podcast
HDTV and Home Theater Podcast #324 - Spooky Blu-ray, can it live forever?
Today's Show:
As the first Halloween with one High Definition movie disc format, we compiled a list of the ten best spooky movies on Blu-ray, just in case you don't have anything to do and want to watch something scary. But before we get too far on that, we also cover some recent reports about Blu-ray being a temporary format and not having that much life left. Who knows, maybe next year we'll give the list of the top ten high definition downloads for Halloween.
Top Ten Blu-ray movies for Halloween
10. Pan's Labyrinth (Buy now)
Following a bloody civil war, young Ofelia enters a world of unimaginable cruelty when she moves in with her new stepfather, a tyrannical military officer. Armed with only her imagination, Ofelia discovers a mysterious labyrinth and meets a faun who sets her on a path to saving herself and her ailing mother. But soon, the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur, and before Ofelia can turn back, she finds herself at the center of a ferocious battle between good and evil.
- 1080p VC-1 video
- DTS HD Master Audio 7.1 surround track
- Technical review at High Def Digest
Closer in spirit to a police procedural than a gory serial-killer flick, David Fincher's Zodiac provides a sleek, armrest-gripping re-invention of the crime film. It surveys the investigation of the Zodiac killings that terrorized the San Francisco Bay area in the late -60-early -70s; Zodiac not only killed people, but cultivated a Jack the Ripper aura by sending icky letters to the newspapers and daring readers to solve coded messages.
- 1080p VC-1 video
- Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track
- Technical review at High Def Digest
In the Underworld, Vampires are a secret clan of modern aristocratic sophisticates whose mortal enemies are the Lycans (werewolves), a shrewd gang of street thugs who prowl the city's underbelly. Noone knows the origin of their bitter blood feud, but the balance of power between them turns even bloodier when a beautiful young Vampire warrior and a newly-turned Lycan with a mysterious past fall in love. Kate Beckinsale and Scott Speedman star in this modern-day, action-packed tale of ruthless intrigue and forbidden passion - all set against the dazzling backdrop of a timeless, Gothic metropolis.
- 1080p AVC MPEG-4 video
- uncompressed PCM 5.1 surround track
- Technical review at High Def Digest
In Newline's The Orphanage a woman discovers dark secrets hidden within her cherished childhood home. The supernatural drama is the feature film debut of acclaimed young Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona. A superbly atmospheric and emotionally powerful tale of love, loss and guilt. There are a few gory make-up effects, but Bayona mostly preys on our fear of the unknown to craft a first-rate fright fest.
- 1080p VC-1 video
- DTS HD Lossless Master Audio 7.1 (Spanish)
- Technical review at High Def Digest
Robert Neville is a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable, and man-made. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City and maybe the world. For three years, Neville has faithfully sent out daily radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. But he is not alone. Mutant victims of the plague, The Infected, lurk in the shadows...watching Neville's every move...waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind's last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood. But he knows he is outnumbered...and quickly running out of time.
- 1080p VC-1 video
- Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround
- Technical review at High Def Digest
On an annual extreme outdoor adventure, six women meet in a remote part of the Appalachians to explore a cave hidden deep in the woods. Far below the surface of the earth, disaster strikes when a rock fall blocks their exit and there's no way out. The women push on, praying for another exit, but there is something else lurking under the earth. The friends are now prey, forced to unleash their most primal instincts in an all-out war against an unspeakable horror - one that attacks without warning, again and again and again.
- 1080p AVC MPEG-4 video
- uncompressed PCM 6.1 surround mix
- Technical review at High Def Digest
After his father's accidental death, Kale remains withdrawn and troubled. When he lashes out at a well-intentioned but insensitive teacher, he finds himself under a court-ordered house arrest. His mother continues to cope, working extra shifts to support herself and her son, as she tries in vain to understand the changes in his personality. His interests turn outside the windows of his suburban home toward those of his neighbors, including a mutual attraction to the new girl next door. Together, they begin to suspect that another neighbor is a serial killer. Are their suspicions merely the product of Kale's cabin fever and vivid imagination? Or have they unwittingly stumbled across a crime that could cost them their lives?
- 1080p AVC MPEG-4 video
- DTS 6.1 Surround-ES and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX
- Technical review at High Def Digest
Even for a 12-year old, D.J. Walters has a particularly overactive imagination. He is convinced that his haggard and crabby neighbor Horace Nebbercracker, who terrorizes all the neighborhood kids, is responsible for Mrs. Nebbercracker's mysterious disappearance. Any toy that touches Nebbercracker's property, promptly disappears, swallowed up by the cavernous house in which Horace lives. D.J. has seen it with his own eyes! But no one believes him, not even his best friend, Chowder. What everyone does not know is D.J. is not imagining things. Everything he's seen is absolutely true and it's about to get much worse than anything D.J could have imagined.
- 1080p MPEG-2 video
- uncompressed PCM 5.1 surround mix
- Technical review at High Def Digest
After years of rumors, it turns out that Tim Burton was the perfect visionary to film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Stephen Sondheim's Broadway masterpiece, and the result is a macabre and moving musical movie as enthralling as anything Burton has ever done. The show's mix of gothic horror, Grand Guignol, very dark humor, and witty and beautiful music never was the stuff of traditional musical comedy, but it's a powerful work, and perhaps the richest of the late 20th century.
- 1080p VC-1 video
- lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1
- Technical review at High Def Digest
?Heeeeere?s Johnny!? In a macabre masterpiece adapted from Stephen King?s novel, Jack Nicholson falls prey to forces haunting a snowbound mountain resort with a macabre history. Kubrick's The Shining gets under your skin and chills your bones; it stays with you, inhabits you, haunts you. And there's no place to hide.
- 1080p VC-1 video
- uncompressed PCM 5.1 Surround mix
- Technical review at High Def Digest
Is Blu Ray a Temporary Platform?
We received an email from Brad in Festus MO with a link to a CNET
article that suggests that the Playstation 4 will not have a Blu-ray
drive (Why the Playstation 4 won't have Blu-ray).
One reason for this assertion is that technology is moving so fast that
there isn't enough time for Blu Ray to take a strong hold before a
better technology makes Blu-ray obsolete. So for today we would like to
discuss this interesting idea.
Reasons for Blu-ray's Demise:
- More convenient to download HD content then go out and buy or rent. Its safe to say that in the future we will have more bandwidth than we have now. Its not unrealistic that we will be able to download HDX quality movies in less than 30 minutes. We certainly will be able to start watching within five minutes.
- There will be a storage breakthrough that will give us 25 or 50GB on a USB stick. Just two years ago no one would have believed that you can store 8 GB on a USB key. Today you can buy a 8GB USB Stick for less than $25! Soon we will have USB 3.0 that not only increases the capacity but also the data rate. USB 3.0 will have a 4.8 Gbps data rate so copying files to the drive will not take forever.
- Portability. With HD movies on a stick you will be able to take you movies on the go. We predict that there will be mobile entertainment systems that will be able to receive the USB stick and play the contents. Likewise we feel that future iPods will store HD versions of movies and be able to down convert on the fly so that legacy devices with A/V inputs will still be usable.
- Studio Support - This is the most pie in the sky! Studios will realize that doing away with all the packaging will greatly increase their profit and they will fully support downloadable content with no restrictions. They will also have two types of content, free with ads included, and no ads but you have to pay for it.
- Interactive Content - BD live can still work in this scenario. There is no reason why computers or other players can't access the Internet and provide a dynamic experience.
Our hope for the future:
We'd
like to see a HTPC that is more like a DVR. It should be able to
download content but also have a tuner built in. Recorded and
downloaded movies should be transportable to a portable device in full
HD. In effect, the portable device should act like a VHS cassette tape.
If I have rights to the content I should be able to connect it to a
friends device and play the content. For universal access the device
should be able to output AV through RCA cables for playback on older
legacy type of devices. This ends up bringing the
Video Cassette Recorder into the 21st century. DVRs are great, but its
too hard to take your recorded content with you!