick-ass picture!" Score a big one for Blu-ray.
Hmm, looks like Blu-ray is moving in the right direction, no doubt. Just think what 50 GB discs will bring us! This is good news, and I'm looking forward to the 4th quarter of this year.
Fewer discs isn't neccessarily a selling point. Heck, it might actually make the product less appealing to joe-sixpack.
Consumers don't really care if they have to switch discs every 8 hours instead of every 4 hours. They wouldn't argue with a player that could use higher capacity media. However, capacity just isn't what consumers are clamoring for. One moview or a few episodes per disc is good enough that anything better doesn't make much of a difference.
But the point is kind of mute anyway if an installed base of players can't physically play the new media. You'd have just the same transition as we're struggling to make today.
I'm still voting for divx on standard DL DVDs (or h.264). Better resolution than 99% of existing displays yet can be played on sub 100 dollar _existing_ hardware. Then we would have more time to come up with next gen formats that bennefit consumers as much as they will hollywood.
I have to disagree since Blu-Ray is more costly at the moment. Cost is one of the selling
points of the HD-DVD crowd & those savings are moot if you need twice as many discs as a
The article about TDK's 200GB Blu-Ray discs mentioned that they are 6 layers instead of 8 and
each layer is 33.3GB. Do you think that a dual-layer 66.6GB Blu-Ray disc could be read by
first-gen Blu-Ray players? An extra 36.6GB over the standard 30GB HD-DVD discs would be
considerably useful when they start upgrading tv shows & miniseries to HD. You would need half
as many Blu-Ray discs for a whole season of 24 or Band of Brothers.
Nope you won't be watching movies on the 200GB TDK discs. It doesn't conform to the BDA specs on which as of today require 25GB per layer.
Mission Impossible 3 is coming on multiple Blu-Ray and HD DVD discs. Not because they couldn't squeeze the data on one disc but because research shows that people like having two discs for premium versions. There's a cachet to it.
Mmm, yeah, I beg to differ. I know many who would like to save the shelf space by consolidating multiple discs into one.
Those "many" people probably represent less than 1% of DVD consumers. Your average Joe simply isn't swamped with too many DVDs to store. If space was really such a concern, seems like the first thing to do would be to decrease the case size.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mello
I have to disagree since Blu-Ray is more costly at the moment. Cost is one of the selling points of the HD-DVD crowd & those savings are moot if you need twice as many discs as a Blu-Ray version of a tv show.
The big difference for consumers between the formats currently is the price of the player. Keep in mind that the price of video content to consumers has almost nothing to do with manufacturing costs. Profit is influenced , but currently, media is priced as high as people are willing to pay. That willingness to pay isn't related to the cost of the manufacturing.
... Sony's backed down on their 2 million PS3s claim. Not only have they delayed the PS3's launch for the vast majority of the world, but look at these new numbers on how many PS3s will be available at launch date.
? North America: 400,000 Units
? Japan: 100,000 Units
Does that look like a lot to you? Keep in mind Microsoft's global launch was 1.5 million units, and there were still massive shortages.
So do people here still feel that the PS3 will backdoor blu-ray into the masses? If there are only 400,000 units available at launch in NA, with 99.9% of those going to gamers waiting 10-24 hours in line, instead of a movie lover looking for a cheap blu-ray player, it looks like the "cheap" blu-ray player wont be around for awhile.
Does anyone have any numbers on how many HD-DVD players are out there in NA right now counting the 3 toshiba models (the walmart exclusive one, and the other two), and the RCA one?
can we get someone to summarize this thread and PM it to me?
"HD-DVD is great!"
"No, it sucks. Blu-Ray will win because it is the best!"
"No, it sucks. HD-DVD is great!"
Loop continually, and the entire thread is summarized.
Frankly, I am only interested for the bickering of it all because I won't be buying either for a few years (my TV is 20+ years old as it is).
I do think the PS3 announcement today really hurts Blu-Ray. Everyone who has hitched their horse to Blu-Ray has been saying, "just wait for PS3." Well, now the shipments were cut in half, and (outside of Japan and the US) it won't be released until March 2007...
Those "many" people probably represent less than 1% of DVD consumers. Your average Joe simply isn't swamped with too many DVDs to store. If space was really such a concern, seems like the first thing to do would be to decrease the case size.
