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'Person of Interest: The Complete Fifth and Final Season' Blu-ray Announced[teaser]The final season of the CBS series will hit Blu-ray in July. [/teaser] In an early announcement to retailers, Warner Bros. is preparing 'Person of Interest: The Complete Fifth and Final Season' for Blu-ray on July 19. For years, the Person of Interest team of tech genius Harold Finch, ex-agent John Reese, NYPD Detective Lionel Fusco, cyber-hacker Root and missing-in-action operative Sameen Shaw have been protected by The Machine, but as worlds collided and a rival AI known as Samaritan finally cornered The Machine inside the nation’s power grid, it was the POI team’s turn to protect Finch’s creation. In season five, the cold war is over. The world around us might look the same, but something has drastically changed. Samaritan’s lethal “correction” has initiated its control. Finch’s Machine is essentially dead. Shaw is still missing. And the team is once again hiding in plain sight. But with Samaritan’s invisible grip tightening everywhere, will Finch be able to rebuild and resurrect The Machine? And if he does, will it be the same Machine when it comes back online? The Blu-ray/Digital HD combo pack will feature 1080p video, a DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack, and supplements will include: 2015 Comic-Con Panel; "Finale for the Fans" Featurette; and Revelations of Person of Interest featurette. Suggested list price for the Blu-ray is $44.98. You can find the latest specs for 'Person of Interest: The Complete Fifth and Final Season' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it's indexed under July 19. Order the Blu-rayPosted Mon May 23, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT by: -
John Ford's 'They Were Expendable' Bound for Blu-ray[teaser]The 1945 war drama will be headed to Blu-ray later this year. [/teaser] In an early announcement to retailers, Warner Archive will be releasing 'They Were Expendable' on Blu-ray later this year. Supplies are dwindling. Troops are hopelessly outnumbered. But even in defeat there is victory. The defenders of the Philippines – including PT-boat skippers John Brickley (Robert Montgomery) and Rusty Ryan (John Wayne) – will give the U.S. war effort time to regroup after the devastation of Pearl Harbor. Director John Ford's World War II tale knows its battle-scarred topic firsthand. Montgomery was himself a Pacific PT-boat commander and a valorous Bronze Star recipient. Ford filmed the Academy Award-winning documentary The Battle of Midway. And Wayne creates a portrait of patriotic resolve as only he can. They Were Expendable salutes all who expended themselves during some of the war's bleakest hours. Specs have yet to be revealed, but the release will include the original trailer. You can find the latest specs for 'They Were Expendable' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it's indexed under PENDING.Posted Mon May 23, 2016 at 08:00 AM PDT by: -
'A Certain Magical Index II: Season Two' Bound for Blu-ray[teaser]The anime series is heading to Blu-ray in July. [/teaser] In an early announcement to retailers, FUNimation Entertainment is preparing 'A Certain Magical Index II: Season Two' for Blu-ray on July 19. When science and sorcery clash, the result is explosive in this sequel to A Certain Magical Index from the studio that brought you Shakugan no Shana! The Book of the Law—an encoded grimoire containing catastrophic magic—has been stolen, so naturally Kamijo, Index, and a few familiar faces join in the crusade to protect the one nun who can decipher the powerful text. But as the group battles church sects and holy assassins, they realize that discovering who their true enemy is may be more difficult than saving the sister. Meanwhile, an organization known as the Science Society resurrects an esper-producing program, a school festival brings out the competition—and drama—in the student population, and a mysterious figure negotiates the purchase of a sacred relic that could threaten the future of Academy City. The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack will feature 1080p video, a Dolby TureHD 5.1 soundtrack, and supplements will include: Commentaries; No Buts!; See visionS, Magic world; Memories Last; U.S. Trailer; Textless Songs; and Trailers. Suggested list price for the Blu-ray is $49.98. You can find the latest specs for 'A Certain Magical Index II: Season Two' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it's indexed under July 19. Order the Blu-rayPosted Mon May 23, 2016 at 06:00 AM PDT by: -
'Ash vs Evil Dead: The Complete First Season' Dated and Blu-ray Pre-Orders Up[teaser]The first season of the hit series starring Bruce Campbell and Lucy Lawless is bound for Blu-ray this August. [/teaser] In an early announcement to retailers, Starz/Anchor Bay says 'Ash vs Evil Dead: The Complete First Season' will be summoned to Blu-ray on August 23. Ash has spent the last 30 years avoiding responsibility, maturity and the terrors of the Evil Dead until a Deadite plague threatens to destroy all of mankind and Ash becomes mankind's only hope. No other details have been revealed at this time. You can find the latest specs for 'Ash vs Evil Dead: The Complete First Season' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it is indexed under August 23. Order the Blu-rayPosted Fri May 20, 2016 at 12:00 PM PDT by: -
Charles Walters' 'The Unsinkable Molly Brown' Dated for Blu-ray[teaser]The 1964 musical starring Debbie Reynolds is planned for Blu-ray next month. [/teaser] In an early announcement to retailers, Warner Archive will be releasing 'The Unsinkable Molly Brown' on Blu-ray on June 21. "Be sure the story is something you cannot resist," Richard Rodgers once advised Meredith Willson. After considering 100 projects for a successor to The Music Man, Willson found one that was irresistible. And unsinkable. Debbie Reynolds plays the title role, inviting all to Belly Up to the Bar, Boys for the whoop-and-holler film of Willson's 1960 Broadway hit. Reynolds won a 1964 Best Actress Oscar nomination as the backwoods heroine who survives the Titanic and the snobbery of Denver society. Screen-debuting Harve Presnell reprises his stage role of Johnny, who has heartful-and-a-half of love for Molly. Johnny wasn't alone. Astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young so admired the movie they named their Gemini 3 spacecraft Molly Brown. No other details have been revealed at this time. You can find the latest specs for 'The Unsinkable Molly Brown' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it is indexed under June 21.Posted Fri May 20, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT by: -
'Deadpool' 4K HDR Demo with Director Tim MillerThis is my final 'Deadpool' post this week, I swear!After getting some hands on time with the stunning 'Deadpool' Ultra HD Blu-ray (and the very strong Blu-ray) over the previous weekend, our friends at the Fox Innovation Lab invited journalists for a direct UHD vs HD demonstration. Unlike our previous demo, this time we were treated to consumer grade encodes as both the HD and UHD sources played on IDENTICAL Samsung Ultra HD displays.Hashtag: Science!For an in-depth understanding as to how this demo went, please check out the video portions of my Ultra HD Blu-ray and Blu-ray reviews.The short version is this: the Ultra HD Blu-ray absolutely CRUSHES the Blu-ray in side-by-side comparisons. To be fair, this effect wanes slightly in A-to-B comparisons with any sort of time delay, so don't feel too bad if you haven't upgraded yet. But side-by-side? Shoot. This is the release the earlier adopters have been waiting for. The Ultra HD offers deeper black levels, more vivid colors (hello, red!), and oodles of added highlight and CGI detail. I was really impressed. [NOTE: the above cellphone pic is to show the demo configuration ONLY. NOT to judge either format, let alone the fine details instantly visible in UHD HDR material.] To help take us through what we were observing on the two displays, 'Deadpool' director, Tim Miller, as well as the film's colorist, Tim Stipan, lead a panel discussion moderated by Schawn Belston, EVP of Media and Library Services, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, where they chatted about their post-production process, the benefits of HDR, and answered a few questions. The entire panel is a little too long to transcribe here, so what I've done is broken down key information using direct quotes. Enjoy! Our Demo Setup Schawn Belstin: These are two identical monitors that have been calibrated to match each other. The content on one is HD, standard dynamic range, compressed the same way it is on the Blu-ray. And on the other monitor is the HDR 4K compressed the same way it is on the UHD disc. Two Firsts for Fox Ultra HD Blu-ray Schawn Belstin: This is our first disc that features all HDR content, so the menus and logos and everything are in HDR. Also, object-based audio. Dolby Atmos is on the entire disc. This might not seem like that big a deal, but trust me when I say it was. We had to re-imagine all of our technical work flows behind the scenes to make this actually possible. To give you an example, we spent two months rendering and re-rendering, trying to figure out the best way to render the Fox logo in 4K, in open EXR, to get the most out of this HDR experience, and that was just the logo. So you can imagine what goes into an entire movie. But you didn't come here to hear me talk about the logo so let's get to the movie. Deadpool's Multiple DI Timeline Tim Stipan: First we did the normal theatre pass, which is called P3 color space. Concurrently we also did two version of IMAX; we did a Xenon bulb and then we did a laser pass also. Then, actually, we did the Rec 