During my time here at UAV I've done my best to keep us focused on the best and most relevant product reviews and news to you the reader, in the timeliest fashion. These are confusing and somewhat tumultuous times here, with a format war raging on and ever changing specifications, and so on. I'm proud to believe we've become a trusted resource for news and information and helped you wade through the minefields of spin and marketing rhetoric so you could make the best choices and spend your money the right way and get the most out of your home theater experience.

Along with a genuine love and passion for movies and the experience of watching movies at home, these sensibilities and that level of responsibility and accountability to the reader will continue to be my mandate at Home Theater. If you're reading this and aren't yet a Home Theater reader I hope you'll follow me there. Tom Norton has been writing reviews that are appearing at HomeTheaterMag.com for the last several months; not only will that continue you can look for TJN's byline to make it back into the print world along with me. While I never get as much time for reviews as I'd like with the mountain of editorial responsibilities I have, I will continue to be as active a reviewer as I can with HT.

Of all the things I've enjoyed during my time here at UAV, this Blog is at the top of the list. Communicating directly with you (and even the Blu-ray fan-boys) has been challenging and exhilirating and just plain fun. This level of communication is one of the best things in "new media." My Blog will move over to HomeTheaterMag.com after CES, and my on-site CES reporting will be posted on HT's show Blog (TJN, Fred Manteghian and UAV newcomer Kim Wilson will be handling UAV's on-site coverage).

So, in short, thanks for suporting me here at UAV. Drop a new bookmark in your browser for HomeTheaterMag.com, and keep in touch!

Then Paramount jumped ship, going with HD DVD exclusively, and all of a sudden the little format that could had a few more hot exclusives of its own to deliver for the holiday shopping season, namely Shrek the Third and Michael Bay's summer hit, Transformers.

Transformers held up its end and stormed out to huge sales, and thus far has handily outsold day-and-date Blu-ray exclusive hits such as Spider-Man 3 and even Pixar's Ratatouille. All of a sudden even Sony's Howard Stringer is widely quoted (or misquoted) as calling the format war stalemate.

And a stalemate for both formats has the unpleasant consequence of looking more and more like a loss for both sides. And Hollywood doesn't want this. DVD volume sales are already in decline. Only the popularity of high priced TV show box sets has kept the dollar amounts about even for the last year or two. Hollywood definitely wants one more physical medium to use to resell its wares.

The two formats so far are doing OK in year 1-2 comparisons to DVD's sales milestones in hardware and software. But there's no question that neither format is making anyone forget DVD. The biggest selling titles have sold a few hundred thousand copies on both HD formats combined. A big DVD release will do 4-5 million units in a single week.

Explosive growth in years three and beyond made DVD the CE industry's biggest success story ever, driving those kind of software sales. While it's doubtful any physical format will ever be as ubiquitous as DVD, 2008 is when Blu-ray and/or HD DVD need to push into the mainstream. And whenever consumers are asked (polled), they respond with apathy in general and negativity over the competing formats. This leads to the perception that neither format will have mainstream success unless or until there is only one format.

Do any of the studios want that badly enough to try something bold to make it happen?

In looking at this question, Warner has got to be the elephant in the room. Paramount is reportedly tied to HD DVD exclusively for the next 18 months, and Universal is apparently not going to change course until something dramatic happens. I think we can be sure Sony and MGM (which Sony owns) wouldn't do HD DVD until a very bitter end is forced upon them, and Disney and Fox have publicly been staunch in their belief that BD's victory is inevitable.

So, barring another unforeseen defection from Fox or Disney, that leaves Warner, which currently supports both formats, as a potential swing vote. If Warner decided one format was needed which way would it go? If it wanted the swiftest resolution to the format war, probably Blu-ray. Already leading 2:1 in software sales, which has even held up on Warner's own dual-format releases, how could HD DVD stand if Warner jumps ship? Moreover, how could Warner justify jumping ship to HD DVD?

Toshiba is definitely building an HD DVD player install base. It claims there are now 750,000 combined HD DVD players and Xbox add-on drives. Toshiba also claims that people who buy HD DVD players and Xbox add-ons not only buy HD DVD movies, they buy lots of them, whereas PS3 owners are far less reliable movie buyers for the studios. Transformers performance against the top exclusive BD titles so far might be an indicator this is true (then again Shrek the Third's numbers could mean the opposite). Of course if there were ten or fifteen million PS3s in the US instead of two and change, the question would be moot. The PS3's price drops are gaining it some momentum, but it's clearly not enough so far to KO HD DVD.

Even casting all of the above in the most flattering possible light for HD DVD, is any of that enough to get Warner to take such a bold step as dropping Blu-ray support? Blu-ray has made as big of a mess of its hardware support and platforms as imaginable, and its stabs at interacivity are doing nothing but decreasing the performance of the players out there now. If Warner hasn't pulled the plug on BD by now it's hard to imagine what would tip the balance.

Who knows. But we've got one month left in 2007 and a few more big exclusive releases on both sides. Warner will have some more dual format titles to gather sales data from. Both the price reduced PS3 and Toshiba HD DVD players figure to make their way down a lot of chimneys. We'll see if anything happens that could break this thing loose moving into 2008, or if we'll just keep meandering toward a loss for both sides.