We've already seen this happening with slim DVD cases. Some box sets are even being reintroduced with them to save on shelf space. It saves on shipping costs and allows stores to offer a larger selection of titles. Both of these are important to the studios.
I remember writing some BASIC "choose your own adventure" programs. When I wrote the first one I thought I was clever for numbering the lines 1, 2, 3, 4 instead of 10, 20, 30, 40.
Then I needed to insert a new instruction in the middle of the program... Err... shit.
Never made that mistake again. Of course, I only wrote 2 more of those I think.
So do people here still feel that the PS3 will backdoor blu-ray into the masses? If there are only 400,000 units available at launch in NA, with 99.9% of those going to gamers waiting 10-24 hours in line, instead of a movie lover looking for a cheap blu-ray player, it looks like the "cheap" blu-ray player wont be around for awhile.
Does anyone have any numbers on how many HD-DVD players are out there in NA right now counting the 3 toshiba models (the walmart exclusive one, and the other two), and the RCA one?
In addition, if you looked at the news carefully, Sony still plans to ship 2,000,000 (yup that's million folks) by the end of the year. So 2 million units versus what...60-80,000 units of HD DVD by the end of the year? Moreover, Sony still plans on getting 6 million units out by March 2007. Plus, from other articles I've read, Sony is pretty much a month behind, so far from the "it looks like the cheap Blu-ray won't be around for a while" statement you gave.
Don't get me wrong, this news undoubtedly sucks, but with 2 million units of PS3s in the market (and let us not forget all the standalone players from Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Sony, and LG that will sell as well) by the end of the year, Blu-ray will still easily trump any numbers HD DVD will have acheived by years end.
Mmm, yeah, I beg to differ. I know many who would like to save the shelf space by consolidating multiple discs into one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dfiler
Those "many" people probably represent less than 1% of DVD consumers. Your average Joe simply isn't swamped with too many DVDs to store. If space was really such a concern, seems like the first thing to do would be to decrease the case size.
I think it is a much larger segment of the population than 1%. Most people do not mind the one movie one disk situation, but when it comes to TV shows it is a different story. Personally there are over a dozen TV series that I would love to own, but I will not buy them until I can get an entire series on one disk (or at least a full season). Right now it takes over 60 DVDs just to get one of the star track series: if I total all of the disks for dozen or so TV series I would like to purchase it comes out to about a thousand DVDs -- which is far more than I am will to deal with. Most of the people I know have more or less the same attitude on this subject.
Well series represent a good opportunity to utilize slightly lower audio and video bitrates. I'm thinking with AVC and VC-1 10Mbps would work fine for series and standard DD+ for the audio at 640Kbps.
By my simple calcs you should be able to get 9 one hour shows onto a 50GB disc or 12 40 minute shows.
Something like Stargate SG1/Atlantis could fit an entire season on two discs.
Well series represent a good opportunity to utilize slightly lower audio and video bitrates. I'm thinking with AVC and VC-1 10Mbps would work fine for series and standard DD+ for the audio at 640Kbps.
By my simple calcs you should be able to get 9 one hour shows onto a 50GB disc or 12 40 minute shows.
Something like Stargate SG1/Atlantis could fit an entire season on two discs.
Yeah but Stargate (or any SciFi show) really isn't something you want to dumb down the bitrate on. Those are probably watched by the most critical viewers.
I remember writing some BASIC "choose your own adventure" programs. When I wrote the first one I thought I was clever for numbering the lines 1, 2, 3, 4 instead of 10, 20, 30, 40.
Then I needed to insert a new instruction in the middle of the program... Err... shit.
Never made that mistake again. Of course, I only wrote 2 more of those I think.
Yeah but Stargate (or any SciFi show) really isn't something you want to dumb down the bitrate on. Those are probably watched by the most critical viewers.
Heck yeah I'm a big Stargate fan and I want them at the highest quality I can get. I'm not into that whole fit-an-entire-season-on-one-disc type of thing. And as far as I understand market research show people want more discs. Feels like you're getting more for your money.
Nope you won't be watching movies on the 200GB TDK discs. It doesn't conform to the BDA specs on which as of today require 25GB per layer.
