Transformers Movie on Blu-Ray Still To Come?

Blu-Ray FTW!

Bay does have a point, though. HD-DVD, thus far, isn't quite as popular as the BD format.

I happy *hugs my PS3*

Pity Blu-Ray is winning the HD race.

HD-DVD is by far the more consumer friendly product(i.e less studio friendly). The main problem the studios have with HD-DVD is that they can't region protect their content so that Europeans don't have to pay ridiculous mark ups(e.g Heroes S1 U.S HD-DVD $100/EUR68 retail, E.U retail EUR100/$150 for the exact same discs) or wait for ages to get a copy. Although it is odd having Japan in the same blu-ray region as the US as their mark ups are even worse, $80-$100 for a blu-ray film .

EDIT: For some reason the forum has stopped recognising the Euro symbol.

sniper_samurai wrote:EDIT: For some reason the forum has stopped recognising the Euro symbol.

€

Still seems to work for me!

This is a bit of a no brainer. Exclusive rights only last 18 months and Blu-Ray is a superior product and in the UK and Europe took about 75% of the HD takes this year. That ain't likely to change.

What does it matter if blu-ray is better or not? By the time it either one wins out, everybody will be making players that play both.

I guess it only matters to Movie-Philes like my who prefer the best quility transfer of picture and sound. But I'm a movie freak so I may be in the minority.

What a hack.... he "predicted" if only everyone listened to Michael Bay...

Bay is like Hasbro's repaints on this one...

The more versions that can be created of the same dam thing equil more royalty profits so that is good(for them0

I recall after the initial DVD was released he said over all the packages could have been better.

So here's your chance to put your money where your integrity is....

WOW us with special features, make us want to go get it again, and OK I'll respect this effort.

However if it's just more of the same ol' on a different platform, I'll see you as nothing more than a movie milking prick the same way I see Hasbro at this point.

I guess Bay really wants his movie to be in every format so everyone can have it. But c'mon.. Blu-Ray? What, does every1onenow have a PS3? Don't get me wrong here, Blu-Ray is better than HD, but whats the bloody point?

I can't wait till HD and Blu-Ray start making DVDs for every movie so that everyone starts getting a Blu-Ray/HD DVD player, but until that time, this whole HD vs. Blu-Ray crap is senseless to me.

Why is it that everything that tends to come out of his mouth is so arrogant? It just gets annoying to listen to him even when he wants to make a purposeful point.

Nemesis Cyberplex wrote:What does it matter if blu-ray is better or not? By the time it either one wins out, everybody will be making players that play both.

That is the whole point of his comments -- with Warner's announcement to support Blu-Ray exclusively, HD-DVD has little to no chance of surviving now. Equipment manufacturers will no longer support the dying HD-DVD format (it's not like they really are right now, except for Toshiba...), and thus won't HAVE to make players that play both formats, because in the very near future, only one format will exist -- the better of the two formats -- Blu-Ray. And once there is only one format, ALL studios will be releasing their movies on Blu-Ray, and thus, the inevitable conclusion that Transformers will eventually come out on Blu-Ray.

sounds good to me, I can't wait till it comes out in blu-ray. My blu-ray player upscaled the regular Transformers dvd to look amazing. I could even see Prime and IronHides teeth spinning in their mouths. So if my player can make the regular dvd look that good I can't wait to see it on blu-ray.

stocky wrote:That is the whole point of his comments -- with Warner's announcement to support Blu-Ray exclusively, HD-DVD has little to no chance of surviving now. Equipment manufacturers will no longer support the dying HD-DVD format (it's not like they really are right now, except for Toshiba...), and thus won't HAVE to make players that play both formats, because in the very near future, only one format will exist -- the better of the two formats -- Blu-Ray. And once there is only one format, ALL studios will be releasing their movies on Blu-Ray, and thus, the inevitable conclusion that Transformers will eventually come out on Blu-Ray.

