Your blu-ray pickups/collection

[puppy fields]

mmmmmmmmmmmm...

La Femme Nikita is out.

[DJ LunchBox]

^^^nice! Now for Leon to get a U.S. release......

[DJ LunchBox]

Holy shit!!

AKIRA on Blu-Ray this Tuesday!!

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?id=1872



Looks like none of the regular dvd's Special Features were included on this Blu-Ray which is a downer. The other thing is I've been wanting to get a dvd copy with the original English audio track, not the re-dub by Pioneer. I remember there used to be a UK version that had that. Looks like I gotta hunt it down still.

[slackerbot]

i noticed there are lots of older movies on BD for cheap. like under $20 at Best Buy and Fry's.

and i'm starting to see generic brand BD players for under $200 now.

[DJ LunchBox]

Originally Posted by slackerbot

i noticed there are lots of older movies on BD for cheap. like under $20 at Best Buy and Fry's.

and i'm starting to see generic brand BD players for under $200 now.

Yeah Fry's always has decent sales on BDs. Like $13-$15 sometimes. Prices should start coming down alot more on players even name brand ones.

[DJ LunchBox]

hmmmm, more of a reason to cop Akira this Tuesday

http://www.bandai-ent.com/blog/?p=154

[joetron2030]

So, how much cleaner is this print going to be than the most recent reissue of "Akira" that Pioneer did? I have that one (in the metal case). It was probably the first DVD I purchased.

[slackerbot]

i dunno. if you have a decent upscaling DVD player, it's probably not worth it to re-buy the BD version. the BD version will probably have extra features and BD-live content.

[DJ LunchBox]

^^nope and nope. None of the extras on the DVD release are on it.

[joetron2030]

I'm glad I'm not missing out on much, then.

The one I'm most concerned with, since I currently don't have a BD player, is the upcoming re-issue of "Ghost in the Shell".

[DJ LunchBox]

^^^Yeah I have a VHS copy of that but never re-upped to dvd, so will mos def have to get that.

As far as why they didn't include extras on the Akira BD, apparently the process of audio and picture quality compression was so high, it actually pushed the 50gb disc to the limit. It still would've been nice to get all the production report dvd stuff since I've never seen it.

Both the audio and video teams worked on AKIRA concurrently. The film's dense aesthetic and cutting edge soundtrack, proved to be a major challenge for the compression team. Constant communication was required to make sure that they not only stayed within Blu-ray's 48 mbps maximum combined bitrate requirement, but that the final product would actually fit onto a normally spacious BD-50. Even at a running time of only 124 minutes, AKIRA pushes the boundaries of what can be compressed to a Blu-ray Disc. The root of this challenge lies in the 192khz/24-bit 5.1 track. Uncompressed linear PCM at this resolution needs an astonishing 28 megabits per second (mbps) of transfer rate. To give a point of reference, this is 30% greater than the video bitrate on the well- regarded Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest Blu-ray, and 8mbps over the maximum allowable combined audio bitrate in the Blu-ray spec. This of course, doesn't even account for the original Dolby Surround mix (linear PCM), the English Dub (48khz/16-bit Dolby TrueHD), or the Japanese Dolby Digital tracks. For help, Bandai turned to Dolby, whose TrueHD codec is standard for their releases. The two companies worked together closely to balance the available space on a BD-50 with the needs of both the audio and video tracks. In the end, the combined load of all four audio tracks bump their head against that 20mbps ceiling, never breaking through, while still leaving plenty of room for a high quality video presentation.

Naturally, there is a price to be paid for quality, and that comes in the form of bonus material. The disc is so full with the movie and its soundtrack that neither the “AKIRA Production Report” or the previous restoration documentaries were able to fit on the disc. What does make an appearance are the 4500 storyboards, complete and unabridged, newly rescanned at 1920x1080 resolution, and Japanese teasers, trailers, and TV commercials.

Full article here:
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=2394

[DJ LunchBox]

Info on GitS BD:

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14282.html

GitS 2 is out on BD but I didn't like that one so much, and especially not enough to drop BD $$ on it.

[Telephone]

I can't believe none of the Miyazaki films have received the Blu-Ray treatment, I'd imagine that those would look great.

[DJ LunchBox]

Just picked up AKIRA. With $10 rewards certificate came out to $20. Hopefully I'll have a chance to watch tonight.

[joetron2030]

Did you have the most recent Pioneer DVD reissue? If you did (or you've seen that version), I'd be curious to know what you think in comparison.