709 HD pass. And then we did the HDR pass.Tim Miller: Actually, so it's six if you count that, because then we did the Dolby [Vision] pass.Tim Stipan: Oh, yeah, I almost forgot that. I felt like every time we were going through it we were seeing more and more and more. And the last pass that we did was the [UHD Blu-ray] HDR pass, which you are seeing here, and we were just like, "wow, gosh, we wish we had that at the beginning because you're not seeing so much detail in the skies and flames and Colossus and Deadpool's suit." Things of that nature. [HDR] allowed me to be better at my job because I could see more color information, I could match things better. By seeing all that extra color information and detail, I felt like I was doing a better job being a colorist. I felt a lot of shots now had this painterly quality to them, which I didn't quite notice as much when we were doing the normal theatrical color grade. HDR First Impressions Tim Miller: For a first-time filmmaker every time I walked into DI, I'd get to see it on a big screen, thinking to myself, "I made a movie, fuck yeah!" [laughter] And then for this last pass they brought me in and sat me down in front of a monitor and I'm like, "well I've done this before..." But then it started playing and I truly thought it was the best looking -- format and display medium aside -- it's the best looking version of the movie by far.Tim Stipan: Yeah, the amount of detail you get in flames. You see so much more of actual flame. I wouldn't say [SDR] looked like a 2D image, but all of a sudden [with HDR] it has extra dimension to it, it's almost like 3D. HDR Extra Detail Tim Miller: Having done DIs for four different outputs, the Ultra HD is just fucking amazing at the level of detail. Especially since we did it at the end of the process. Especially the skies is where I noticed it most. In a lot of the shots, particularly on the freeway fight, there is just so much more detail. It's like suddenly the sky was not a white mass the way it had been in all the other formats. Also Deadpool's costume was the other big thing I noticed. It's got a really fine weave to it and, suddenly, all the detail in that costume comes out in a way that turns to mush in all the other formats. And VFX too. Explosions, fires, things like that, the fight in the lab looks particularly cool in this super high res format.Tim Stipan: We're taking advantage of the camera. The camera captures this and now with HDR you're allowed to see what the camera's actually capturing. HDR's Effect on Filmmaking Tim Miller: We shot ['Deadpool' in] 3K on the Alexa. If we shot in 6K, which is the newer stuff, or I could have shot on the RED, how much better would this [Ultra HD Blu-ray with HDR / WCG] look there? Where [the Blu-ray] wouldn't benefit from the extra resolution, [the Ultra HD Blu-ray] would. So aside from all the other compositional benefits, from being able to fuck around with framing, I think we'll get a huge bump in the level of detail. But to answer your question, [HDR] would probably have a negative effect on the filmmaking process because suddenly I'd be less forgiving about all that shit I know were going to see in the background.Tim Stipan: The thing I keep thinking about is the faces ... I think this happened when HD first came out is that people were all of a sudden saying, "we gotta put extra makeup on". That would be my only concern with HDR, but otherwise all the extra detail you're seeing is a huge benefit. HDR vs CGI Tim Miller: It could help or hurt depending on how good the CG is. If it didn't integrate well, it would excentuate ... and just more clearly illuminate where you fucked up. HDR vs SDR Color Timing Differences Tim Stipan: It was something that just happened. We saw [the big explosion during the film's climax] in HDR and there was more of a boldness, more detail to it. It's not that we didn't like what we did in the SDR version, but the HDR version looked great and we were like, "let's go with it." Could we have tweaked the SDR to get it closer to the HDR, yes, but it still wouldn't have the detail because there is a difference between the color of the flames.Tim Miller: But don't you just have more range to work with [in HDR]? If you had gone after that in [SDR], it would have fucked up other things.Tim Stipan: It's not something we were isolating. We didn't isolate the flames, but once we color corrected the image, they kinda fell into place. Thanks again to the Fox Innovation Lab for the invite. It's great to know, outside of our home theatre geek circles, filmmakers are as excited about this new format's capabilities as we are. Because, at the end of the day, HDR means audiences are experiencing more of a film's production than ever before.And for Heaven's sake, people, don't just sit there reading this, go check out the 'Deadpool' Ultra HD Blu-ray for yourselves... OR, if you're reading this on or before May 22, 2016, enter for a chance to WIN A FREE copy from your buds here at High-Def Digest.Posted Fri May 20, 2016 at 09:15 AM PDT by: -
'Rollercoaster' Blu-ray Dated and Supplements Detailed[teaser]The 1977 thriller starring George Segal and Henry Fonda is planned for Blu-ray in June.[/teaser] As previously reported, Shout Factory revealed 'Rollercoaster' will be coming to Blu-ray this summer, and now the date has been set for June 21. Thrills abound in this high-speed suspense yarn as Timothy Bottoms, a determined terrorist, begins to turn America's amusement parks into battlefields. The tension mounts as affable safety inspector George Segal attempts to track down the saboteur who as targeted the country's most popular rollercoaster, and its riders, for senseless destruction. The edge-of-the-seat excitement mounts as the battle of wits between Segal and Bottoms builds to an explosive climax. Co-starring Richard Widmark and Henry Fonda, the Jennings Lang production takes viewers on an unforgettable trip filled with sense-shattering twists and hairpin turns. Specs have yet to be revealed, but the release will includes the original SENSURROUND soundtrack; NEW Interview with associate producer/writer Tommy Cook (12 minutes); Still Gallery; Radio Spots; and Theatrical Trailer. You can find the latest specs for 'Rollercoaster' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it is indexed under June 21. Order the Blu-rayPosted Fri May 20, 2016 at 08:00 AM PDT by: -
Twilight Time's July and August Releases Announced[teaser]A dozen more limited edition Blu-rays are on the horizon from Screen Archives this summer. [/teaser] Screen Archives has just announced that the following five titles: 'The Black Stallion Returns', 'The Russia House', 'Zelig', 'The Gang's All Here', and 'Miss Sadie Thompson - 3D' will be available on Blu-ray on July 12. On August 16, the following films will also be available on Blu-ray: 'Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia - Encore Edition', 'The Glory Guys', 'Theatre of Blood', 'Tony Rome', 'Lady in Cement', 'Hardcore' and 'La Moglie Piu’ Bella (Aka The Most Beautiful Wife) '. No other details have been revealed at this time. You can find the latest specs for these titles linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where they are indexed under July 12 and August 16.Posted Thu May 19, 2016 at 11:00 AM PDT by: -
Aleksandr Sokurov's 'Francofonia' Blu-ray Pre-Orders Live[teaser]Director Aleksandr Sokurov will take viewers on a unique tour of the Louvre Museum in June. [/teaser]As previously reported, Music Box Films is preparing 'Francofonia' for Blu-ray on June 28. Set against the backdrop of the Louvre Museum’s history and artworks, master director Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) applies his uniquely personal vision onto staged re-enactments and archives for this fascinating portrait of real-life characters Jacques Jaujard and Count Franziskus Wolff-Metternich and their compulsory collaboration at the Louvre Museum under the Nazi Occupation. These two remarkable men - enemies then collaborators - share an alliance which would become the driving force behind the preservation of museum treasures. In its exploration of the Louvre Museum as a living example of civilization, FRANCOFONIA is a stunning and urgently relevant meditation on the essential relationship between art, culture, and history. Specs and supplements have not been detailed yet. Suggested list price for the Blu-ray is $34.95 You can find the latest specs for 'Francofonia' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it's indexed under June 28. Order the Blu-rayPosted Thu May 19, 2016 at 09:00 AM PDT by: -
Chuck Russell's 'I Am Wrath' Dated for Blu-ray[teaser]The revenge thriller starring John Travolta and Christopher Meloni will hunt down Blu-ray in July. [/teaser] In an early announcement to retailers, Lionsgate will be releasing 'I Am Wrath' on Blu-ray on July 26. Unemployed engineer Stanley Hill (John Travolta) witnesses the murder of his wife Vivian (Rebecca De Mornay), who was attacked by thugs in a parking garage. Wracked with guilt, Stanley is haunted by the image of Vivian dying in his arms. When Detective Gibson (Sam Trammell) and other corrupt police officers are unable to bring the killers to justice, Stanley turns to his old friend Dennis (Christopher Meloni) and decides to take matters into his own hands. It is only then that Stanley and Dennis are found to have a mysterious past that, until now, they have kept very well hidden. As they inflict their revenge, those involved in the cover up realise that Stanley and Dennis are more dangerous than they could ever have imagined... No other details have been released at this time. You can find the latest specs for 'I Am Wrath' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it is indexed under July 26.Posted Thu May 19, 2016 at 06:00 AM PDT by:
