Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems The one of MANY HD-DVD threads (No bashing Blu-Ray)

How`s your tolerance for Michael Bay? Being the whippersnapper that I am and having grown up with the cartoon and the toys I must say there was a lot about Bay`s movie that annoyed me - though not in a “he ruined my childhood!` sense (although the Autobots are made far too goofy). It`s not that Bay doesn`t deliver when it comes to the giant robot action, but as silly as it sounds to say, yes a better giant robot movie could have been made out of all this. His attempt at drama is laughable and his tiresome obsession with the military and a subplot involving irritating teenage hackers causes the movie to veer off on too many tangents. The young lad in the lead is good, mind you. He`s got a lot of charisma and anything Starscream does (that`s the one that turns into a jet fighter) is a marvel of exciting visual effects work. Beyond that though it`s a cliched and generic mess. There are some striking similarities to Joe Dante`s movie Small Soldiers too - right down to Kevin Dunn playing the exact same father character in both films.

I`m more keen to get the recent UK region free Blu-ray release of the 80s animated movie…. though I leave myself no choice either way as I`m happy to ignore HD DVD at the moment.



I've been toying with going the projection route recently, but the fact I'm not in the best position to do so optimally (no dedicated room at the moment) puts me off, despite the fact a JVC HD1 would cost me about �1000 less than Pioneer's top of the line plasma. The HDTV route is, obviously, more practical for a multi-purpose room, but the projector certainly lends more “bang for the buck” so to speak and I can`t deny I`ve not been tempted.

I'm even happier to ignore Blu for now , too much c**p from its promoters coming my way , though I do cast an envious glance occasionally at some other members stress-free HD-tastic setups that set them free of all things war related For every 'POTC' ( even forgetting its framing issues ) there's a 'Transformers' .

War is stoopid , what's new ?

Very true about Bay , though , he'll never be mistaken for Kubrick

~M~

There are more films on HD DVD I`d like than Blu I think, though I`ve not actually counted them all up to see. The fact Warner are neutral helps as the largest number of films that I`d like are from them and available on both so I am relatively safe whichever I side with for now. I'm quite prepared to buy into HD DVD as well early next year however.

My one issue with HD DVD is a fear I put to Amir from Microsoft when I met him last December at the terrific little HD DVD event held at Pj-Hi Fi, and that was concerning the format`s bandwidth limitations. I got a pretty dismissive answer to point of suggesting “it didn`t matter” and as the year has gone on nothing about the format or any of its releases has helped alleviate those fears. As a videophile and audiophile it`s little technical advantages like that on Blu`s side that I just find myself having to get behind. I view both formats from a long term perspective and I think about all the interactive mumbo jumbo certain studios are keen to slap on these discs and fail to see how capacity and bandwidth can not be considered more and more of an advantage as time goes by as although such advantages are not a guarantee content providers will make use of them to ensure the best possible quality, their presence can minimise risk of interactive bells and whistles depriving the disc of also delivering optimal A/V quality. Since no two movies are alike in their demands on encoding there`s no telling what requirements a certain movie might need to get the best out of in future.

Transformers lacking lossless audio has sparked a rather large debate about the merits of us having PCM, DTS HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD/MLP on these discs. I think everyone is entitled to their opinion on this one way or another (I`ll assume as Meridian owners our opinion is relatively bias on this?), but I can`t deny that I was infuriated to see Amir personally dismiss its importance recently. Again, if that`s his genuine opinion then fine, but it`s hardly a consistent opinion because a year ago I sat in a room and heard him trash Blu-ray for not making support of Dolby TrueHD mandatory in hardware. He seemed to think it was important then.

I dont think you should be wary of Amir , its the studios I'm scared of . Even SD-DVD was never really properly exploited more than occasionally . Rather than have a single solid soundtrack we ended up with the Dolby/dts/Superbit fiasco and while it was technically possible to provide 3 different cuts of a movie (T2) when desirable , the studios preferred to milk their customers by issuing multiple editions of movies with often only minor changes to extras to differentiate between them . At the launch of the original 'Gladiator' DVD Ridley Scott was completely unaware that he could have included deleted scenes via 'Seamless Branching'

Nothing's changed , 'Transformers' HD-DVD only got DD+ instead of TrueHD because the studio chose to squeeze-eating extras instead not because it would have been technically impossible to do so for reasons of space availability .

Bluray's early reliance on MPEG2 and Uncompressed PCM didn't seem to me to be the best use of their space advantage and lost them a bit of ground with early adopters . This was compounded by only limited support for TrueHD .

Warner's are my favourite studio too . Casablanca , Grand Prix , Robin Hood , Mutiny on the Bounty all look beautiful in HD and show Warner's true understanding of their movie-loving customers respect for heritage . Their neutrality in this silly battle reinforces my respect for them . Maybe the war will be a draw and we can all be happy ?

I fear that by the time there's a winner , it may be called 'Download' , and it could make all of this moot .

~M~

I`m not wary of Amir anymore as he no longer has anything to do with HD DVD, but his antics on AVS made me lose a great deal of respect for him throughout the year - which is a shame as I found him polite, enthusiastic and knowledgeable in person. What it`s all taught me was both sides can be as childish and deceiving as the other and when backed into a corner faced with legitimate criticisms about their format of choice (be it the ‘profile` situation with Blu-ray, or bandwidth limitations with HD DVD) the more intolerable spin the defending side seems to spit out. I just can`t be bothered to get caught up in the politics and what one side thinks about the other. All I want to know is which format has the best physical spec, and how studios seek to abuse that spec.

Of course it`s one thing for me to say I`ll get behind the format that offers a specification that can potentially lead to consistent delivery of the best a/v quality alongside various extras over a longer period of time, and another thing altogether for studios to actually bother taking proper advantage of higher bandwidth and capacity.

I don`t think lack of TrueHD support was a factor for early adopters considering Blu-ray since Sony and Disney side with uncompressed PCM on every disc they release (with Sony picking TrueHD for some discs now) and Fox/MGM having but DTS HD Master Audio on all their titles, but absolutely the shocking lazy effort put into those first releases was insulting, particularly for the format charging a premium for its hardware - which I dare say was another factor for people last year next to the poor quality of releases. I don`t blame MPEG2, but seemingly non existent quality control. I`m quite impressed by how they turned it around however after re-shuffling of executives in charge (particularly within Sony) and those exclusively backing the format do seem keen to take advantage of the specification benefits as I had hoped.

One thing I love about HD DVD was how they got their hardware spec right since launch. If this multiple profile nonsense with Blu-ray players comes back to haunt the Blu-ray Association in the New Year then they`ll get what they deserve.

I love Warner to bits, but it would be nice if they catered to the advantages of Blu-ray`s specification a little more. It looks as if they`re starting to however now that they`ve had some internal executive re-shuffles of their own. For example, Terminator 3 on Blu-ray looks as if it is going to have TrueHD (and allegedly PCM as well) along with a confirmed exclusive brand new 3rd audio commentary - neither of which are present on the HD DVD, and this is on a disc where they`re not even doing the Picture in Picture ‘in movie experience` in the easiest way due the the 1.1 profile issue and are having to dedicate space to an entirely separate video encode instead. Another is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Although the HD DVD has TrueHD and the “in movie experience,” the Blu-ray version sides with PCM, a dozen or so multiple language tracks and subtitles with space for an hour long documentary they couldn`t fit onto the HD DVD (which ironically is on the two disc DVD). What`s more, to make up for the lack of ‘in movie experience` all the IME content is actually going to be on the Blu-ray version, only it`s split into dedicated featurettes (they did this with Blood Diamond) and as an added bonus it`s all presented in high definition. All the other standard extras on the disc are in HD on the Blu-ray version too, but SD on the HD DVD.

I`m still of the opinion this can`t end in a draw, and it will be the worst thing for growth of HD optical media if it does. I`m terrified of the concept of downloads I must admit, for a variety of reasons. Regardless, I'm happy I'll no longer be on the sidelines having allowed myself to get into enjoying one of the formats this side of Christmas.

I really hope you're right but as Bob Stuart has often said " The winner of the war between DVD-A and Sacd was MP3 " . Even Amir on Avs admitted that 'Sound Quality' was pretty low on the studios list of priorities . Whether its " Best Picture . Best Sound . " or
" The Look and Sound of Perfect " the lot of them are being less than honest .

Interesting article on an aspect of the whole debacle here :

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119267051987662923.html

On several occasions they mention xploitedcinema.com for sourcing imports of one or other format from elsewhere in the world . I hope they dont get scared off over there as its cheaper to get discs like Fantastic 4 from them rather than direct from Germany . Go figure .



I dont like the prospect of downloading either but we're approaching the 2nd anniversary of the arrival of these formats and Sd only lasted 10 years before they wanted to replace it so by the time there's a winner they may have just perfected the ability to download HD direct and leave disc-formatting to the user . Or maybe J6p will decide , as with MP3 , that the 720p of their local service is ' good enough '.

Enjoy your new format , I recommend axelmusic.com as a supplier as they're reasonably priced , great Customer Service and as they ship from within Europe there's no worries with the Taxman

~M~

I have a *very* low tolerance for his recent work. Typically I walk out of one of his movies and say "never again", but the reviews and friends' reactions to Transformers was such that I gave it a shot and actually enjoyed it for what it was. It opened as all Bay films do with a set piece so astonishing, in this case the attack on the US base, that it sets the bar impossibly high for the rest of the film so that it can it only disappoint, as was the case. After the opening the film predictably degenerated into the usual eye-candy-nonsense-fest. But I am still looking forward to seeing what my room can deliver.

Mark

I`ve used Axel only once before but was very pleased with their service, so thanks for the reminder (they have the best price on the Kubrick discs that I have seen). Since I`ve not bought any films on DVD in over a year it`s odd to begin ordering discs again. I`ll be returning to Movietyme for their services for a lot of titles I expect (an awful lot of their HD releases are �13.99 shipped), and Amazon.com are always worth a look too for some things as I can get a lot of titles from them for under �14 shipped as well. I got the Blu-ray of The Fountain from them in fact. I used the longest shipping option available and got it within two weeks - and that was taking the postal strike delays into account. Now I just need the technology to watch it.

I like Movietyme too except for their lack of real-time Stock Status followed by a bit of a long drawn out Cancellation method . These are counter-balanced by their occasional �1 off vouchers which ease the pain nicely

All those smiley faces on the Amazon.com packages have seen my last 4 deliveries stopped by Customs ( OOooofff!) so I've really given up using them other than for the odd single item .

Another nice site is dvdpacific.com . Very reasonable prices . I've been collection the Fox Film Noir an Cinema Classics Series from them and rarely paid more than �7-8 each on DVD , which is nice

~M~

Never saw Transformers before nor played with the toys or knew anything about it. Just knew the female lead is pretty attractive.

Watched Knocked Up last night with friends- we were all disappointed in the movie- its absurd- there is no way she would ever look at this guy and the movie was sold here as a good date movie- so we all thought it was good for couples viewing- nope- it is good guys only viewing but our ladies were not pleased with the dialogue. The female lead is pretty but the movie does not deliver on its promise to show more of her... (hey if you're gonna waste my time, make it good!)

best regards,
Jerry

Anyone know if you can downgrade to a previous firmware version with a Tosh XA1? (assuming you have the firmware CD).

I believe it's possible, or perhaps you have to reset to 1.4(?) and work back up. What's the problem?

Mark