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It's back! Save $10 on 'Beauty and the Beast' Blu-ray![teaser]If you missed out the first time around, Disney is once again offering $10 off the animated classic on Blu-ray! [/teaser] Disney has relaunched the coupon offer to save $10 on the 'Beauty and the Beast' Blu-ray. Click this link to access to the page where you can print out your coupon valid at participating retail stores. Printable coupons are available for both the U.S. and Canada, and the promotion expires on November 28.Posted Mon Nov 22, 2010 at 06:30 AM PST by: -
'I Spit on Your Grave (2010)' Blu-ray Detailed[teaser]Full details are in for the horror remake coming down the Blu-ray pipeline in February. [/teaser] As previously reported, Starz/Anchor Bay says 'I Spit on Your Grave (2010)' is coming to Blu-ray on February 8, on the same date as the original 1978 version. The original version was reviled, condemned, and banned around the world for its on-screen depictions of depravity and violence. Now experience the acclaimed remake that dares to go even further: Jennifer Hills (a fearless performance by Sarah Butler) is a big-city novelist who rents an isolated country cabin to write her new book. But when she is brutally raped by a group of sadistic rednecks, Jennifer has plans for more than mere revenge. One-by-one she will find them. She will inflict horrific acts of agonizing torment upon them. And no jury in America would ever convict her. Jeff Branson (“ALL MY CHILDREN”), Daniel Franzese (BULLY), Rodney Eastman (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3 & 4), Chad Lindberg (THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS) and Tracey Walter (THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS) co-star in this graphic, shocking and undeniably disturbing new take on one of the most controversial films of all time. The Blu-ray will feature 1080p video, a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack, and supplements will include: Filmmakers commentary with producer Lisa Hansen and director Steven R. Monroe; Behind-the-scenes featurette; original theatrical teaser and trailer; and deleted scenes. Suggested list price for the Blu-ray is $25.99. You can find the latest specs for 'I Spit on Your Grave (2010)' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it's indexed under February 8.Posted Mon Nov 22, 2010 at 06:00 AM PST by: -
"High-Def Digest-Digest" - November 21, 2010[teaser]Hey, we get it. You don't always have time to sift through all the stories we put up in order to find the best bits. It's November after all, and that means if you're not out Christmas shopping or seeing 'Harry Potter' you're probably cooking a turkey, watching football, or eating maize on the cob. Don't worry, we've hand-picked all the best stories of the last two weeks and brought them your way.[/teaser] Blu-ray News: Inception - Limited Edition Briefcase Gift Set' Up For Preorder Couldn't get enough of 'Inception?' This combo pack gets you the Blu-ray, DVD and digital copies of the movie in addition to a 33 page comic, 10-page PASIV instruction manual, a metal top and comes in a metal briefcase. It's the ultimate collector's edition. Blu-ray Scores An 'Easy A' Emma Stone shines in this Ferris Bueller like comedy that's set to hit shelves on December 21st. 'Coraline - 3D' Blu-ray 3D Gets Retail Release None of that red/blue anaglyph this time. 'Coraline' finally gets a legitimate 3D release, but it's sadly coming just a bit late for the holidays – January 4. 'Howl' Blu-ray Announced It's James Franco's year. Not only has he starred in the critically acclaimed '127 Hours,' but his role as Allen Ginsberg in 'Howl' has been called out by many as Oscar worthy. The Blu-ray hits on January 4. Sneak Peek: Black Friday Week Sales at Amazon! The sale starts Monday, with DVDs as low as $2 and Blu-rays as low as $5. You won't want to miss these ridiculously good deals. Vizio Launches a Pair of 3D Blu-ray Players Once known as the best of the budget television makers, Vizio has been picking up the pace, even introducing 3D Blu-ray players. Oppo Reveals Official BDP-93 Specs – Discontinues Older Models We finally get the full scoop on the impressive BDP-93, but sadly we lose out on the legendary BDP-83 which is permanently discontinued. Amazon Talks Blu-ray's Ups and Downs Michael S. Palmer writes up a fascinating talk by Amazon execs about where Blu-ray is now, and where it needs to be before the format is truly dominant. Least Shocking Announcement Ever...James Cameron Hearts Blu-ray Second least shocking announcement follows… James Cameron Hearts 3D. Other News: Hulu Plus Launches At $7.99 a Month The