Mission Impossible 3 is coming on multiple Blu-Ray and HD DVD discs. Not because they couldn't squeeze the data on one disc but because research shows that people like having two discs for premium versions. There's a cachet to it.
I would agree that it would be rediculously expensive for a 200GB blu-ray disc but I still think that
a dual-layer 66.6GB blu-ray disc would be feasible. Plus, I think that the new Samsung player can't
play dual-layered 50GB discs without a firmware patch. Another patch for 66.6GB discs wouldn't
be impossible, would it? Sony could use all the positive press it can get. Hell, even a single-layer
33.3GB disc with a firmware patch would be good news at this point. At least they would have room
Well series represent a good opportunity to utilize slightly lower audio and video bitrates. I'm thinking with AVC and VC-1 10Mbps would work fine for series and standard DD+ for the audio at 640Kbps.
By my simple calcs you should be able to get 9 one hour shows onto a 50GB disc or 12 40 minute shows.
Something like Stargate SG1/Atlantis could fit an entire season on two discs.
Comments
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/tearsofthesun.html
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment presents 'Tears of the Sun' in 2.40:1 widescreen and 1080p video, as per usual on Blu-ray. However, while the format has suffered its share of critical slings and arrows ever since its launch earlier this summer (and I've been among some of the most vocal), I can honestly say this is the first transfer I've seen on the format that has totally and unequivocally blew me away. Maybe it is just because my expectations were unfairly lowered these past weeks, but I really thought this is among the best high-def I've yet seen, and frame-per-frame, it is certainly an equal with anything I've yet reviewed on HD DVD.
'Tears of the Sun' already looked great on standard DVD, so I was not surprised that the source material was pristine. I spotted approximately one single white speckle during the film's entire 121-minute runtime -- that's about as good as it gets. Blacks are dead-on and contrast excellent, with the image always perfectly balanced -- whites never bloomed and even the darkest scenes boast terrific shadow delineation. Colors are wonderfully saturated, from the lush greens of the jungle to the deep, midnight blues of the nighttime scenes. Fleshtones, too, are a perfect shade of orange, and thankfully not overpumped. And if that isn't enough, detail is exquisite, with the presentation never looking anything less than three-dimensional throughout. 'Tears of the Sun' is full of close-ups of grizzled military men, and you could spend hours just freeze-framing images and counting every last follicle of stubble on Bruce Willis' five o'clock shadow. Even a friend who popped over unannounced, and who is about as tech-saavy as my grandmother, couldn't help but exclaim, "Wow, that is one #@$&! kick-ass picture!" Score a big one for Blu-ray.
Hmm, looks like Blu-ray is moving in the right direction, no doubt. Just think what 50 GB discs will bring us! This is good news, and I'm looking forward to the 4th quarter of this year.
Fewer discs isn't neccessarily a selling point. Heck, it might actually make the product less appealing to joe-sixpack.
Consumers don't really care if they have to switch discs every 8 hours instead of every 4 hours. They wouldn't argue with a player that could use higher capacity media. However, capacity just isn't what consumers are clamoring for. One moview or a few episodes per disc is good enough that anything better doesn't make much of a difference.
But the point is kind of mute anyway if an installed base of players can't physically play the new media. You'd have just the same transition as we're struggling to make today.
I'm still voting for divx on standard DL DVDs (or h.264). Better resolution than 99% of existing displays yet can be played on sub 100 dollar _existing_ hardware. Then we would have more time to come up with next gen formats that bennefit consumers as much as they will hollywood.
I have to disagree since Blu-Ray is more costly at the moment. Cost is one of the selling
points of the HD-DVD crowd & those savings are moot if you need twice as many discs as a
Blu-Ray version of a tv show.
The article about TDK's 200GB Blu-Ray discs mentioned that they are 6 layers instead of 8 and
each layer is 33.3GB. Do you think that a dual-layer 66.6GB Blu-Ray disc could be read by
first-gen Blu-Ray players? An extra 36.6GB over the standard 30GB HD-DVD discs would be
considerably useful when they start upgrading tv shows & miniseries to HD. You would need half
as many Blu-Ray discs for a whole season of 24 or Band of Brothers.