So, I wanted to just post some initial thoughts on Sharp's BD-PHP20U Blu-ray Disc player, and some other next-gen HD related issues for you to chew on over the next week. You know, just in case you miss me. Forgive me more type-os than usual. I"m coming in right under the gun just before the time I was told not to post more stuff!

The Sharp has been highly anticipated for its $499-ish price and promised quick startup times. On the first front, it's actually selling for $449 at Circuit City's web site, so scoreboard there. On the startup times, not so much.

Some new start time torture tests arrived on BD in the form of Pixar's recent discs. I ran Cars and Fox' Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer to run some tests. The results were interesting.

READ MORE »

Blu-ray has more studio support, and its supporters certainly believe consumers will come to where the movies are. Toshiba's strategy seems to be to build the hardware install base with cheap players first, and then sell that install base to the studios- hey, if you want to sell your movies again in high-def, you have to come to HD DVD since that's where the players are.

The first great Wal-Mart HD sale of '07 is over (with another looming on Black Friday), and according to most reports 90,000 HD DVD players and perhaps a few more were sold to consumers. With the Xbox 360 add-on drives estimates are that there are 500,000 HD DVD playing devices out there. Will it make a difference? Is it already making a difference?

We've seen some early evidence that it has. In a major test of post-Paramount defection muscle, the HD DVD exclusive release of Transformers outperformed Spider-Man 3 in week one sales, and is already the best selling HD DVD title yet.

There is plenty of controversy around the numbers on both sides, but even if Paramount's Transformers numbers were fishy, something even close to sales parity on these titles would be something of a letdown for the format that has been leading 2:1 throughout this year in disc sales (if you don't believe me, ask Howard Stringer who recently went to the "stalemate" card).

Is this just a blip on the Blu radar before the Pixar effect comes into play and changes everything? Or does this say, for the first time perhaps, that HD DVD can hold its own if the title is hot enough? Does it say that the install base of standalone players and Paramount's exclusive support is already paying dividends? Does it also say that Toshiba and its supporters are onto something regarding standalone players vs. gaming consoles?

While Sony's strategy hinges almost entirely on the Trojan horse Blu-ray drive in the PlayStation3, Toshiba says gamers aren't necessarily high-def movie buyers. Although I've heard attach rate numbers that say that as few as 25-29% of PS3 owners buy movies on Blu-ray, the fact is that even that little crossover from the PS3 has apparently been enough to allow Blu-ray to dominate volume software sales in 2007.

Blu-ray's software sales advantage throughout this year has made Sony's belief in the almighty PS3 look pretty solid. But while the PS3 has sold extraordinarily well when counted as a next-gen disc player, it's no secret that it looks up at the Nintendo Wii and even the Xbox 360 as a gaming console.

In light of Paramount's defection, will the PS3 maintain enough momentum with gamers to keep its Blu-ray software sales lead? Or will HD DVD ride its low priced players long enough and hard enough to make Disney, Fox or Warner think about defecting along with Paramount? Or will the Pixar movies and the sheer tonnage of desirable Blu-ray releases from its supporting studios make Warner think about flipping in favor of only Blu-ray?

I don't know the answers, but as recently as August I really didn't expect that these would even be legitimate questions to ask by now. So, if nothing else Toshiba has accomplished that.

Can't wait to see those BD sales numbers on Ratatouille!

$199 HD DVD Players- With the HD-A3 about to hit stores, Toshiba is clearing out the HD-A2 for just $199. Is this the magic price point, as some suggest? Or does the wild success of the iPod, iPhone, the Nintendo Wii (just to name a few) and other $250 and up CE devices mean that $199 isn't what it used to be?

x.v.Color- Awesome. I loved it when I heard this was coming. Another set of color standards for display manufacturers to completely ignore.

Lousy HD catalog releases- Are we already at the point at which Mobsters is worth putting on HD? Glad that one beat Citizen Kane to HD. Ok, I know one man's flop is another's cult hit, but damn, this movie isn't even a has been it's a never was.

(In related news, those who are looking forward to this can only hope that December's HD DVD release of Time Cop is just the beginning of a re-examination of the phenomenon that was Jean-Claude Van Damme. I treasure his entire catalog.)

HDMI 1.3- How glad are we that we waited for this? The jury's still out, but so far, we've got non-existent video features and audio features that are currently of dubious worth. Nothing like holding the industry hostage over, well, nothing much so far.

Fox and DTS-HD Master Audio- After a hiatus, Fox is back in Blu-ray. While the image quality is constistently spectacular, the only hi-res audio tracks on Fox Blu-ray Discs are encoded in DTS-HD MAster Audio. That might be be cool, except there are no players that can decode DTS-HD MA at full resolution. A few AVRs have shown up with onboard decoding, but so far there are only one or two players spec'd for bistream output. What the heck would be wrong with doing TrueHD for now and catching up with DTS-HD MA when there's actually hardware??

Season 2 of Heroes- Wow, how quickly the mighty fall. My wife and I got hooked on season 1 on HD DVD like we haven't been hooked by a TV show since Sopranos season 1. Like, "honey, can you watch one more" at 1am hooked. That was brilliant, especially for network TV. Season 2, not so much. Boring trips way backward in time, bigger plot holes, new forgettable characters, and powers that are well, a little too familiar. I hope this picks up soon.

Spider-Man 3- Proving the universal truth that the better the transfer is, the worse the movie. Spidey 3 is technically brilliant on Blu-ray. But on the movie, superhero flicks live and die with their villains. This has Topher Grace as Venom. Nuff said.

OK, not quite enough. There's enough of the emotional grounding and exhilirating Spideyness that made the first two Spider-Man movies so unique in the superhero pantheon to remind us of what this could have been. But Kirsten Dunst sings.

As is becoming typical of BD-J encoded interactive titles, load times on standalone players (i.e., anything not the PS3) of around three minutes are common, and according to widespread reports Samsung's BD-P1000 and 2nd-gen BD-P1200 players and LG's Multi-Blu combi player wouldn't play these discs at all.

Not only do people not like it when cool new release movies have problems playing, it's not good for either HD on disc on the whole when reports circulate that a highly touted day and date title has problems. We need better performance than this for either HD format to catch hold.

READ MORE »

For those who don't frequent these areas of the various forums out there, yield rates refer to the percentage of properly working discs out of a run, or batch of replicated discs. The higher the yield percentages, the better the profitability. Cycle times refer to how long it takes to replicate a single disc.

Of particular interest here, it's claimed by Blu-ray's detractors that yields of 50GB dual-layer discs are low, and that the cycle times are ridiculously long. Therefore, according to these rumors, those discs are very inefficient end thus expensive to produce. Further, rumors persist that getting yields as high as they are requires staying well under the 50GB capacity limit. This is a big deal because Blu-ray's main story vs. HD DVD is higher disc capacity.

HD DVD's side of this equation is the opposite. From the get-go HD DVD has claimed as one of its strengths its similarity to the DVD format, which makes replication cheaper, faster and easier. Yields are claimed to be in the mid-to-high 90s, and it's also been claimed that dual-layer HD DVD discs cost far less to produce than 50GB BDs. All of which is admittedly very difficult to qualify or verify in any meaningful way.

Nevertheless, I'm guessing that there might be some truth to this given that the Blu-ray PR machine actually felt the need to speak to the press about its replication prowess. Kinda like boxing- you never see a guy mock that the other didn't hurt him unless he actually did get buzzed at least a little.

Sony's disc replication facility itself put the word out this week that it's produced its 10 millionth 50GB Blu-ray Disc, that yields are improving and even approaching that of standard DVD, and cycle times are also improving, i.e., getting faster. But one thing the people responsible for releasing this information didn't count on is the David Vaughn factor.

Vaughn is kind of the new guy around here, and he's just immersed in all things format war. Dude has his ear to the ground on this stuff.

So, this week a Sony DADC exec is quoted in Video Business as saying that BD50 yields "have increased steadily and are consistently between 75% and 79%." Dave emails and says, "hey wait a minute...", and then digs up an article from Consumer Electronics Daily from October of 2006 that quotes a Sony exec as saying that "yields are averaging 80% on single-layer 25GB media," while 50GB yields were then "ever so slightly less."

So, the question Dave asked me is, if yields are steadily increasing as production ramps, why, according to Sony's own numbers, are the yields still so suspiciously similar a full year later? Were the numbers last year actually much lower than claimed? Are the numbers this year still inflated or on the money? Should we care?

I don't know how much any of this will or won't matter. But Paramount went exclusively HD DVD, and Paramount's CTO Alan Bell looked me in the eye and stated that he recommended this path in part because he believed HD DVD replication was more viable as the format moves into mainstream production numbers. Rumors are persisting that Warner, the remaining dual-format major studio is approaching a moment of decision. So perhaps this isn't the last we'll hear of this.

Getting back from CEDIA after being out of the office for a week is like traveling to a hurricane and finding out an earthquake happened while you were away. After two weeks back, I can actually see the top of my desk in spots, under all the receipts, press releases, mail from last week, bills and everything else that piled up on me over here.

There is always at least one compelling demo that slips through the cracks at these shows, and for me that was the demo I saw of the Marantz VP-11S2 front projector around noon on Sunday, just three hours ahead of the 3pm show close. I tried to double back to cover some of the stuff I saw and took notes on but didn't write up, but never got the to the Marantz. But here it is.

And yes, just so we're on the level here, I bought and own a Marantz VP-11S1 to use as my reference projector several months ago. And it still represents the best balance of strengths I've yet seen in a 1080p projector. Yes, you can get nearly as good for a lot less. But I've still not seen a PJ that excels it overall. So, it's with no small degree of interest that I made the effort to see the VP-11S2.

Before getting to the big boy, I should divulge some further details on the VP-15S1, Marantz' new $10K 1080p DLP projector, which looked spectacular in demo with an anamorphic lens and 2.35:1 screen (both projectors are pictured above, with the 15S1 being the one with the anamorphic lens sled).

