Apple some a bunch of new HD QuickTime trailers up, and here’s a selection of the most recent:

Newly elected to Congress, Evan leaves Buffalo behind and shepherds his family to suburban northern Virginia. Once there, his life gets turned upside-down when God (Morgan Freeman) appears and mysteriously commands him to build an ark. But his befuddled family just can’t decide whether he’s on to something or not.

Evan Almighty

In these interlocking tales of high stakes and low lifes, Mob boss Primo Sparazza has taken out a hefty contract on Buddy “Aces” Israel (Piven) - a sleazy magician who has agreed to turn state’s evidence against the Vegas mob. The FBI, sensing a chance to use this small-time con to bring down big-target Sparazza, places Aces into protective custody.

Smokin’ Aces

From the creative mind of talented filmmaker Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element), comes a larger-than-life, family adventure about a boy who, after his grandfather disappears, sets out to save his family home from emerging real estate developers.

Arthur and the Invisibles

Many early BD movies were panned. Many believe it was because these movies were encoded in MPEG2 on measly 25GB discs, while other people blame the Samsung BD player. Now thoughts seem to be moving in the latter direction, but with X-Men: The Last Stand we’re seeing a new factor: a new codec. This Blu-ray Disc movie is AVC MPEG-4 encoded, and it’s a 25GB disc.

How does it look? The reviewer at High-Def Digest thought the image quality was quite good, saying he was “pleasantly surprised by the overall high quality” of the movie. The image was a bit grainy, but that was due to the source. The colours were well saturated, blacks were rock-solid, and contrast is eye-popping. He also noted that detail was above average.

Overall, it’s great that this disc is just 25GB yet produces a great looking image. Hopefully more people will try out the MPEG4 codec to see what it can do. It would be a shame if everyone used VC1 or MEPG2 but didn’t give MPEG4 a chance.

Blu-ray Review: X-Men: The Last Stand

My favourite super-hero is Spider-Man. My favourite Spider-Man villain is Venom. It looks like Spider-Man 3 will show the beginnings of Venom’s creation, though the main villain will be Sandman. My guess is that Venom will star in Spider-Man 4.

Either way, IFILM has the Spider-Man 3 trailer for you in HD, should you choose to view it.

Spider-Man 3 is coming May 4th.

I can’t wait!

IFILM presents: Spiderman 3

You know, I’ve always thought that Sony only has to do one thing to make Blu-ray win the format war: convince Fox and LucasFilm to release the Star Wars movies on BD now. When DVD became a new format, I remember waiting a long time before finally seeing my favourite movies on DVD, and I am settling myself in for an even-longer wait for an HD disc version. But just because I don’t think it’s gonna happen, doesn’t mean that Sony shouldn’t try!

Anyway, we can’t get our Star Wars HD fix from a disc, how about from your cable provider? Comcast Cinemax On Demand is offering all six Star Wars movies, from A New Hope on through to Revenge of the Sith, in glorious HD. On demand. Anytime you want, starting this month.

Star Wars Films in HD on Comcast Cinemax On Demand

The local video store is a place I hardly ever visit anymore. But I was just there the other day to get a video for my kids, and it was weird. Aisles and aisles of movies and video games for rent. Creepy. Now I just use a mail service for my movies, so I rarely have to go anymore. But if I didn’t have such a service, I’d be happy to hear this news. Blockbuster Video is going to start renting HD DVD and BD movies, and won’t charge anything extra.

“It’s a careful selection process,” Blockbuster spokesman Randy Hargrove said of store experiments. “We’re looking at DVD adoption rate and hardware penetration. We’ll continue to watch the market and monitor to see where additional expansion will be appropriate.”

Blockbuster is going to test this program with about 250 of its stores. They’ll each receive about 40 titles each of BD and HD DVD movie releases. Not bad, not bad.

Blockbuster Unveils Online/In-Store Rental Program, Will Offer High-Def Discs
Big Blue Test Hi-Def Formats

Universal Studios is releasing Miami Vice, the movie, on HD DVD on December 5th. They say that this is the first movie actually shot in HD, as opposed to film and then converted to HD. I’m not so sure what this means (as far as image quality goes), except that you won’t see any film grain or scratches. But if I remember correctly, the colours might not be as nice (correct me if I’m wrong).

