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Criterion embraces Blu-ray

Marc Chacksfield — 1210332180

Hi-def enthusiasts rejoice! Prestigious US movie distributor Criterion has lined up 13 titles to be released on Blu-ray in the coming months.

The company, which is famed for its brilliant restoration of classic movies such as The Man Who Fell To Earth and Dr Strangelove, has pencilled in an October release for its first-ever HD line-up. The movies released are wide-ranging – from Carol Reed’s The Third Man to Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket.

Criterion is promising in its newsletter to make sure pricing of the discs are similar to their standard-definition equivalents.

Those familiar with Criterion will know the company likes to take care of its film collection. It was among the first to introduce the widescreen format to video, and it also had the ingenious idea of filling up the space of discs with audio commentaries and the like.

Compatibility issues

Unfortunately, there’s no word yet if The Criterion Collection Blu-rays will be multi-region. So, if you’re based in Europe, it is best to check if your Blu-ray system is Region A compatible before you whip out the credit card and get ordering.

Those who are interested in getting their hands on the company’s Blu-ray titles can check out the full list of movies here.

Men in Black is first UK BD-Live Blu-ray film

1210162766

Sony Pictures has revealed that sci-fi blockbuster Men in Black will be the first film it releases to the international market with Blu-ray BD-Live functionality.

For those who are completely unaware of what BD-Live is, it enables network functionality and brings extras and games.

In the case of MiB this manifests itself with a BD-Live multi-player Interactive Trivia Game, as well as exclusive downloadable theatrical and home entertainment previews.

They even throw in a FAQ about BD-Live functionality.

Exciting possibilities

"SPHE is delighted to bring BD-Live to International markets for the first time," stated Matt Brown of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

"This follows a successful launch in the US in March and is just the start of the exciting possibilities that will soon be available on high definition Blu-ray Disc."

If you have 2.0 Blu-ray player (if you’ve updated your PS3 then it will do just fine) then you only have to hold on until 16 June for that long-awaited FAQ.

Updated: Is a Blu-ray player really worth buying?

Ian Calcutt — 1207839600

High-definition TVs are everywhere but the vast majority of what people watch on them is still old fashioned standard-def material. There are now plenty of choices for getting spectacular HD content onto the screen, not least of which is Blu-ray.

However, there are also lots of HD movies on Sky, you can upscale any DVD to near-HD levels of quality and there's the promise of Freeview HD by 2012. Blu-ray might have won the format war, but is a Blu-ray player really worth getting?

"No," says Ian Calcutt

Blu-ray is not the only way to enjoy an HD quality picture. A good upscaling DVD player (like the Denon DVD-1730 ) will cost a fraction of the price of a next-gen disc spinner, even producing 1080p resolutions in some cases. DVD is hardly about to die out.

Blu-ray hardware is expensive. It's all very well if you're a gamer and have a PlayStation 3 (by far the best Blu-ray player, by the way), but home cinema buffs have to pay over the odds for a decent standalone player.

Ok, so the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD did create consumer confusion. But the competition did drive hardware prices down to almost ludicrously low levels. Did you know that since HD DVD bowed out, prices of some Blu-ray players have actually gone up?!

HD DVD was pretty finalised as a spec, but Blu-ray's hardware and software are still evolving. Some older Blu-ray players have no Ethernet ports for accessing upgrades and interactive disc features via broadband. Many also lack outputs to make the most of the picture and sound that discs can deliver. Some players don't support 7.1 channel audio and many don't meet the latest v1.3 spec of HDMI , allowing for better colour and lip-sync. Don't buy a Blu-ray player unless it supports the full Profile 2.0 spec.

You can get HD movies, sport, drama and documentaries from satellite and cable TV. Both platforms also use PVR technology for on-demand HD viewing.

Finally, the internet will become an increasingly important way to deliver HD. So, unless you really must build up a collection of discs on your shelf, why do you even need another disc player? Microsoft's Xbox Live already offers HD downloads to subscribers and you should expect other download services (including Apple's iTunes) to follow suit in the future. Why do we need another disc format, when digital delivery is obviously the next big thing?

"Yes," says Matt Hastings

Blu-ray won the high-def disc war, so it's the only way to watch true HD movies on your TV (unless you're a Sky HD or Virgin Media subscriber).

Even the best upscaling DVD players are no match for genuine HD source material. Why stick with DVD's dated video system (based on very lossy MPEG-2 compression) and rely on an upscaler's guesswork at what bits of the image are missing? Get the whole thing for real on Blu-ray disc. For those movies you still own on DVD, Blu-ray players upscale too, so you get the best of both worlds.