The VP-15S1 is not a VP-11S1 for less money. There are significant and notable differences. Where the light engines used in the VP-11S1 are hand-picked for premium performance, the VP-15S1's engines will be more of an off the shelf thing. This isn't BS- there are tolerances that must be met in QC, and the VP-11S1 (And 11S2 when it comes out) will get the best of the best, those that are closest to ideal.

In addition, the new PJ will have a six-segment color wheel, not seven and will spin at 5x and not 6x. The VP-15S1 looks like a terrific projector at a friendlier price. It's not a VP-11S1 or 11S2 for less.

Both projectors, however, bring a new feature to the table that could be a difference maker- a dual iris. Marantz has always prioritized black level and contrast in a darkened theater environment for movie watching. Other PJs, from Sharp and others, have offered a multiplicity of lamp and iris adjustments that allow greater control over the light output. This allows some projectors to provide goosed up output when you want it- like when football season is sharing screen time with the movies in the fall. It also allows some flexibility when your bulb starts to age.

On the VP-11S2 pricing hasn't yet been announced, and it's important to note that the CEDIA demo used a hand built prototype, not a full production model by a long shot.

The big whoop here is that it will use hand-picked engines based on TI's new DarkChip4 DMD. According to TI, the chip backing has been darkened yet again, further damping stray light and dropping the blacks further and brightening the whites for increased chip level contrast. And if the contrast improves there, and the other elements in the light engine and optics don't let you down (and with Marantz they never do, in my experience), this should be an incrementally improved PJ, which is to say one of the very best will have gotten better still.

So, on to the demo. The material was the exact same material shown on the VP-15S1 a few days earlier, sans the anamorphic lens/2.35:1 combo. The VP-11S2 showed the same level of startling resolution I'm used to seeing on the VP-11S1 (my current reference), but clearly seemed to show some improvements in blacks and contrast. The blacks were inky and deep, but there was also some pop at the top end that I liked.

I've always liked Marantz' projectors because from the get-go they have emphasized blacks and contrast for superior movie playback performance. I wouldn't trade higher light output for the lighter blacks that come with some PJs. But, if Marantz can let me have both the dark blacks I've come to love, and also up the light output some, I'm all for that.

The VP-11S2 will be on sale in Q4 of this year or Q1 of 2008, worst case. We're already in line for review samples.

At this point in time, HDMI switching that can handle 1080p/24 and 1080p/60 and hi-res multichannel PCM is such an essential feature. To get the most out of Blu-ray and HD DVD, both of which offer high-definition picture and sound, HDMI, while far from perfect, is essential. The highest resolution audio and video signals travel only over HDMI. On the audio side, while the multichannel analog outs often offer high resolution audio, bass management and processing is often less sophisticated. The best case scenario is that the signal passes through the AVR or pre/pro in the analog domain with as little manipulation as possible, meaning the full suite of processing you already paid for and want to be using is sitting idle.

A surprising number of components shown at CEDIA 2007, some very expensive, from well known high-end manufacturers, lack HDMI switching entirely or the critical abilities spoken of here. Like so many we've passed on before, we won't be reviewing these components because we simply can't, in good conscience, recommend them for purchase at this point in time. As far as we're concerned, the apps are here, and this is now the critical feature for AVRs and pre/pros.

And keep this in mind- everyone who doesn't yet have it is working on it. So take a huge chunk o' the proverbial salt with the salesman's claims that you don't need it, or that all the other high-speed, low-drag circuitry obviates it. No amount of high-end processing or circuitry will make lossy Dolby Digital compare to lossless Dolby TrueHD or uncompressed PCM. Period.

So, for some of these well known rigs out there, if you don't see them here, take a look at the spec sheet and you can figure out why.

With all the product announcements leaking all over the Web some of you might be wondering why in the heck we're even bothering to go!

I can tell you first hand, I've got some embargoed press releases of stuff that hasn't broken everywhere yet that you'll want to know about. And while press releases provide some details, it's often the case that being on site and asking the right questions of the right people yields far better information. Not to mention the opportunities to see some of the products demonstrated.

This year's show is shaping up to be the most exciting in years. We'll get our first looks at Toshiba's third-gen HD DVD players, and believe me, things are going to get far more interesting on the Blu-ray player front at this show as well. Leaks from Europe's IFA show have told us that we'll be seeing new Blu-ray players from Philips, Sony and Sharp this fall.

Leaks from elsehwere have revealed that we'll be seeing new 1080p front projection from Marantz and Sony. Pioneer tells us we'll be getting our first looks at production units of its Kuro line of 1080p plasmas. Joe Kane has invited us to take a look at Samsung's 1080p DLP front projector which will undoubtedly be among the hottest products at the show.

Our coverage will start first thing on Wednesday when we post some currently embargoed press info. We'll be posting our coverage on the home page so you can't miss it. The big press conferences start at 3pm Denver time, Wednesday afternoon with JVC, Toshiba, Sony and Sharp hosting major events one after the other. Look for coverage of those events to post Wednesday evening as soon as I can get back my hotel to upload.

Thursday isn't much slower, and one of the things I'm looking forward to that day is a one-on-one that I have scheduled with Paramount's CTO Alan Bell. Alan has intimate knowledge of the technical details of disc mastering, authoring and production decisions behind Paramount's bombshell switch to HD DVD and I'm looking forward to speaking with him and reporting on that conversation.

So, yeah it's my job to pimp our coverage, but make no mistake. This year's CEDIA is one I'm looking forward to, big-time. Stay tuned this week!

Yeah, this week's defection by Paramount got me banging away of my keyboard frantically, much to the chagrine of Mrs. Editor and Editor Jr. But hey, if the format war's not taking a vacation I guess I'm not either.

READ MORE »

Blu-ray has now got its own propaganda web site, and I wouldn't expect anything that appears on this site (or Toshiba's Look and Sound of Perfect website for that matter) to be remotely non-partisan. But this Blog recently posted at this site goes rather far beyond simple partisanship.

The call out at the top of this page screams "Universal's Kornblau Wants Format War To Continue." Wow. When he's not trying to screw consumers with a lousy format war, does he strangle kittens for fun too?

While there are several direct quotes in this article attributed to Universal's President regarding the format war, I did not read a single one that comes close to supporting the hyperbolic call out at the top of the page.

Kornblau is quoted as saying something that a number of non-partisan industry pundits have said many times, and is probably correct. That the format was has been good for consumers in the sense that prices have come down farther and faster than they would have otherwise. Which is not the same as being in favor of a format war for the sake of a format war.

I'll go farther than that- the format war has been good for quality. Take a look at the first batches of Blu-ray titles we saw last summer (Fifth Element was so bad Sony has fixed it for free!). It's entirely possible that we'd have been stuck with that kind of crap for a good while had HD DVD not set the bar higher in terms of picture and sound quality right out of the gate.

But where this Blog is far more disingenuous is in its discussion of interactivity. The Blog states that "with the notable exception of the "U-Control" interactive feature that Universal introduced on several titles last year, the studio hasn't exactly been blazing many trails of innovation with content that couldn't be delivered on Blu-ray Discs and even DVDs in many cases."

This is overtly dishonest on a number of levels. Not the least of which is a gross exaggeration of DVD's interactivity prowess. (C'mon man, you can't even view a chapter list on a DVD without stopping the movie!)

And while it's possible that PIP features like U-Control could be delivered on Blu-ray, and certainly will one day, the simple fact is that as of right now they aren't. And why is that, you ask? There isn't a single standalone Blu-ray Disc player on the market that can support even the simplest Picture-In Picture functionality, nor can they be updated because hardware is at issue. A secondary video decoder is required for PIP and not a single standalone Blu-ray player in the market is so equipped.

This is why Warner and others are putting PIP features similar to U-Control on their HD DVDs and not on their BDs. While it's possible, if not likely, that the PlayStation3 supports PIP features as it's already spec'd with a secondary video decoder, there is no guarantee. And certainly it's significant if, as is likely, the PS3 supports PIP as it is far and way the most prevalent HD player in the market for either format.

But that's still apparently not enough for the studios to start putting these features on their discs because they haven't done so thus far, even though Warner already has the material created and put to use on many of its HD DVD titles.

And Warner has good reason to be cautious. The attempts so far to push the BD-J interactivity envelope haven't been trouble free. Those ridiculous BD-Java games that are encoded on the Pirates of the Caribbean BDs throw current standalone players into fits. Don't believe me? Watch this video.

The video is obviously a worse case scenario, but in our own tests it's typical for standalone players to take two to three minutes just to boot to the menus on the Pirates discs, and if you actually engage the games it's common for them not to work and/or the player to lock up.

So, if you've invested in a more expensive standalone Blu-ray player, and Blu-ray Discs do come out with PIP features like U-Control, you're SOL. You'll allegedly be able to play the movie, but take a look at the YouTube video to see what kind of experience you might have while your player figures out how to navigate a disc with BD-J features your player doesn't support.

Blu-ray's inconvenient truth is this: standalone BD players introduced after October 31st of this year will be required to support Java profile 1.1, which supports PIP features. Players introduced before then do not. And guess what? Samsung (and probably other manufacturers) are popping out third-gen BD players for September and October that beat the deadline and thus will not offer support for PIP features.

As far as web connectivity goes, Hettrick says wait 'til BD Live comes along. I think we will be waiting- probably until at least the 4th-generation of BD players next year. Few Blu-ray standalone players even have Ethernet ports, but that's irrelevant anyway. BD Live requires the player to support Java Profile 2.0, which has different hardware requirements than previous Java implementations. Not a single Java Profile 2.0 Blu-ray player has been announced to date, and so far only Denon's BD players are announced as supporting Java 1.1.

Blu-ray has a great story to tell. But interactivity isn't part of that story yet, and Blu-ray honks just shouldn't go there in touting their format. And really, there are plenty of credible signs that Blu-ray is indeed winning the format war so far. So, why not show a little class and act like it?

This holiday shopping season is not only critical in the format war, it's huge for HD on a disc, period. And the studios are aiming their biggest guns in terms of new releases and coveted catalog titles.

Warner has announced four new Stanley Kubrick classics for release on October 23rd to both Blu-ray and HD DVD: 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut. (OK, three classics plus that last one.)

The Blade Runner Ultimate Collection has been previously announced, but Warner confirmed a Deccember 18th release date and has confirmed that it will release to DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD simultaneously. Further details have surfaced and they're incredible. The BD and HD DVD releases will be five-disc sets that will include the all-new Final Cut version of the film, the 1992 Director's Cut, the 1982 US theatrical cut, the 1982 Int'l Cut, and (drumroll please) the rarely seen "Workprint" version of the film. In addition, the five-dsic HD set will be available in a Limited Numbered "Deckard Briefcase" on Blu-ray and HD DVD that's loaded with collectibles.

Steven Spielberg is making his long-waited debut on HD on a disc as well. Twilight Zone: The Movie is hitting Blu-ray and HD DVD on October 9th, followed by Spileberg's classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind on Blu-ray on November 13th. This is going to be a three-disc set that will include the original theatrical cut, the 1980 theatrical re-release version and the "Collector's Edition" cut that appeared on home video in late 1990's.

On November 10th Paramount is releasing the entire run of Star Trek: The Original Series on HD DVD. The details here are sensational. Not only have all the episodes been remastered, these discs will feature completely re-tooled special effects. These re-tooled versions have been showing on TV from time to time, and in the episodes I've seen it's the space exteriors and things of that nature that have been re-done, well and tastefully. Greedo ain't shootin' first in other words.

Picture-In-Picture commentaries/interviews will be included as well as interactive tours of the Enterprise. The video will be presented in 1080p and and the remixed and remastered soundtracks will be Dolby TrueHD. This is awesome, awesome stuff.

Of the major summer releases, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is the first major announcement, hitting stores on Blu-ray on December 4th. But this won't be the last. Rumors abound that all five Harry Potter films, including the summer's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, will hit HD in a five-movie box set (most likely Blu-ray and HD DVD since it's Warner). And in its reports from Comic-Con Bill Hunt of the Digital Bits says that Sony is pimping the imminent release of all three Spider-Man films on Blu-ray. And I'll just say, as HD DVD's sole exclusive studio you'd have to think Universal would want to get Bourne Ultimatum out there so people have an exclusive HD DVD goodie to play on all those cheap Chinese players that will allegedly be on shelves this Christmas!

7/31 Update:
Some clarifications, courtesy of our friends at The Digital Bits. It is only season one of Star Trek that is hitting stores in November, although work on prepping the second and third seasons are supposed to be underway as I write this. And the discs are DVD/HD DVD combos with an outrageous price tag of $217. Even though street will be lower, and I love Trek with all my heart, that's just a stupid high price tag.

CE3K will be a two-disc set on Blu-ray, and will use seamless branching to present all three versions mentioned above.

It's fascinating that HD DVD is so far ahead with interactivity, but perhaps it shouldn't be given Microsoft's backing and involvement with the format. But the important distinction here isn't just in what's on the discs. The fact that every existing HD DVD player is compatible with every one of these features is very different than what Blu-ray currently brings to the interactivity party with respect to both software and especially hardware.

With the possible (if not probable) exception of the PlayStation3, no current BD player I'm aware of will support picture-in-picture interactivity. Some standalone BD players required a firmware update before they could even play the Pirates of the Caribbean movies at all. It's no secret that these Java-enhanced titles load painfully slow in standalone players- we've timed second generation players at over two minutes loading the menus on these discs- and playback glitches have abounded for anyone not using the PS3 to play these BDs.

Further, only BD players released after October of this year must be compatible with Java-based features like the picture-in-picture features described above. Even the second-gen standalone players from Pioneer and Sony and others that are in stores now won't support these features, which will undoubtedly appear on discs at some point. HD DVD players have been required to sport Ethernet connections and dual video decoders for PIP from day one.

I'm not writing this to gong on Blu-ray, which will undoubtedly catch up at some point, but rather to give credit where it's due. On the interactivity front, HD DVD is a remarkably mature product, and the fact that no first generation players or consumers are left behind is praiseworthy.

Now that these distinctions are drawn, the topic at hand here is the first web-enabled HD DVDs. Taking advantage of my recent relocation to Washington state, I was invited over to Redmond to visit with Kevin Collins, Microsoft's HD DVD Evangelist and see the latest and greatest in HD DVD interactivity with a sneak peek at Warner's 300, which offers some of the most powerful extras yet. Here's what I saw- and to drive home one of HD DVD's chief advantages, Kevin played back all of these features using a first-generation Toshiba-built, RCA-branded HD DVD player.

Warner's Blood Diamond and Bandai's Freedom Vol. 1 are on the market already. To read brief reports on the web-enabled features for these titles read the two Blogs below this one on my Blog page.

Forgive the lack of screen shots. I chose to move forward and publish this rather than wait.

