Independence Day on Blu-ray delayed

Henning,

Since they delayed it til March, do you think that they could possibly sneak some profile 1.1 features since this is a good choice of movie for HD playback or is the disk features finalized and they will stick with fixing the playback issues with players?

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[Post edited by tony1569 on Dec 2, 2007]

Along with this news, I read on highdefdigest's site yesterday that Disney will be offering a "disc exchange" program for PIRATES/CARRIBEAN #1 in the coming months. That was the Blu-ray release (from May) that had a brief 9-minute segment where the framing/cropping of the image was not done correctly, with a few shots where a character's head is a little cut-off [camera pans].

-Love Hendrix! (The Loverboy) DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray owner

I wonder what the "minor glitch" was.

if that "heads cut off" issue happened to a movie i really really liked, i would have been a very pissed blu guy

I know the cut off heads and altered framing of the entire 109 minutes of the Top Gun HD DVD made me a slightly pissed of purple guy. And Paramount's response? Silence. At least it wasn't one of my favorite movies. But what Universal did to Tremors really pissed me off - a full 95 minutes of digital EE artifacts that not a single scene escaped from. And Universal's response so far? Silence.

You have to give Disney credit that they're willing to admit a mistake, even if it applies to a single scene, and swallow the huge cost of re-releasing the movie with a free exchange program. Sony was kind enough to do the same with the The Fifth Element because of softness. It pisses me off that studios like Paramount and Universal on the other hand just think the consumer will double-dip in a few years when they release a "remastered" version of their problem titles. Perhaps because they still consider us "early adopters" and that we represent such a small proportion of the whole media market share, they just don't care. I'm glad that at least Disney and Sony seem to care about us little guys when it comes to correcting mistakes that impact such a small proportion of the market.

And as a purple guy, I was a little disappointed that Independence Day was being delayed by Fox, but I'd rather see it done right rather than disappointing even 5% of Blu-ray owners. At least the delay will help my pocketbook, since I had also planned to pick up Cast Away for me, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith for the wifie. Luckily nothing out on HD DVD this week or I'd be broke.

You guys can say what you want about SONY but they knew that the had a dud on their hands with the Fifth Element, but they remastered it and gave it to any one who bought the first one for free.

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[Post edited by tony1569 on Dec 3, 2007]

Tony I agree. They realized it was crap and gave the costumers a replacement which was a vast improvement. Problem solved.

My only problem with these studios (for both formats) is why release this crap and call it "hidef"? Bluray did it with Robocop, Fifth Element. Pirates, etc...HD DVD does it with Tremors and from what Skyhawk is reporting Top Gun, maybe other also?

Don't they check these out before replicating them? Yes it's great when they replace it with a good copy but it's annoying. Especially when you purchase it on hdef, go home and get the popcorn out to watch the movie only to have the whole thing ruined with a crappy transfer.

Relax Sony1569.. they were actually saying something positive abotu sony replacing it dude.

Falcon i'm not crazy about most of those movies. except for maybe 5th element. i have not seen tremors though.

I wish Sony would replace my "House of Flying Daggers" with a newly mastered Blu-ray that did it justice

Like with standard DVD, both HD DVD and Blu-ray have a lot of duds with their earliest efforts. They have gotten better over time - just not consistently. Although I know the source has much to do with transfer quality, IMO neither format should be rushing to release catalog titles out without cleaning up the source and retelecining the masters. Then fix it up frame-by-frame if need be. Sure it cost money - so delay the specific release until the market size makes it worthwhile. I can't remember the movie now (or if it were HD DVD or Blu-ray), but I even saw an eyelash on a frame once while watching a title. Come on, there is no excuse for that.

Falcoln01 said -

Quote:
"My only problem with these studios (for both formats) is why release this crap and call it "hidef"? Bluray did it with Robocop, Fifth Element. Pirates, etc..."

Well, seriously the PIRATES movies don't look like "crap", even with the small/brief glitch in the first movie. Most people didn't even notice the cropping on the panning shots (during the 9-minute segment), until AFTER it was pointed out on newsgroups and highdefdigest.com. Both PIRATES Blu-rays look and sound fantastic, and have received recommendations on the various online reviews. Still, once Disney offers the exchange, those of us who have the movie will want to exchange it for a "perfectly"-mastered copy.

As for HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, the PCM soundtracks is incredible, but the video mastering, although in high-def, it is much too soft, and this is one disc that because of it's poor video mastering, WOULD benefit from added edge enhancement (ironically). As it is, I watch my copy and INCREASE the sharpness (just for this title), so as to make it look the best. Still, Sony ought to replace/exchange it too, like they did 5th Element.

-Love Hendrix! (The Loverboy) DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray owner