The average TV is getting bigger as technology improves and relative prices come down. Normal DVD pictures are going to start looking increasingly worse in the months and years to come. As a delivery system for HD, Blu-ray is a natural fit for big TVs.

Blu-ray can support films in the higher quality 1080p progressive scan format. Some players also offer a 24 frames-per-second output for as close a match to the original cinema copy as possible. You don't get 1080p with HDTV broadcasts and HD DVD players are not yet 24fps-compatible.

The audio capabilities of Blu-ray also far exceed those of DVD. Lossless high-end formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD are making movies sound as good as they did to the engineers in the mastering suite.

Like computer memory, you rarely realise how much you're going to want until you're outgrowing your system. At 50GB, Blu-ray has the highest capacity among disc-based media. And its future potential for storing top-notch pictures and high-bandwidth sound is currently unbeatable. Blu-ray can also be put to many other uses, from HD computer games on Sony's PS3 to backing up massive amounts of PC data.

Amazon makes HD DVD owners feel better

Don Reisinger — 1207796478

Amazon.com announced on Wednesday that anyone who purchased an HD DVD player from the retailer will be offered a $50 (£25) credit to be used at any time on the company's website. The news follows the death of the format back in February when Toshiba finally announced it was pulling out of the HD DVD business.

Citing its "value for customer relationships", Amazon sent an email to shoppers to inform them of the credit. Anyone who purchased an HD DVD player through its American online store before 23 February is eligible for the credit, which can be redeemed at any time between now and 9 April 2009.

Giving something back

"New technologies don't always work out as planned," the company wrote in a letter to customers. "We at Amazon.com value our customer relationships more than anything and would like to support customers who purchased these players by offering a credit good for $50 off any products sold by Amazon.com."

Amazon's decision to offer the credit doesn't come as a surprise, with many major retailers like Wal-Mart having already initiated similar programmes. Considering that none of these retailers actually needed to make such a gesture though, it's nice to see them give something back.

Blu-ray movies to play nicely with iPhone

Don Reisinger — 1207708370

Although Apple has taken fire for its lack of third-party support, one company is forging ahead with a solution that will network Blu-ray technology with both the iPhone and iPod Touch.

NetBlender, a company that specialises in network-connected convergent media, will announce a new technology this week that allows Blu-ray content to run seamlessly on Apple handhelds.

Dubbed the BD Touch, the company's solution uses Blu-ray's networking capabilities to allow users to interact with movies by using their iPhone and iPod Touch as remote controls.

Greater user interaction

"The sophisticated user interface of the iPhone enables greater user interaction as well as the power to leverage the iPhone's existing network.

"Search, e-commerce and advertising possibilities related to movie content abound when one imagines real-time communication between the iPhone and the content currently being displayed on a Blu-ray player," a NetBlender representative said.

NetBlender said that it will officially announce its new technology Thursday, but promised that Blu-ray movies will stream to the iPhone and iPod Touch soon.

New Sony Blu-ray copies video to PSP, Walkman

J Mark Lytle — 1207639828

Now that Blu-ray is clearly the one format to rule them all, makers are throwing themselves into building bigger and better machines with almost reckless abandon.

The latest next-generation BD player from Sony Japan is due to hit the shops there in about three weeks and promises far more in the way of features than anything we've yet seen from camp Blu-ray.

The BDZ-A70 sports a shiny new button marked 'One Touch' that takes TV shows pre-selected via an EPG and recorded on the quiet and dumps them all onto a docked video Walkman or PSP.

48 hours per disk

Forking out over ¥170,000 (£835) for the A70 also brings a 320GB hard drive and Blu-ray recorder, as you might expect. The drive can hold up to 315 hours of high-definition broadcasts, while compressing shows to the max squeezes just over 48 hours of low-def material on a dual layer BD.

Getting back to the more exotic portability features, there are options for how well done you like your video. Although the resolution is fixed at QVGA 320 x 240 pixels, the bit rate can be either 384Kbps or 786Kbps.

Time saver

Aside from a marginal quality difference, the lower bit rate is quicker to copy for those in a rush - an hour of programming takes about two minutes to make its way onto a PSP's Memory Stick, which is a full minute saved over the full-fat encoding.