long-awaited service finally launches officially and at $2 less than the originally stated monthly fee. But is this discount enough to get consumers on board? Vudu Comes to the PS3 – Interface Makeover on the Way The Sony PlayStation 3 gets yet another update that keeps it at the top of the Blu-ray player game, and Vudu boasts that a new interface will soon make movie selection easier than ever. Mitsubishi Updates 2010 3D TVs for Full 3D Compatibility No more worrying about compatible 3D formats or messing around with adapters. Mitsubishi's 2010 line of 3D capable TVs is now updated and ready to go for any format you can throw at it. Plasma Sales Outgrow LCD Sales in 2010 After a few years toiling under misinformation and some early issues, plasma sets are back on the rise. The biggest sellers? 720p screens over 50 inches. Netflix Accounts for Twenty Percent of Internet Use That's right, a whole fifth of the internet bandwidth currently used is Netflix, which accounts for almost half of all streaming media. The Bonus View: Where Netflix Fails: Foreign Films Some films are subbed, some are dubbed, and some just leave it up to the viewer to speak Korean. This is just one of those places where Netflix fails. Is the Internet Really Ready for Movie Streaming? Josh questions whether we're really able to handle all the streaming that's heading our way and one commenter lays down the hard numbers. Talk About 'Modern Times!' Josh muses on the "time traveler" found in an old Charlie Chapman movie and hilarity ensues. This May Be It for Music Games Viacom Sells Harmonix and music games on the whole see a downturn. Is this it for the once giant genre?Posted Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 05:30 PM PST by: -
HDD Deal of the Week: 'Alien Anthology' Blu-ray Set is $70.49 at Amazon[teaser]In space no one can hear you scream... even when you're gleefully saving fifty percent on one of the year's biggest and best Blu-ray releases! Makes a great gift!![/teaser] The online retailer is now selling the must own 'Alien Anthology' boxed set for $70.49 (50% off suggested list price). The set includes 'Alien,' 'Aliens,' 'Alien 3,' and 'Alien: Resurrection' with hours upon hours of bonus materials! It's worth mentioning that for a limited time, if you also add 'The Last of the Mohicans' to your order, you'll save an additional $20 -- getting both for $65.48! Click here to check out the offer at Amazon and see Sigourney Weaver kick some alien ass in high-definition! The deal will run from now through November 27.Posted Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 05:05 PM PST by: -
HDD Spotlight Bargain: 'Christmas Classics' Blu-ray $19.49 at Amazon[teaser]Deal of the Day: There's a winter wonderland of holiday classics in Amazon's Gold Box special today! [/teaser] The online retailer is now selling 'Christmas Classics' for $19.49 (57% off suggested retail price). The release includes 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' (1964), 'Frosty the Snowman, 'Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town,' and 'Frosty Returns.' The Gold Box offer can be viewed here and will only last until midnight PST.Posted Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 01:06 PM PST by: -
HD Advisor Nineteen Eighty-FourEditor's Note: Each Friday, High-Def Digest's own HD Advisor will answer a new round of questions from our readers. If you have home theater questions you need answered, send an email to [email protected]. If you've already sent a question and don't see it answered yet, please be patient as we work our way through them. To browse through previously answered questions, visit the main HD Advisor page. Answers by Joshua Zyber DVD Pixel Aspect Ratios Q: In HD Advisor 82, you answered a question about aspect ratios and said the following: "NTSC DVD has a resolution of 720x480 pixels, but those pixels are not square. Depending on the type of content on the disc, those same pixels can be used to create either a 4:3 image or a 16:9 image. In the case of the latter, the movie picture is authored in a vertically "squished" fashion, which a 16:9 HDTV will stretch horizontally after-the-fact to correct the picture geometry." This information would be true if you were talking about the MiniDV format, but this is not true of the DVD format. On an NTSC DVD, the video is encoded with SQUARE pixels, and the resolution is different depending on the selected aspect ratio. For a 4:3 DVD, the resolution is 640x480 while a 16:9 DVD has a resolution of 720x404. (To be truly 16:9, the vertical resolution should be 405, but alas, it is not.) You can confirm this easily using a program called bbDemux. Give it a VOB file