Couldnt have said it better myself, Warner going blu is the nail in the coffin for HDdud. Good riddance to an underpowered, underwhelming format.

the pros and cons of one over the other for the end user are minimal

prices are dictated by several factors and in europe many things are more exp than the use - from cars to consumer electronics and media. region locking has little to do with pricing as the idea was mainly to protect the local box office as movies usually have a staggered international release. For example, transformers was released in the uk long after the us in the cinemas and thus the US dvd release was available earlier.

also, region locking won't last long as even now there are some companies trying to crack the current bluray region locking (and will be selling unlocked players at a premium)

i'm glad one more studio has aligned itself as the longer the battle is drawn out the longer people remain on the fence. at this point they might as well release hddvd players in paramount livery.

With DVD one could apply a modification to their DVD player to play content from other regions. It wasn't a great solution to to the region problem, but it worked.

Blu-Ray is different. If you modify your player to play "out of region" content, your player will be bricked - just like a modified iPhone, the next time your player gets updated.

You can argue that just because the standard includes region encoding doesn't mean that region encoding will be used, but up until this point the competitor to Blu-Ray has been region free. HD-DVD's death will be the death of region free Blu-Ray and you'll have to chose between never being able to watch "out of zone" content or modifying your player (most likely a PS3) and never updating it, knowing that if Sony detects your update, they will "brick" your expensive console.

Orin_Thomas wrote:With DVD one could apply a modification to their DVD player to play content from other regions. It wasn't a great solution to to the region problem, but it worked.

Blu-Ray is different. If you modify your player to play "out of region" content, your player will be bricked - just like a modified iPhone, the next time your player gets updated.

You can argue that just because the standard includes region encoding doesn't mean that region encoding will be used, but up until this point the competitor to Blu-Ray has been region free. HD-DVD's death will be the death of region free Blu-Ray and you'll have to chose between never being able to watch "out of zone" content or modifying your player (most likely a PS3) and never updating it, knowing that if Sony detects your update, they will "brick" your expensive console.

Maybe I am in the minority when it comes to this, but I have little to no interest in playing "out of zone" content. Sure, that could eventually change, but for now, there is nothing I am dying to have on Blu-Ray that I feel the need to order it from a different region. The whole idea behind the different regions is (or at least was) due to the different distribution/release dates of titles in the US versus those same titles overseas. Since most countries outside the US would get their new releases weeks or months after a title had been released in the US, the region-coding was designed to prevent those countries from being able to purchase copies from the US far in advance of that countries release date, and have them be able to play on that particular country's hardware, since those titles were sold or distributed illegally. It seems to me the simpler solution would be to have a single, world-wide release date of a title, rather than worrying about having all these different regions around the world, but I guess sometimes some countries don't even get to show a movie in theaters until after it has already been released in the US on DVD. I guess often times the only solution to fixing a problem is to create a different problem altogether. Ah, the beauty of the corporate world...

You are probably not in a minority - region locks have probably caused less problems to Americans than everyone else in the world. In my own case my wife teaches languages and uses DVDs of foreign TV shows and movies that would never see release in English speaking markets as teaching aids. We taught our son Russian partly through allowing him to watch DVDs of Russian kids shows and cartoons. Stuff that will never be released outside Russia because there just isn't a market for it.

The region locking technology of Blu-Ray is lightyears ahead of that of DVD. It isn't going to be easy to get around this time because the devices software is more complex and is designed to shut down the unit when that sort of tampering is detected.

And believe it or not, one day there will be a film that you want to watch that isn't available in your region. The best films in the world aren't always going to come out of Hollywood. Someone, somewhere will come up with something spectacular And the reason we won't be able to watch it on our own TVs after buying it off a legitimate Internet site is because the format that won the hi-def war has region encoding.

NOT Likely to be anytime soon, guys.

Paramount still has a contract with HDDVD for another year before they can go BluRay.

Despite all the Warner Bros. news going blu thx to Sony paying them off things are looking ugly, but not over for HDDVD. We'll see what happens, but if TF gets on Bluray it's not gonna be for a long time.

And might I say being able to enjoy it now on HDDVD since late October has been nothing short of BEAUTIFUL.

Versa wrote:NOT Likely to be anytime soon, guys.

Paramount still has a contract with HDDVD for another year before they can go BluRay.

Despite all the Warner Bros. news going blu thx to Sony paying them off things are looking ugly, but not over for HDDVD. We'll see what happens, but if TF gets on Bluray it's not gonna be for a long time.

And might I say being able to enjoy it now on HDDVD since late October has been nothing short of BEAUTIFUL.

Honestly, I don't think seeing the movie would look better in a higher definition than what HD-DVD could produce anyway. I've already noticed that in that version you can see a lot of a low-light fuzzy picture problem throughout a lot of the nighttime scenes, which make up a good chunk of the movie. I would think a higher resolution would only make that more noticable.

stocky wrote:Maybe I am in the minority when it comes to this, but I have little to no interest in playing "out of zone" content..

Do you drive 55 in the right lane too? Never let the tank go under half full?

The point is that Phony wants to control everything you do with their media, from the content all the way down to the player, which is YOUR personal private property. Once you purchase the hardware, you should be able to alter it in any way you wish to suit your liking and desired performance. They gray zone is when you crack copyrights, which is of course illegal, and I am not advocating it here.

But, for example, I just purchased "My Boy Jack" from the UK, a PAL DVD that is unavailable in America. I want to play it, but my player is not region free, it is NTSC US/Canada zoned. Owning the system, I choose to modify it, no harm done, no laws actually broken.

If it were a blu-ray version of My Boy Jack, though, what others here on the board are saying is that if Sony detects you using YOUR property in a certain way, they will make it unable to be used. That's CRAP! Sony's DRM practices are formidable and ultimately hostile to their user base.

Cheering for blu-ray is like rooting for the Death Star.

Pardon our dust...

Well, warner's sister company new line has followed suit, come may of this year, all releases for warner and newline will be blu.

Rumours that paramount has a "get out of jail free" cluase in their exclusivity contract with HDdud are also surfacing. Might see a proper transfer of TF sooner than we thought.

This format war is all but over, all HDdvd has now is paramount and that is only due to a shady pay off.

It was great to read the quotes from the HDdud camp after the warner decision, they really had no idea what to say.

Maybe next time put out a quality product.
2008 is looking blu, as I expected.

with Warner and Newline on board, it is only a matter of time before other Warner franchises like HBO go blu as well. I predict paramount will wriggle out of its contract with HDdud and we will see a Bluray TF movie by 4th quarter 2008

Sid Burn wrote:Well, warner's sister company new line has followed suit, come may of this year, all releases for warner and newline will be blu.

Rumours that paramount has a "get out of jail free" cluase in their exclusivity contract with HDdud are also surfacing. Might see a proper transfer of TF sooner than we thought.

This format war is all but over, all HDdvd has now is paramount and that is only due to a shady pay off.

It was great to read the quotes from the HDdud camp after the warner decision, they really had no idea what to say.

Maybe next time put out a quality product.
2008 is looking blu, as I expected.

with Warner and Newline on board, it is only a matter of time before other Warner franchises like HBO go blu as well. I predict paramount will wriggle out of its contract with HDdud and we will see a Bluray TF movie by 4th quarter 2008

Why do you keep calling it hd-dud and lauding Blu-ray like some idiotic Sony fanboy. I have a player for both formats and there is no difference between them except for capacity and the format for interactive features(HD-DVDs web based HDi or Blu-Rays more rigid java based BD-j), of which early Blu-ray players don't support new features(picture in picture) encompased in the new 1.1 profile and can't be upgraded to support the profile(except the ps3).

By the way saying Transformers will get a better transfer on blu-ray than the current hd-dvd transfer would also be incorrect. Why would Paramount go to the trouble and cost of creating a new transfer instead of using the current one which uses the SAME CODEC(AVC/h.264) at the SAME RESOLUTION(1920x1080p) and AN AUDIO STREAM(DD+5.1) that Blu-Ray uses?

And there are more studios than just Paramount supporting HD-DVD, but it is only one of two HOLLYWOOD studios supporting Blu-Ray, the other being Universal. In terms of international studio support HD-DVD is quite healthy including Momentum and Canal+. Of course we all know the US studios have a monopoly on good films .