There are a staggering amount of high-end features that we won't go into here, as - needless to say - the A70 will be available only in Japan, but we can recommend the demo video on Sony's press release page. It's in Japanese, but it warms the cockles to see something so exotic - yes, an uncrowded commuter train.

Survey shows 80 per cent ready for Blu-ray

J Mark Lytle — 1207553732

The latest survey of consumers' high-definition shopping plans from Japan has come to the not-entirely-startling conclusion that almost everyone intends to buy a Blu-ray machine now that HD DVD is out of the picture.

MyVoice Communications surveyed almost 15,000 people in March and found that 81 per cent want to pick up a Blu-ray recorder, although exactly when is less clear-cut.

Toshiba too?

Practically none of the respondents had concrete plans for when they'd be going shopping, with most opting to say they really weren't sure when they'd splash the cash.

Whenever they do decide to upgrade to Blu-ray, those shoppers said they were about equally likely to go for a Panasonic machine (24 per cent) as for a Sony recorder (21 per cent). Rather oddly, just over 3 per cent said they'd likely go for a Toshiba unit - perhaps they know something we don't.

Regardless of the best-laid plans, the bottom line is really what matters when people get into the shops. A huge 33 per cent of answers indicated that the price would be the deciding factor in any Blu-ray purchase.

Quality matters

Picture quality was next (16 per cent), followed by the brand and ease of use of any machine (both around 10 per cent). Intriguingly, the ability to record high-definition broadcasts was worth only 2 per cent.

Not to be overlooked, however are the 9 per cent of respondents who said they have "no idea" how they'd choose a Blu-ray deck - there's clearly a lot of marketing still to be done.

THX scientist's doubt over Blu-ray

Patrick Goss — 1206628435

Blu-ray may have won the format battle, but it may not have won the HD war – at least according to a scientist at THX.

THX is part of George Lucas’ empire, and Laurie Fincham, one of the company’s scientists, told Mobile Magazine: "I think it's too late for Blu-ray. I think consumers will only be interested in replacing DVD when HD movies become available on flash memory. Do we really need another spinning format?

“In the future, I want to be able to carry four to five movies around with me in a wallet, or walk into a store and have someone copy me a movie to a USB device. Stores will like that idea, because it's all about having zero inventory. I don't want to take up shelf space with dozens of HD movies."

Clarification

THX’s senior PR manager Graham McKenna clarified the comment after inevitable ‘THX declare Blu-ray dead’ headlines, adding: THX recognizes the quality and benefits that the Blu-ray HD format brings to the home theater experience.

“We are dedicated to supporting Blu-ray with new THX technologies and other initiatives.

“At its very core, THX is about advancing the quality of the entertainment experience, whether that is on optical disc, downloads or other emerging media. I believe Mr. Fincham’s comments reflect that broader goal.”

The inevitable PR fire-fighting aside, it’s interesting that a senior figure in one of the most respected sound reproduction firm believes that flash memory, rather than HD downloads is the future.

Newly desirable PS3 plays cheap Blu-ray disks

J Mark Lytle — 1206607193

A little-documented by-product of the latest PlayStation 3 firmware update could give Blu-ray an unexpected boost that it probably didn’t need anyway.

According to games website SPOnG, firmware 2.20 now allows the PS3 to play BD-R LTH disks, which are both cheaper to buy and to manufacture. The upshot could well be a shot in the arm for the entire Blu-ray market thanks to a lower cost of ownership overall.

Same plants, different disks

In case you’re wondering – and, frankly, we were too – BD-R LTH disks (the LTH stands for Low To High) use organic dye in their recording layers, a trick that means existing DVD plants can churn out the disks with only minimal adjustments.

BD-R LTH disks are currently available only in Japan, where they sell for about half the price of BD-Rs of the same capacity.

Blu-ray under threat as patent claim looms

J Mark Lytle — 1206421139

Patent infringement claims made by individuals are rarely successful, but a US action involving Sony, Nokia and others appears to be gaining momentum.

The individual concerned is Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, a retired University of Columbia professor, who currently holds an emeritus chair there.

Pay up or shut up

Rothschild claims Sony and around 30 other electronics companies are illegally using her intellectual property in various Blu-ray products and some related areas.

According to a her legal team, the basis for her claim is a 1993 US patent granted to her that, "covers a method of producing wide band-gap semiconductors for LEDs ... in the blue/ultraviolet end of the spectrum."

In other words, Professor Rothschild could be due a sizeable slice of the £3.5 billion worth of products using such technology due to be sold over the next year. Sony declined to comment on the action.