Nope you won't be watching movies on the 200GB TDK discs. It doesn't conform to the BDA specs on which as of today require 25GB per layer.
Mission Impossible 3 is coming on multiple Blu-Ray and HD DVD discs. Not because they couldn't squeeze the data on one disc but because research shows that people like having two discs for premium versions. There's a cachet to it.
Mmm, yeah, I beg to differ. I know many who would like to save the shelf space by consolidating multiple discs into one.
Those "many" people probably represent less than 1% of DVD consumers. Your average Joe simply isn't swamped with too many DVDs to store. If space was really such a concern, seems like the first thing to do would be to decrease the case size.
I have to disagree since Blu-Ray is more costly at the moment. Cost is one of the selling points of the HD-DVD crowd & those savings are moot if you need twice as many discs as a Blu-Ray version of a tv show.
The big difference for consumers between the formats currently is the price of the player. Keep in mind that the price of video content to consumers has almost nothing to do with manufacturing costs. Profit is influenced , but currently, media is priced as high as people are willing to pay. That willingness to pay isn't related to the cost of the manufacturing.
... Sony's backed down on their 2 million PS3s claim. Not only have they delayed the PS3's launch for the vast majority of the world, but look at these new numbers on how many PS3s will be available at launch date.
? North America: 400,000 Units
? Japan: 100,000 Units
Does that look like a lot to you? Keep in mind Microsoft's global launch was 1.5 million units, and there were still massive shortages.
So do people here still feel that the PS3 will backdoor blu-ray into the masses? If there are only 400,000 units available at launch in NA, with 99.9% of those going to gamers waiting 10-24 hours in line, instead of a movie lover looking for a cheap blu-ray player, it looks like the "cheap" blu-ray player wont be around for awhile.
Does anyone have any numbers on how many HD-DVD players are out there in NA right now counting the 3 toshiba models (the walmart exclusive one, and the other two), and the RCA one?
can we get someone to summarize this thread and PM it to me?
"HD-DVD is great!"
"No, it sucks. Blu-Ray will win because it is the best!"
"No, it sucks. HD-DVD is great!"
Loop continually, and the entire thread is summarized.
Frankly, I am only interested for the bickering of it all because I won't be buying either for a few years (my TV is 20+ years old as it is).
I do think the PS3 announcement today really hurts Blu-Ray. Everyone who has hitched their horse to Blu-Ray has been saying, "just wait for PS3." Well, now the shipments were cut in half, and (outside of Japan and the US) it won't be released until March 2007...
can we get someone to summarize this thread and PM it to me?
10 PRINT HDDVD SUCKS
20 PRINT BLURAY SUCKS
30 GOTO 10
RUN
Those "many" people probably represent less than 1% of DVD consumers. Your average Joe simply isn't swamped with too many DVDs to store. If space was really such a concern, seems like the first thing to do would be to decrease the case size.
We've already seen this happening with slim DVD cases. Some box sets are even being reintroduced with them to save on shelf space. It saves on shipping costs and allows stores to offer a larger selection of titles. Both of these are important to the studios.
10 PRINT HDDVD SUCKS
20 PRINT BLURAY SUCKS
30 GOTO 10
RUN
rofl! man that brings up memories... of apple ][e's and choplifter....
Then I needed to insert a new instruction in the middle of the program... Err... shit.
Never made that mistake again. Of course, I only wrote 2 more of those I think.
Bad news for Sony and the PS3:
So do people here still feel that the PS3 will backdoor blu-ray into the masses? If there are only 400,000 units available at launch in NA, with 99.9% of those going to gamers waiting 10-24 hours in line, instead of a movie lover looking for a cheap blu-ray player, it looks like the "cheap" blu-ray player wont be around for awhile.
Does anyone have any numbers on how many HD-DVD players are out there in NA right now counting the 3 toshiba models (the walmart exclusive one, and the other two), and the RCA one?
Yes, I'm sure [myself included] others feel that the PS3 will backdoor Blu-ray into the masses. Why? Because 500,000 units is a lot more than the 50,000 units [ reference: http://www.mcvuk.com/newsitem.php?id=24333 or http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/09..._release_date/ ] of HD DVD players sold world wide right now.