The most compelling thing about next-gen HD, from the chapter selections to the PIP features, is that the experiences are "in band." In other words, they run simultaneously with the film, and don't require the viewer to leave the viewing of the film to pour through these materials.

300 makes the most compelling use I've yet seen of PIP features. 300 is a heavily processed blue-screen movie- that is, the actors ran around in a studio in front of blue screens and practically everything else was CGI'd in later. The PIP shows the unprocessed blue screen material, and it's fascinating to compare. The colors, the "film" grain, the back drops, the waves of arrows, it's all fake. Well, OK, some of the spit and drool is real (don't ask).

Another nice touch, totally in tune with the program material, is that the icon indicating when 300 has IME material available is a nice big splatter of blood. Not exactly an intimate character study, this one.

300 allows users to choose favorite scenes, and groups of scenes and arrange them in order. The web connectivity here allows users to choose screen names and store and then share their favorites scenes and groups of scenes with other users on their "buddy list." A site hosted by Warner stores the requisite info.

Going a little further, I could give out his screen name and readers adding me to their buddy lists could pop their own copies of 300 into their connected player and see the scenes I talk about in my reviews, and compare the performance I describe with review product. I know that's specialized, but I'm kind of excited about it. So, be nice if you want to get on my list!

Even if Blu-ray wins this format war decisively, we should be thankful in some respects that HD DVD's been in the race. HD DVD raised the bar high right out of the gate with picture and sound quality- the first BD titles suffered greatly in comparison, prompting the BD studios to get better fast (which they did). And here we are a year out, and HD DVD is still raising the bar with interactivity, something both formats have promised and only HD DVD has delivered so far.

Blood Diamond's web-enabled features take about one minute to load. The Maps of Conflict feature allows you to select a dozen conflict diamond countries and get updated information, mostly text, on the current geo-political climate. The info will continually update as the global situation changes, which is one of the things that makes web-enabled features so unique- they can update or even potentially improve with time.

At the Online Home menu a list of Warner titles on HD DVD is given. While an obvious killer app here is linking each listed title to an online HD trailer, that isn't available now. But again, since these are web-based features, that could change.

Another web feature is polling- questions about whether the film influenced your opinion about diamonds, what your awareness level of the events in Sierra Leone portrayed in the film, etc. Once you submit an answer, you see the results of other respondents.

Clicking on WB Polls at the right side of the screen lets you tell Warner what you want to see on HD DVD. I'm very pleased to say that at the time of this writing 2001: A Space Odyssey is leading Astronaut Farmer by a very safe margin. (Wizard of Oz is getting a lot of love too, but I need your help with Dr Zhivago!)

None of this is earth-shaking, but these are the first baby steps. There's clearly potential here.

The web-enabled features for Freedom start with the Download Menu- Connect Server grabs a menu of the available downloads and checks for updated content. I saw and downloaded the 1080i HD intro trailer, a prologue to the series, and a commercial promo. Each of these were 5MB in size, and downloaded super fast over my Internet connection, which is a good one- your mileage will vary depending on your own connection. The Contents icon in the menus then populate with the pieces you downloaded, allowing you to access them and play them back at will. Already a cool feature, and who knows what features I'll be able to download for this movie next month?

It's essentially one of a million such articles I've read in the mainstream press- there's a hi-def format war, and that HD on a disc is so hideously expensive that consumers should sit on the fence counting their pennies. This is the first time I felt compelled to respond because some of the information presented was outright wrong, and other components of it especially misleading. Following is the text of an email I wrote to the author.

Jennifer- Content Agenda had a link to your story on the next-gen HD disc formats, which was dated July 4th but could have been written earlier. I note this because it's possible your article was written prior to recent price changes on Toshiba's HD DVD players, and perhaps likely given that the $499 Sony Blu-ray player you reference as upcoming is in fact available for purchase now (the model is the BDP-S300).

I noticed one outright inaccuracy, and a couple of things I think are misleading that I'd like to point out to you.

First, the pricing you provide ($399 in your article) on Toshiba's low-end player is incorrect. The Toshiba HD-A2 which now has an official MSRP of $299 and is available online for less. Included with this player are five free HD DVDs, which would cost more than $100 if purchased separately (almost every Blu-ray player now on the market, including the $499 Sony player you reference and the $599 PlayStation3, are also eligible for five free Blu-ray Discs representing at least $100 in free software).

Apple's 30GB iPod retails for $249. It comes with no free software of any kind. Many of the iPod's docking options, boom boxes, and other accessories cost real money too. Have you ever written or read anywhere that the iPod is too expensive a proposition for consumers?

In your article there is also an implication that there is a "hidden cost" in an HD disc player- that consumers need to buy a 42" plasma at an average cost of $1,800 to receive the true benefit of the improved image. This is misleading on a number of fronts.

First, household penetration of HDTV in the US is now at 30%, and estimated to hit 36% by year's end. This means there are tens of millions of households that already have an HDTV that will make a spectacular picture when fed by Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. No additional purchase necessary, in other words.

Second, citing an average price for 42" plasmas is misleading. There are plenty of attractive options in 42" flat panels that cost less than the $1,800 average.