Not going to dignify your flamebait but if you think that Sony having 6 of the 8 big hollywood studios behind it while HDdud only has 2 isnts the nail in the coffin, I cant help you.

if you choose to own a HD-DVD player instead of a Blu-ray player, you won't be able to play high definition movies from Disney (Buena Vista), Fox, Lionsgate, MGM, Sony, Warner and New Line which have all decided to support Blu-ray exclusively. With the majority of the movie studios supporting Blu-ray, the massive support from consumer electronics companies, the fact that PlayStation 3 features a Blu-ray Disc drive... well you can see the writing on the wall.

Hollywood may not bring us the the best content all the time, but they bring in the biggest money, and in the end, money decides format wars.

Universal and Paramount are the only studios still waving the HDDVD flag, but with Warner going Blu, my prediction is the same as Bay's, HDdud will die.

I am glad hollywood actually picked the better format this time.
You might not see the use of a larger capacity disc now, but in time the benefit will be obvious.

I ain't buying Either player until one of them has won.
and when the boxes stop being bright colors(300 on Blu-Ray)

Sid Burn wrote:Not going to dignify your flamebait but if you think that Sony having 6 of the 8 big hollywood studios behind it while HDdud only has 2 isnts the nail in the coffin, I cant help you.

if you choose to own a HD-DVD player instead of a Blu-ray player, you won't be able to play high definition movies from Disney (Buena Vista), Fox, Lionsgate, MGM, Sony, Warner and New Line which have all decided to support Blu-ray exclusively. With the majority of the movie studios supporting Blu-ray, the massive support from consumer electronics companies, the fact that PlayStation 3 features a Blu-ray Disc drive... well you can see the writing on the wall.

Hollywood may not bring us the the best content all the time, but they bring in the biggest money, and in the end, money decides format wars.

Universal and Paramount are the only studios still waving the HDDVD flag, but with Warner going Blu, my prediction is the same as Bay's, HDdud will die.

I am glad hollywood actually picked the better format this time.
You might not see the use of a larger capacity disc now, but in time the benefit will be obvious.

How can you classify stating the techincal similarities of both formats and asking you to justify your reasons for calling HD-DVD hddud as an attempt to flame you? Seriously your starting to come across a bit like one of those idiots off Gamefaqs, albeit with better grammer.

I too believe that Blu-Ray will be the eventual winner, as much as it doesn't benefit the public due to the medieval levels of content protection on Blu-Ray that serves no purpose other than to restrict access in other regions in this "globalised market" that every company seems to be shouting on about. Also in your reply you seem to have completely ignored the fact that I stated that I have both a HD-DVD player and Blu-Ray player and as such am well aware of the strengths and limitations of both formats.

HD-DVD
15/17gb per layer
Video codecs: Mpeg2, AVC, VC-1
Audio codecs: DD+5.1, DTS5.1, DD True HD 7.1, DTS 7.1
Interactive format: HDi, encompassing every major web based language
Region Coding: None
Encryption: AACS

Blu-Ray
25 gb per layer
Video codecs: Mpeg2, AVC, VC-1
Audio codecs: DD+5.1, DTS5.1, DD True HD 7.1, DTS7.1, Linear PCM
Interactive format: Sun Microsystems Java Virtual Machine based, BD-j
Region Coding: Yes, 3 a: North America & S.E Asia b: All Pal territories c: Rest of world
Encryption: AACS, BD+

I can't help but think that blu-ray will win now, which irritates me overall. It's not an issue of owning the players (I have both as well) so much as the blatant hypocrisy once again of our "free market" society. These products aren't actually competing, the studios are deciding for us. Paramount (and the rest of the supporters on the rebel moon base Yavin) will only holdout for so long now, and be forced to cave because of sony's greasy studio control. blu-ray is technically better yadda yadda, that's beside the point for me... the point is these crippled man-beasts in suits winking at you and smiling, saying they're doing what's best for the consumer as their grunt technicians put it right up your -

To Abilor and Samurai, I really dont see what the complaint is about.

Studios like Warner are helping to decide things, but those studios are only doing so based on sales. Bluray has a global lead of 3to1 in sales. Warner would be silly not to follow the money.
It is our dollars that decide these things much of the time. Sony is a large corporation but only is so based on revenue generated over many years based on great audio video equipment.

Be happy that this time, consumers picked the superior format that will stand the test of time, HDDVD is already at capacity with most HD encodings coming in at 25gigs.

The first DVDs didnt come close to filling a full disc yet this "improved" format is already near the brim? That is not the format I want to spend money on.

Microsoft has seen the future as well, stating that it would not be unwilling to incorporate a BDrom into xbox's if the format war's conclusion dictated it.

If the most compelling argument againt Blu is region encoded discs...get over it, dvds are region encoded, and there are ways around it. Sony has to please the creatives and the consumers, take it from someone who works in a creative industry, intellectual property is as fragile as it is precious. Region encoding, and even DRM is attractive to creators, as it helps to ensure they are not taken advantage of.

Anyway, I am happy to say that the discussions I have had with other board members (some more heated than others) have worked in my favour. HDdud will be dead in a year and we can all get on with our HD collections the way they should have been a year ago before paramount got their payoff.

Abilor wrote: blu-ray is technically better yadda yadda, that's beside the point for me...

Had to comment on this. Do consumers not want the better product? Is that not the entire point of this debate? How can it upset you when the better product is the one that will be in your home?

Sony isnt out to get you abilor, they want to sell you and everyone else electronics.

Sid Burn wrote:The first DVDs didnt come close to filling a full disc yet this "improved" format is already near the brim? That is not the format I want to spend money on.

If the most compelling argument againt Blu is region encoded discs...get over it, dvds are region encoded, and there are ways around it. Sony has to please the creatives and the consumers, take it from someone who works in a creative industry, intellectual property is as fragile as it is precious. Region encoding, and even DRM is attractive to creators, as it helps to ensure they are not taken advantage of.

Actually the first dvds were completely filled, and thats without extras, for the initial releases and they were only available on single layer discs as dual layer discs were still in development.

I still remember the debacle that arose from having to change side for the original Armageddon dvd to watch the second half of the movie as it was on a double sided disc. I also know to my chagrin that standards can evolve as my first dvd player(a first gen Phillips dvd player that I picked up at 1/3 retail thanks to a Tower sale) eventually couldn't play any new dvds and can anyone remember the "slight pause" that used to be mentioned when the player changes the layer its reading?

I know how precious protecting your intellectual property is as well believe me, I'm a mechanical engineer. I don't mind having a lot of rights protection as long as it doesn't restrict what I, the consumer, can do with the product that I've purchased outside of copying the contents of a disc as there is no reason to copy a high definition film other than to pirate it(if you want it on your iPod or psp[except the new Blu-ray flims that are coming out with a psp format version of the film also on the disc] there are other ways).

HD-DVD
15/17gb per layer
Video codecs: Mpeg2, AVC, VC-1
Audio codecs: DD+5.1, DTS5.1, DD True HD 7.1, DTS 7.1
Interactive format: HDi, encompassing every major web based language
Region Coding: None
Encryption: AACS

Blu-Ray
25 gb per layer
Video codecs: Mpeg2, AVC, VC-1
Audio codecs: DD+5.1, DTS5.1, DD True HD 7.1, DTS7.1, Linear PCM
Interactive format: Sun Microsystems Java Virtual Machine based, BD-j
Region Coding: Yes, 3 a: North America & S.E Asia b: All Pal territories c: Rest of world
Encryption: AACS, BD+

Just from a neutral point of view, it does look as if Blu has a bit more umph to it than HD-DVD. Marginal, yes, but a bit more. I do not own an HD-DVD player. I have a PS3, and I'm quite happy with it. I haven't noticed anybody trying to control and limit my actions in any way. I'm actually glad to have blu-ray functionality built in, 1)saved me some cash on buying a player, and 2) Blu's got a much wider selection.

On a side note, I'm just finding the flaming attitudes here quite...humorous. Carry on.

One thing to like about HD DVD is the absence of regional coding. For now.

Auto Bot wrote:One thing to like about HD DVD is the absence of regional coding. For now.

Exactly, for now :/

Micheal bay really is an idiot on this subject. Yeah I was wrong on it, I really thought HD-DVD would win the war, but it looks like Blu Ray is, but my main question for Mr. Mike is who cares anyway? They virtually are the same thing, just coded differently anyway! The picture quality is EXACTLY the same. Why does it matter whether something is released on Blu-Ray or HD DVD?

They both are one in the same IMO. I really Don't care who wins. As for me when I get a better TV, I'm probably just going to buy a Multi-player for it.

It's actually a good thing there's an HD-DVD vs Bly-Ray war going on. Whoever loses out, will drop its price drastically. Benefiting the consumers.

Imagine if only either one of them is developed, with no rivals. You'd see prices of player beyond &1000. It wouldn't be hard to imagine it climbing to the $5000 range. And they'd hang on to the prices for a pretty long time.

Auto Bot wrote:It's actually a good thing there's an HD-DVD vs Bly-Ray war going on. Whoever loses out, will drop its price drastically. Benefiting the consumers.

Imagine if only either one of them is developed, with no rivals. You'd see prices of player beyond &1000. It wouldn't be hard to imagine it climbing to the $5000 range. And they'd hang on to the prices for a pretty long time.

I don't see that happening. If it did, it wouldn't suprise me if studios start jumping ship back to HD-DVD. I mean, the individual studios don't make players, & if the players cost so much nobody wants the movies, they would stand to lose money.

They don't need to jump back. They can still hold on to the winning format as their primary deal.

And if the losing format gives a sweeter deal, the studios can reopen its doors, making this format a secondary deal.

Auto Bot wrote:It's actually a good thing there's an HD-DVD vs Bly-Ray war going on. Whoever loses out, will drop its price drastically. Benefiting the consumers.

Imagine if only either one of them is developed, with no rivals. You'd see prices of player beyond &1000. It wouldn't be hard to imagine it climbing to the $5000 range. And they'd hang on to the prices for a pretty long time.

Not true, it all depends on the price of the technology, can you remember how quickly the prices dropped on dvd players?

When dvd players were released at the end of 1996 they were well over $1000, within the next three years they dropped to the $300 mark, and that was without any rival format as all of the major electronics companies agreed on the format, which also would have been the case for Blu-Ray if Sony accepted the deal that HP were able to broker that HD-DVD would have been scrapped altogether if they incorporated Microsofts HDi coding format rather than Sun Microsystems BD-java that they use now.

Imagine how much cheaper a unified format would be now considering that the output of blue laser diodes wouldn't need to be split between players of two incompatable formats and the PS3.

That was because they made 4 different confusing formats (was it 4?) out of DVD, and each collection of companies supporting their respective format, have to fight it out. In effect, they created their own rivalry upon themselves.

Dumb. But did benefit the consumers.

Later on, when Chinese factories started churning out nameless multi-format drives, which worked better than those big names, they all have to drop the format war, and jumped into the multi-format bandwagon.

So by the time DVD became uniform, prices were already rock-bottom.

Now this scenario can't happen with high-density drives yet. Not until Chinese companies started to acquire the abilities to manufacture them without the throat-cutting royalties.

For now, we have to depend solely on the rivalry to expect falling prices. Especially so when one of them started to get the upper hand.

Auto Bot wrote:That was because they made 4 different confusing formats (was it 4?) out of DVD, and each collection of companies supporting their respective format, have to fight it out. In effect, they created their own rivalry upon themselves.

Dumb. But did benefit the consumers.

Later on, when Chinese factories started churning out nameless multi-format drives, which worked better than those big names, they all have to drop the format war, and jumped into the multi-format bandwagon.

So by the time DVD became uniform, prices were already rock-bottom.

Now this scenario can't happen with high-density drives yet. Not until Chinese companies started to acquire the abilities to manufacture them without the throat-cutting royalties.

For now, we have to depend solely on the rivalry to expect falling prices. Especially so when one of them started to get the upper hand.

Your thinking of the incompatability of early dvd players with the three different recordable dvd formats, dvd-r, dvd+r and dvd-ram, there was always a unified format for dvd-video.

This was due to the way the information was etched onto the discs, with dvd-ram being the best, but incompatable with standard drives. Dvd-r was the original format for standard recording and then dvd+r sprouted up 5 years later which is more stable allowing for higher burning speeds, but has a slightly reduced capacity, about 7MB per layer less than dvd-r.

My first super-expensive Sony DVD player can't read all types of DVD video formats. Piece of junk.

I ended up buying more VCDs than DVDs.

Until the Chinese players came out.