In addition, if you looked at the news carefully, Sony still plans to ship 2,000,000 (yup that's million folks) by the end of the year. So 2 million units versus what...60-80,000 units of HD DVD by the end of the year? Moreover, Sony still plans on getting 6 million units out by March 2007. Plus, from other articles I've read, Sony is pretty much a month behind, so far from the "it looks like the cheap Blu-ray won't be around for a while" statement you gave.
Don't get me wrong, this news undoubtedly sucks, but with 2 million units of PS3s in the market (and let us not forget all the standalone players from Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Sony, and LG that will sell as well) by the end of the year, Blu-ray will still easily trump any numbers HD DVD will have acheived by years end.
Mmm, yeah, I beg to differ. I know many who would like to save the shelf space by consolidating multiple discs into one.
Those "many" people probably represent less than 1% of DVD consumers. Your average Joe simply isn't swamped with too many DVDs to store. If space was really such a concern, seems like the first thing to do would be to decrease the case size.
I think it is a much larger segment of the population than 1%. Most people do not mind the one movie one disk situation, but when it comes to TV shows it is a different story. Personally there are over a dozen TV series that I would love to own, but I will not buy them until I can get an entire series on one disk (or at least a full season). Right now it takes over 60 DVDs just to get one of the star track series: if I total all of the disks for dozen or so TV series I would like to purchase it comes out to about a thousand DVDs -- which is far more than I am will to deal with. Most of the people I know have more or less the same attitude on this subject.
By my simple calcs you should be able to get 9 one hour shows onto a 50GB disc or 12 40 minute shows.
Something like Stargate SG1/Atlantis could fit an entire season on two discs.
Well series represent a good opportunity to utilize slightly lower audio and video bitrates. I'm thinking with AVC and VC-1 10Mbps would work fine for series and standard DD+ for the audio at 640Kbps.
By my simple calcs you should be able to get 9 one hour shows onto a 50GB disc or 12 40 minute shows.
Something like Stargate SG1/Atlantis could fit an entire season on two discs.
Yeah but Stargate (or any SciFi show) really isn't something you want to dumb down the bitrate on. Those are probably watched by the most critical viewers.
I remember writing some BASIC "choose your own adventure" programs. When I wrote the first one I thought I was clever for numbering the lines 1, 2, 3, 4 instead of 10, 20, 30, 40.
Then I needed to insert a new instruction in the middle of the program... Err... shit.
Never made that mistake again. Of course, I only wrote 2 more of those I think.
I suddenly have this strange urge to play Eamon.
Yeah but Stargate (or any SciFi show) really isn't something you want to dumb down the bitrate on. Those are probably watched by the most critical viewers.
Heck yeah I'm a big Stargate fan and I want them at the highest quality I can get. I'm not into that whole fit-an-entire-season-on-one-disc type of thing. And as far as I understand market research show people want more discs. Feels like you're getting more for your money.
4 disks for TV series, so you can watch a disk worth, and then move onto the next disk and let your friend borrow the first one.
Nope you won't be watching movies on the 200GB TDK discs. It doesn't conform to the BDA specs on which as of today require 25GB per layer.
Mission Impossible 3 is coming on multiple Blu-Ray and HD DVD discs. Not because they couldn't squeeze the data on one disc but because research shows that people like having two discs for premium versions. There's a cachet to it.
I would agree that it would be rediculously expensive for a 200GB blu-ray disc but I still think that
a dual-layer 66.6GB blu-ray disc would be feasible. Plus, I think that the new Samsung player can't
play dual-layered 50GB discs without a firmware patch. Another patch for 66.6GB discs wouldn't
be impossible, would it? Sony could use all the positive press it can get. Hell, even a single-layer
33.3GB disc with a firmware patch would be good news at this point. At least they would have room
to up the quality of their mpeg2 movies.
Well series represent a good opportunity to utilize slightly lower audio and video bitrates. I'm thinking with AVC and VC-1 10Mbps would work fine for series and standard DD+ for the audio at 640Kbps.
By my simple calcs you should be able to get 9 one hour shows onto a 50GB disc or 12 40 minute shows.
Something like Stargate SG1/Atlantis could fit an entire season on two discs.
Most "hour-long" TV shows are 42-44 minutes.