Below are links to two manufacturers whose flat panels products we've reviewed whose hi-def flat panel TVs can be found at prices closer to $1,000 (in fact, both offer 50" plasmas at prices lower than the $1,800 average you claim for 42" plasmas).

The Vizio TVs are available direct online and at big box stores such as Costco. The HP sets are available direct online.

Jennifer, I don't write this to be personally critical. This is hardly the first article I've read that throws FUD at the next-gen HD formats by citing the costs associated as outlandishly expensive. I just take exception to this conclusion and am bothered that the mainstream press is constantly exaggerating the costs associated with next-gen HD to consumers. I'm also bothered that when articles such as yours are written they are not substantiated with any hands-on demonstrations of how fantastic the picture and sound from these new formats really are. Is that not a part of the value equation?

In closing- only by today's outrageously "commodotized" pricing on DVD players are the next-gen players expensive. Not only are these players less expensive by far than the first DVD players that came to market ten years ago, they are far less expensive than the first top-loading VCRs that appeared in the early 80s (the first stereo VCR in my family came from Sears and carried a price tag of over $800 in 1982-ish dollars).

Hi-def players are now nearly at price parity with Apple's mid-line 30GB iPod. How much cheaper does it have to get before the mainstream press will write some articles that focus on how good the picture and sound is?

Specifically, Kevin informed me over email that using tools at his disposal he was able to determine that the VC-1 video encode for Blood Diamond, which is identical that on the Blu-ray Disc, is at an Average Bit Rate (ABR) of around 13Mbps over the entire program. According to Kevin, this is approximately the same ABR he found for the VC-1 encode of The Matrix on HD DVD, which is stunning in its image quality, and further that the total amount of disc space used for the entire spate of program material on the Blood Diamond Blu-ray Disc is 22GB (what makes that last even more bizarre is that Blood Diamond apparently is replicated on a 50GB, dual-layer BD, but using less than half that capacity?).

His point is two-fold. One, comparing the bitrates for two different titles isn't an inidicator of image quality as the source material for any two different programs can vary in quality, and also have dramatically different data requirements as far as how much data is required to produce a good image. Two, the bit budget issue is simply false because the 22GB total of the entire program for Blood Diamond on BD wasn't even close to maxing out a 30GB HD DVD disc.

Let me say first that I don't have a problem admitting being off-base on this, or to put it bluntly, being wrong. I posed my original Blog on this in the form of a question and made clear that speculation was involved. But being stubborn there are a couple of additional things I think are worth saying here.

As a metric, ABR over an entire program has the potential pitfall of not necessarily indicating whether the bitrate in many individual scenes dips low enough to denigrate image quality in those particular scenes. And while The Matrix may have encoded spectacularly well at around 13Mbps, the opposite has also been true. Other movies have required much higher data rates to achieve spectacular results with VC-1, according to Kevin Collins' own data. Aside from the obvious stuff like blocking artifacts and excessive noise, would Blood Diamond have at least looked sharper overall with a higher bitrate?

So, to me some question still remains as to whether BD's needs in this regard were properly met, regardless of reason. Noting that Blood Diamond has a lower ABR that's similar to titles that do look spectacular doesn't really answer the question of why BD looks so soft overall in HD. Is the source material of this recent movie that flawed? When the transfer was made did the people involved at any point get concerned with what they were seeing and compare the results they were getting to the same scenes running at the higher data rates that have been required for some titles? Don't know. All I do know is that like a lot of reviewers I was expecting more from an HD transfer of such a recent film.

As TJN's obit makes clear, Randy was a multi-faceted and an increbidly interesting man who could and would converse engagingly on a broad number of subjects at any time.

Randy took to the video world later in life as something of a hobby and became as thorough and complete a professional as I've yet encountered in the fields of both calibrating displays and writing expertly about them. This speaks to his versatility, native intelligence and the dogged perfectionism that was his trademark in every area of his life in which he endeavoured, work or hobby.

In addition to all of that, I do want to pass along a couple of things about Randy that you may not have gathered from reading his writing, which was never anything less than superlative, a pleasure to read, always thorough and informative.

Randy spoke with a wonderful and immediately noticeable southern accent, and in spite of how very serious he was in his video writing, he had an oustanding sense of humor. He didn't joke much in print, but laughed often in conversation and was always fun to talk to whether the subject was modifying hi-fi gear or hotrodding his car or computer (Randy was one of those guys who never used anything "stock," always preferring to roll his own).

Among the things that always amused me- a born and raised California kid at least a couple of decades younger than he was- was Randy's penchant in conversation for using the word, er, term "daggum." He said it in that accent of his, in the same context that some would say "gosh darned," or someone who's more crass (like me) would say "goddamn."

I laughed inside every time he said it, which was often, and more than once tried to talk him into using that term in his reviews. But, daggum it, I never could get him to bite on that one and use it in print!

I'm very happy and proud to have gotten to know this man. Randy and I worked together closely at The Perfect Vision for several years prior to both us coming to work here at UAV. And beyond that, he was a friend and I'll miss him.