The HD DVD disc will have HDi technology and TrueHD lossless surround.

Universal Studios claims to have the first true HD movie on HD DVD

What do gaming geeks and HDTV fans have in common? They’re probably the same people, that’s what. And Fox wants to capitalize on that by making sure it has as many Blu-ray Disc (BD) movie titles as possible available when the PS3 is released on November 17th. Reuters is reporting that Fox is rushing the X-Men: Last Stand movie out onto BD on November 14th in time to make the PS3 debut. Though they don’t actually mention anything about how the title is actually “rushed” versus just put out there like any other title, but oh well.

X-Men: The Last Stand on BD will be MPEG4/AVC encoded, and will include a 6.1 DTS ES HD Lossless Master Audio soundtrack. The cool thing is that all the bonus materials will be in HD. Neat stuff!

Supposedly the PS3 was one of the reasons that Fox decided to support Blu-ray. Come November 17th or thereabouts, there will be 400,000 BD players in people’s homes in North America. Which is a lot more than the number of competing players sold so far. The less expensive PS3 will retail for $499, which is pretty competitive with the least expensive HD DVD players out there.

Fox’s other Blu-ray titles coming November 14 include Behind Enemy Lines, Fantastic Four, Kingdom of Heaven, Kiss of the Dragon, The Omen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Speed, and The Transporter. The only one I plan to pick up is The Transporter.

Fox puts rush on “X-Men” for PS3 Blu-ray

With Swanni’s lists of best- and worst-looking personalities in HD, this article at The Stage comes as no surprise at all. Make-up artists spokesperson Sandra Exelby says that a large number of make-up artists will need retraining as HDTV becomes the norm.

“HD needs a higher level of skill because the pictures are so much clearer, it is something like five times the clarity - virtually like being in the same room as someone. Every flaw will be visible unless make-up artists retrain in new techniques and even something as basic as what colours to use has to be adapted,” she said. “Broadcasters are asking for HD-trained staff and within the next two years this is going to snowball. Everyone in the industry will need to be able to do it Most shows will be made that way. ”

That reminds me of how newsroom sets had to be rebuilt because they looked so cheap when viewed in HD.

Anyway, I love it. This is great stuff. It means that Hollywood and the broadcasting industry will have to up their game to provide better looking content.

Make-up artists ‘need retraining for HDTV’

Some more HD movie trailers from Apple for you.

An inspirational but light romantic Christmas drama, a story about the human struggle, the power of love, forgiveness, trust and uplifting the human spirit. It is the story of a fortysomething man confronting the overwhelming effect his past actions seem to be taking on his life and his family.

Christmas At Maxwell’s

The plot concerns the volatile balance of power between the King (Chow Yun Fat) and the Queen (Gong Li) and his three sons, which entails betrayal, deceit and passion, pitting the King against Queen and father against sons. The glorious canvas includes many of the creative team behind HERO and HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS.

Curse of the Golden Flower

Its Christmas Eve and a huge blizzard has shut down the airport. Among the stranded travelers, five Unaccompanied Minors are determined to max out their holiday by running wild inside and outside the airport. Without a parent in sight, the rambunctious five outwit and outrun an uptight airport official and his gullible assistant. Joyriding on golf carts, plummeting through baggage chutes and canoeing down a snow bank, the kids turn Christmas at the airport into holiday pandemonium and, along the way, prove that the holidays arent about where you are, but who youre with.

Unaccompanied Minors

Based on the best-selling novel, this epic fantasy-adventure centers on a young man named Eragon whose destiny is revealed with the help of a dragon. Eragon, now a Dragon Rider, is swept into a world of magic and power, discovering that he alone has the power to save or destroy an Empire.

Eragon

Mission: Impossible III is the first major motion picture to be released simultaneously on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc (BD). I don’t get to see many movies in the theater anymore. But MI3 was one of the movies I did get a chance to see in the theater. It wasn’t bad.

But how are the HD DVD and BD versions? According to High-Def Digest, they look very nice!

The BD is MPEG2 encoded. The HD DVD is VC1 encoded. And they both look excellent. The discs each come with an extra disc of bonus material, so lots of bits were allocated to the MPEG2 and VC1 bitstreams. How do they compare? Basically, the reviewer says that both are quite excellent, and that there’s nothing to choose between them.

He also says that MI3 on BD or HD DVD would make a good demo disc. Maybe I’ll pick one up for that purpose, because I didn’t think the movie was good enough to buy otherwise.

HD DVD - Mission: Impossible III
BD - Mission: Impossible III

Sorry about all this BD news of late (actually, no I’m not), but there’s been so much of it! This latest piece of news is another studio putting out 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray Disc movies. Buena Vista has announced that Enemy of the State (Nov 11), Flightplan (Nov 11), and Pearl Harbor (Dec 19) will be dual-layer BD releases.

Not only that, but the studio’s first day-and-date with DVD release was also announced. The title is Invincible, which will be released on December 19th, on both BD and DVD.

Unfortunately, there is no word on whether any of these titles are encoded in MPEG2, VC1, or MPEG4. Also unknown is what kind of soundtracks will be on the disc. Hopefully more studios start using Dolby TrueHD 7.1, which is an option BD and HD DVD format.

Buena Vista Unveils First Day-and-Date and 50GB Blu-ray Titles

I haven’t given a rundown of HD movie trailers in a while, and for that I’m sorry. But I’m back with this feature with a black and white movie set in 1945 Germany:

Based on the novel by Joseph Kanon, The Good German takes place in the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, where U.S. Army war correspondent Jake Geismar (George Clooney) becomes embroiled with Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett), a former lover who is trying to escape her past in the aftermath of the war.

I might be showing how uncouth I am, but I’d prefer if the film was in colour! I kinda get what the director was after with this look, but that doesn’t mean I hafta like it! Other than that, this film looks like it might be good!

The Good German

Next up is a movie about some a trio of women called The Dreamettes.

Set in the turbulent early 1960s to mid-70s, Dreamgirls follows the rise of a trio of women - Effie, Deena and Lorrell - who have formed a promising girl group called The Dreamettes. At a talent competition, they are discovered by an ambitious manager named Curtis Taylor, Jr., who offers them the opportunity of a lifetime.

Dreamgirls

Then there’s Venus:

Venus tells the story of Maurice and Ian, a pair of veteran actors, whose comfortable daily routine is disrupted by the arrival of Ian’s grand-niece, Jessie. Maurice takes the teenager under his wing, but is surprised to discover how very little he actually knows now as his own life is drawing to a close.

Venus

Then there’s Norbit:

Norbit has never had it easy. As a baby, he was abandoned on the steps of a Chinese restaurant/orphanage and raised by Mr. Wong. Things get worse when he’s forced into marriage by the mean, junk food-chugging queen, Rasputia. Just when Norbit’s hanging by his last thread, his childhood sweetheart, Kate, moves back to town.

Norbit

And last up, Pan’s Labyrinth, a film by Guillermo del Toro:

Award-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro delivers a unique, richly imagined epic with PAN’S LABYRINTH, a gothic fairytale set against the postwar repression of Franco’s Spain. Harnessing the formal characteristics of classic folklore to a 20th Century landscape, del Toro delivers a timeless tale of good and evil, bravery and sacrifice, love and loss.

Pan’s Labyrinth

Video Business Online says that the first crop of BD discs to be released in the 50GB dual-layer versions don’t quite live up to their potential. They have lackluster features, or features that are the same as the DVD. Or that the film takes up most of the disc.

Frankly, I can’t say I really care. Movies on disc in HD (whether that be HD DVD or BD) are a new phenoma. Studios are still getting their sea legs, so to speak, and it’ll be a while before we see the true potential out of either format.

Now if we’re going on a year or two after the release of HD DVD and BD, and we’re still getting crap extras or bad soundtrack choices (which is really what I’m concerned about), then I’ll be a little bit more upset. But for now I’ll just leave it alone!

50GB Blu-ray discs not at potential