from a (non-copy-protected) DVD and it will spit out the de-multiplexed MPEG-2 file. Open that with QuickTime to check resolution. A: Unfortunately, I believe that you've been mislead by the process you've used to check the resolution. NTSC DVD, whether 4:3 or 16:9, has a fixed resolution of 720x480 pixels. If these pixels were square, that would yield an aspect ratio of 1.5:1. However, DVD pixels are not square. DVD video is defined in two terms: Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR) and Display Aspect Ratio (DAR). The PAR tells you the shape of the pixels themselves, while the DAR tells you the shape of the final image displayed on screen. For 4:3 imagery, the pixels in a DVD have a PAR of 10:11. For 16:9 content, the PAR is 40:33. PAL DVD has a fixed resolution of 720x576 pixels. The PARs are 59:54 and 118:81 for 4:3 and 16:9 display respectively. When output from a DVD player and viewed on a CRT television or monitor (remember that DVDs were originally designed with CRT display in mind), the pixels are stretched to the appropriate PAR to achieve the desired DAR. Fixed pixel display devices such as LCD computer monitors or digital HDTVs use square pixels. To watch a DVD on these, the original non-square pixels must be scaled to a 1:1 PAR for playback. Thus, a 4:3 image is scaled to 640x480 square pixels, and a 16:9 image is scaled to 720x404 pixels. (From there, the pictures may be upconverted to the screen's native resolution, such as 1920x1080 for a 1080p TV.) When you go through the process of demuxing a DVD on your computer and then playing the file in QuickTime, the QuickTime readout is only telling you the resolution after the image has been scaled for computer playback. It doesn't tell you the original resolution as the data was originally stored on the DVD. Uncompressed Audio in Theaters Q: As per my understanding and research, all the movie soundtracks in theatres are encoded on the CD-ROM (for DTS) at a 1.5 Mb/s bit rate. Since there is so much data during the sound mixing, it is compressed for convenience. I just want to understand why theatres don't get their soundtracks encoded on a higher capacity disc, such as a Blu-ray, so that we may get to hear much more clarity. A: What you say is correct (or close to correct) as it pertains to traditional 35mm theaters. However, modern digital projection theaters and IMAX theaters utilize uncompressed PCM audio for all movie soundtracks. In 35mm film-based projection houses, movie soundtracks are indeed compressed into any of three standard digital formats: Dolby Digital, DTS, or SDDS. Note that the versions of Dolby Digital and DTS used in theaters are different than the versions we use at home. The theatrical version of Dolby Digital is recorded onto the film print itself in between the sprocket holes, and runs at a fixed bit rate of 320 kb/s. The theatrical version of DTS is authored onto a CD-Rom that runs in sync with the film print, and is encoded at a fixed bit rate of 882 kb/s. Why such low bit rates? Both systems were developed in the early 1990s, long before the advent of Blu-ray. Dolby Digital is limited by the small physical space that it must be squeezed into on the film print. And DTS is limited by the storage capacity of the CD-Roms. Could either of these formats be updated at this point? I would say that's doubtful. The old equipment is standardized in far too many theaters to change now. Also, as theaters transition to digital projection and uncompressed PCM sound, there's little call to invest in the development of updates to the old formats. Expert Feedback This week, the Advisor received some feedback on an earlier column from Steve Venuti, president of the HDMI Licensing organization. I will therefore defer to a certified expert in the subject. The PS3 and HDMI 1.4 Feedback: I ran across a Q&A that you had written and wanted to provide you with a little more information. Each version of the HDMI standard contains options rather than requirements. So, a product can implement one feature and not another and be in full compliance with the HDMI specification. The PS3, as an example, can implement 3-D capabilities and not offer Audio Return Channel or HDMI Ethernet Channel, and be fully compliant. One other point of confusion that we constantly hear is how a legacy device (which obviously does not have a chip designed after the launch of the 1.4 version of the specification), can implement a feature based on the 1.4 standard. The confusion here is between the relationship of features and the requirements for new silicon. So, for example, the PS3 cannot implement the HDMI Ethernet Channel via a firmware upgrade since the silicon itself is not designed to handle this feature. However, 3-D capabilities CAN be handled by some silicon out in the field, so the PS3 can do a firmware upgrade and essentially bring that legacy silicon into compliance with the 3-D feature of the specification. There is not a 1-1 relationship between silicon and the features of a particular version. Sometimes new silicon is required and sometime the new feature can be implemented via a firmware upgrade. Sony's PS3 in this case could be marketed as a 1.4 product with 3-D capability. We no longer allow manufacturers to just say blanket 1.4 compliance, since it could also intimate that the device is capable of other features associated with the 1.4 specification. Check back soon for another round of answers. Keep those questions coming. Joshua Zyber's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of this site, its owners or employees.Posted Fri Nov 19, 2010 at 11:00 AM PST by: -
HDD Spotlight Bargain Sneak Peek: Black Friday Week Sales at Amazon![teaser]It's that crazy time of year again! Don't miss out on Amazon's lightning deals running all next week! [/teaser] Beginning very early on Monday morning, the online retailer will be launching a massive Black Friday Week Sale with some great bargains you won't want to miss. Each day will have a bunch of deals at various times including DVDs for as low as $1.99 and Blu-ray discs for as low as $5! Click here to browse the Lightning Deal Calendar at Amazon! The sale runs from November 22-29.Posted Fri Nov 19, 2010 at 10:40 AM PST by: -
HDD Black Friday Madness: 'Vengeance Trilogy Blu-ray Tin' $30 plus shipping at Palisades Tartan![teaser]Revenge is a dish best served Blu! Palisades Tartan is offering Park Chan-wook's Korean masterpieces for over half off! [/teaser] The studio is selling 'Vengeance Trilogy Tin' for only $30 plus shipping (over 50% off suggested list price). The set includes 'Oldboy,' 'Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,' and 'Lady Vengeance,' and this special offer is limited to stock on hand so if you haven't already picked up this must-own set, now's the perfect time to do so! Click here for a direct Paypal link to pick up yourself a copy at this amazing price!Posted Fri Nov 19, 2010 at 10:35 AM PST by: -
'Kathleen Madigan: Gone Madigan' Announced for Blu-ray[teaser]The woman some have hailed as "The Funniest Comic in America" is coming to Blu-ray this January. [/teaser] In an announcement to retailers, Image Entertainment has revealed 'Kathleen Madigan: Gone Madigan' is slated for Blu-ray on January 11. Winner of the American Comedy Award for Best Female Comic, Madigan has been seen on “The Tonight Show,” “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “The View,” “Dr. Phil,” “The Joy Behar Show” and has had her own specials on HBO and Comedy Central. Madigan was the only comedian in the history of NBC's “Last Comic Standing” to go unchallenged by any other comedian and also returned to the show as a talent scout. Called by Jay Leno, one of America’s funniest female comics, Kathleen Madigan proves it in 'Kathleen Madigan: Gone Madigan,' a night of laughs you’ll want to share and relive again and again. It’s a hilarious trip through the absurdities of modern life with one of the sharpest minds in comedy today as your guide. So get ready to get gone – Gone Madigan! The Blu-ray will feature 1080p video, a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack, and supplements include behind the scenes footage and interviews. Suggested list price for the Blu-ray is $17.98. You can find the latest specs for 'Kathleen Madigan: Gone Madigan' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it's indexed under January 11.Posted Fri Nov 19, 2010 at 10:00 AM PST by: -
'I Spit on Your Grave (1978)' Blu-ray Features and Cover Art Added[teaser]Details are trickling in for the controversial thriller also known as 'Day of the Woman' hitting Blu-ray in February. [/teaser] As previously reported, Starz/Anchor Bay says 'I Spit on Your Grave (1978)' is coming to Blu-ray on February 8. Banned or heavily censored in many countries, the film tells the horrific tale of a writer who is brutally gang raped and left for dead, only to hunt down her attackers one by one in the name of vengeance. Specs have yet to be revealed, but the release will include an all-new interview with writer/producer/director Meir Zarchi about the making of this film and its legacy for the past three decades. Suggested list price for the Blu-ray is $24.99. You can find the latest specs for 'I Spit on Your Grave (1978)' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it's indexed under February 8.Posted Fri Nov 19, 2010 at 08:00 AM PST by:
