I thought it was funny when I saw this, because my wife and I were just talking about this the other day. She likes the show “Ugly Betty”. I watch it with her because, well, I can! My laptop can go where I go. So I check out the web and stuff while watching the show.

And it’s true. Vanessa Williams doesn’t look that great on this show. Her age is definitely showing, and it’s not flattering at all. I should not really be saying things like that, because it’s not nice. But in an industry where looks are so important, I can understand why television stars are nervous about this whole HD thing.

Maybe we’re moving into a more enlightened age, where wrinkles aren’t smoothed over by low-res screens, and we can see things as they really are. Is that a good thing, or bad?

Ugly Betty Star: HDTV Makes Me Ugly

There has been a lot of talk recently about the fact that the initial BD movies haven’t looked too good. This was blamed on the fact that the BD movies were encoded in MPEG2 on single-layer 25GB discs. Supposedly that just isn’t enough room to do an HD movie justice. When BD movies encoded in VC1 appeared, and looked quite good, that opinion only strengthened.

But is it true?

I ask because this review of the movie Dark Water basically gives the picture quality a very good review. Dark Water is a 105-minute movie on a single-layer BD, encoded with MPEG2. While the choice of colours used by the director were mostly blah, they were encoded well and looked like a faithful reproduction of the film.

Interviews with Mr. Parsons from Pioneer show that he believes the problem wasn’t with MPEG2 at all, but with other factors. (Like the Samsung player’s quality?) Maybe he’s right? Or maybe does the film length in this case (105 minutes) have something to do with it?

I don’t really have any answers here. But I would have expected that, if MPEG2 really was the problem, that it would always be a problem. It doesn’t make sense that it could do a really good job on one film, but a really bad job on another. I can understand that maybe this could be the case on a scene by scene basis, but not a whole film.

What do you think? For those more technically inclined than I am, maybe you have some answers that I don’t.

Blu-ray Review: Dark Water

Blu-ray has been in the North American market for months already, but now it’s finally making its way to the U.K. And this time around, it’s actually beating HD DVD to the punch.

Yesterday Samsung and Panasonic Blu-ray Disc (BD) players came onto the market in the U.K. (Toshiba’s HD DVD players will arrive in November.) Four BD titles were released yesterday: S.W.A.T., Tears of the Sun, Hostel, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

On top of that, there are another 40 or so BD movies to be released in the U.K. market in the next couple months. Check out the High-Def Digest article for the full details.

Blu-ray Beats HD DVD to Market in England; A Look at Blu-ray Discs Scheduled for U.K. Release

We’ve been seeing a lot of TrueHD soundtracks on HD DVD releases, and lots of PCM soundtrack releases on BD releases. Now that is about to change because there’s a BD disc coming with a TrueHD soundtrack. The title is “Legends of Jazz Showcase” from LRS Media, which will retail for $34.98. Two other soundtracks will also be included - DD 5.1 and PCM 2.0.

So okay, it’s not a mainstream movie release. It’s a musical release from an indie studio. But maybe this is a sign of things to come. I think that all BD movies should come with a TrueHD or DTS HD Master soundtrack. Why aren’t studios providing this? Is it because the hardware isn’t up to snuff? Whatever the case, I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing a lot of re-releases of early BD titles, but done right.

Dolby TrueHD Comes to Blu-ray With ‘Legends of Jazz’

The floodgates have opened and now there are a bunch of dual-layer BD-50 titles coming at us. This time, Warner and Paramount have announced some movies to go on the 50GB version of Blu-ray.

Warner Brothers is releasing The Searchers and Unforgiven on October 31st. Both will be BD-50 releases.

Paramount hasn’t given a street date yet, but their BD-50 title will be Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center.

These BD-50 announcements join those of Sony, Fox, and Lionsgate, who hae all also announced BD-50 titles.

Warner, Paramount Announce First BD-50 Blu-ray Discs

Click … click … click. I saw a TV show once that used the exact same plot as this movie. I wonder if this movie was based on the TV show. Hmmm. I guess I actually have to admit to you that I watched a certain TV show in order to back up my statement… somewhat. Well, okay. It was the TV show based off the movie “Weird Science”. And in the show in question that punk kid gets a remote that does exactly what it does in this movie.

But that’s neither here nor there.

Click, the real movie, is significant because it’s the first Blu-ray movie to be released to the general public with not one, but two layers of movie goodness. That’s 50GB of data, for those of you that might not be up on the whole BD spec thing.

And the real question is: how does the movie look? The answer? It looks very good indeed. The movie is sourced from HD video, not film, so it looks a little different than your typical HD movie, but it still looks very very good. The disc is chock full of extras too.

If this is the way future BD discs are going to go, then maybe Blu-ray has a chance in the war after all.

Blu-ray Review: Click

Magnolia has announced its first batch of movies to be released in the Blu-ray Disc (BD) format, and they’re out today! How’s that for lead time?

Most of the titles are from HDNet television (an exclusively HD channel), not Hollywood blockbuster type of films. At any rate, the films are: Bubble ($29.98), Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room ($29.98), The War Within ($29.98), Bikini Destinations: Triple Fantasy ($26.98), HDNet World Report Special: Shuttle Discovery’s Historic Mission ($26.98), and One Last Thing ($29.98).

It’s good to see more movies coming out on BD, but frankly none of these titles interest me either. I was just at both Circuit City and Best Buy on Saturday, because my brother-in-law wanted to buy me a movie as a thank-you for hosting his family for the Thanksgiving Weekend. (Which just passed up here in Canada.) Anyhow, I was looking at all the BD discs on the shelf, and not a single one caught my attention. I’ll be getting a BD player in a month and a half (in the form of a PS3), and I’m scared that I won’t have anything to watch on it! Good thing it’s a great game machine.

Magnolia Launches First Blu-ray Slate

The Transporter is one of my favourite action films, and I’ll definitely be buying the BD when released. On the other hand, The Transporter 2 wasn’t nearly as good, which is unfortunate. If they ever come back to make a Transporter 3, I hope they return to the roots - Europe and BMW!

Anyway, Transporter 2 is coming to BD on December 26th, just in time for boxing day. They’re also releasing The Devil Wears Prada on December 12th.

Fox to Announce ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ and ‘Transporter 2′ for Blu-ray, DVD

Fox has recently launched a new website dedicated to Blu-ray and Fox’s Blu-ray titles. (More of the latter, really.) Coming from Fox on December 5th is The Sentinel, Entrapment, Rising Sun, From Hell, and Flight of the Phoenix.

I guess one or two of those might be rent-worthy.

Am I supposed to say that? Well, it’s true. I can’t really see myself buying any of those titles, unlike their previously-announced The Transporter. Which was one great movie.

BTW, I just recorded that movie on TV in HDTV the other day, and did a comparison to my DVD. The HD version of the movie is obviously, decidedly better. I just say that to all those people out there who claim that HD isn’t that big a deal. But if you’re reading this, I guess you already know that.

Oh yeah, here’s Fox’s Blu-ray site.

Fox Announces New Blu-ray Titles, Launches Website

Yesterday I was talking about the upcoming release of Superman Returns for HD DVD and BD on November 28th. It is significant in that the BD version is a dual-layer release.

But it won’t be the first. The delayed Black Hawk Down is coming to BD on November 14th, finally. And it’s a dual-layer release. So we’ll have to see how well this disc performs.

But I have a confession to make. I didn’t really like the movie Black Hawk Down all that much. It was just a bunch of fighting. And some more fighting. Then add a little bit more for good measure. And with all that fighting, who needs a plot or character development? Or something interesting besides shooting. I like shooting as much as the next guy, but it has it’s place. Ah well. I seem to be in the minority - does anyone agree with me?

‘Black Hawk Down,’ ‘Layer Cake’ to Hit Blu-ray

I remember when I was nine years old, we got to go see Superman in the theater. When I was that young, going to a movie was a big thing, and it was cool that Superman was such a great movie. The next Superman movie was very good, but the rest weren’t that great.

Now comes Superman Returns. I had seen Batman Returns and it was a Batman movie that I actually liked (unlike all the others). To be honest, I liked Superman Returns but I thought it could have been a lot better. Ah well.

High-Def Digest is reporting that Superman Returns is coming to HD DVD and BD. It’s a 1080p/VC-1 transfer. The HD DVD gets a DD+ soundtrack, while the BD only gets DD.

In the “interesting news” department, the HD DVD will be a combo DVD and HD DVD disc, and will retail for a cool $39.95.

The BD version will be Warner Brothers’ first dual-layer 50GB release, which is cool. And the retail price is $34.95.

Superman Returns on November 28th.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… ‘Superman Returns’ on Blu-ray, HD DVD

I’ve always been a fan of The Fugitive. I like seeing someone outwit other people, especially when it’s Harrison Ford. Plus, it is one of the very first DVD movies I bought, so I watched the movie a lot, just taking in the great picture quality that DVD afforded at the time.

So I think it’s great that The Fugitive is coming to HD, and High-Def Digest did a review of The Fugitive on BD. (It’s already available on HD DVD.) How does the VC-1 transfer look? To sum up: it looks decent, but nothing to write home about. If you look at the HD DVD review of The Fugitive, similar comments were made about the picture quality.

Anyway, I already own this movie on DVD, so I don’t plan to re-buy it on BD unless they come out with a new version with even better picture quality. Well, maybe not even then. But I’ll certainly rent it so that I can enjoy Richard Kimble outsmarting the US Marshals in HD.

Blu-ray Review: The Fugitive