Warner Bros. HD discs: Blu-ray Vs. HD-DVD
Warner Bros. releases first Blu-Ray titles and is the first studio to release on both formats. How do they compare?
By Dean Winkelspecht
Warner Bros. released their first wave of Blu-Ray releases to the general public on August 1st. They are the first and only studio to currently support both formats. This is an important milestone in the current format war, as Warner Bros. suggests with their move that both formats will be around for a while and they show that a studio can support both of the competing formats. Three titles have already been released on HD-DVD: "Training Day," "Rumor Has It..." and "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." "Good Night, And Good Luck" has been announced for HD-DVD and was expected to street alongside the Blu-Ray release, but it has been delayed until August 22nd. A lot of interest is centered on how the titles perform against one another. I've taken a look at the first players on the market for the new High Definition formats, now it is time to take a look at the software. In the first of my series of articles covering the new high definition formats I will be taking a look at how the Warner Blu-Ray titles stack up and compare the HD-DVD titles to their corresponding Blu-Ray releases.
First Glance: The Pretty Blue Cases and Java Menus
As soon as I opened up the cardboard box that delivered my four Warner Bros. titles, I could see that the WB was taking a different approach to their Blu-Ray releases than either Lionsgate or Sony had done thus far. The pretty 'blu' cases that contained the Warner Bros. releases are more akin to the HD-DVD cases released by the studio than they are the Blu-Ray cases of the other two studios. They are more rounded along the edges and corners and not 'flat' as the other studios titles are. There is one major difference between the Warner Bros. HD-DVD titles and their Blu-Ray releases, the two 'feet' at the bottom of the case are missing. These discs will not stand on their own as the HD-DVD cases and Sony and Lionsgate's Blu-Ray releases will. Minor detail, but noteworthy on the packaging differences. I do enjoy the pretty blue color though. The 'Blu-Ray' logo is not embossed by Warner Bros., instead it is painted onto the case. Just like their HD-DVD titles.
Inside the case are the Blu-Ray discs that have nice cover artwork on the discs. Sony should take note here. A promotional insert is included that announces upcoming titles of "Million Dollar Baby," "16 Blocks," "Firewall," "The Fugitive," "The Perfect Storm," "Space Cowboys," "Under Siege," "Caddyshack," "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," "Swordfish," "Blazing Saddles," "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride" (Woohoo), "Syriana," "Full Metal Jacket," "House of Wax," "Lethal Weapon" and "The Searches." Certainly a healthy and diverse list of upcoming titles to look forward to and I'm sure Blu-Ray owners will be happy to see that Warner Bros. truly is committed to Sony's format.
Popping the disc in yields slightly different results that what their HD-DVD titles offers. The film begins to play immediately. The promotional trailer that announces Warner's upcoming HD-DVD titles is not part of this release. After seeing that little trailer as many times as I have, I was quite happy to see a Blu-Ray version missing from these titles. One other difference between Warner's releases is how the menus work. Pressing the 'Popup Menu' button on the Samsung remote brings up a quick menu that allows you to select 'Languages,' 'Scene Selections' and 'Special Features.' Unlike HD-DVD, pressing 'Special Features' will pause the film and take you to a separate menu. You are unable to select an extra while the film is playing in the background. Selecting a special feature on the fly is currently not an option with the Warner Bros. releases.
First Glance: Sound and Vision
Warner Bros. has provided each release with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. "Rumor Has It...," "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and "Training Day" each come with a French 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack. "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and "Training Day" also include a Spanish 2.0 Dolby Digital stereo soundtrack. All four titles include English, French and Spanish subtitles. The four Blu-Ray titles sound perfectly fine. They are mastered in basic Dolby Digital 5.1 multichannel surround and do not feature an accompanying DTS release. Nor are they showing off the superior Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 or Dolby TruHD 5.1 mixes. Blu-Ray has impressed me with the Uncompressed 5.1 mixes, but so far, Sony is the only studio providing the uncompressed audio mixes. I would imagine that when the dual layer BD discs are releases, we will see more uncompressed and higher resolution soundtracks. Until then, the Blu-Ray titles have perfectly fine Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks that rival their standard definition DVD releases.
All four titles are mastered in 16x9 widescreen and 1080p resolution. I'll cover the aspect ratios and differences from the HD-DVD versions in my individual comparisons. What I will tell you right now is that the four Warner Bros. Blu-Ray releases are in fact the best looking titles to grace the format yet. I watched all four titles in close proximity of each other. In other words - one after another. I did not see a single glitch in either the picture quality or the soundtrack. Sony's infamous sound dropouts and picture blackouts were absent. The Lionsgate stutter was completely absent. Unfortunately, Samsung's BDP-1000 does not show the compression codec used but from what I have seen posted around the web, it appears Warner Bros. has mastered the titles using the MPEG-2 codec. This is a departure from the VC-1 compression they used on their HD-DVD releases. I know there was a lot of anticipation for these releases as the first true comparison between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray was possible. Regardless of the outcome of my individual comparisons, Blu-Ray owners should be happy with the picture quality of these releases.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
The first title I screened was the Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer vehicle, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." I passed over this title on HD-DVD partly because of the title and partly because it did not invoke any great level of interest. The $38 price tag was a detractor as well, as the HD-DVD title is a Combo Format release with a single layer HD-DVD disc on one side and a standard DVD release on the other side. For me, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" was a pleasant surprise. I enjoy Robert Downey Jr. and wish the actor had not suffered the drug problems he had, as we were unable to enjoy his acting talents during in incarceration. I find Val Kilmer films a mixed bag. He can be a very good actor at times and send me running for cover other times. Perhaps I'm still a bit stung by his portrayal of the Caped Crusader. Along with the stunning Michelle Monaghan and produced by mega producer Joel Silver, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is a solid caper film and one of the more interesting 'buddy' films in the past few years. Kilmer was not the most believable person to ever portray a homosexual male, but he had a good chemistry with Downey Jr.
Video: "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is presented in a vivid and impressive 2.4:1 1080p transfer. Compared to twelve previous Blu-Ray titles that I have watched, this was easily the most impressive and only rivaled by Warner Bros. other release "Training Day." "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is painted in a world full of color and the MPEG-2 transfer faithfully reproduces all of the bright hues that populate the film. There are a lot of dark scenes in the film and black levels hold up well during these moments. Detail was impressively sharp and consistent throughout the film. A few scenes did exhibit minor compression artifacts. One particular scene that takes place in an elevator with wood-grain walls is heavily pixilated and distracting to view. Aside from the handful of moments similar to this, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is a clean and quality looking Blu-Ray release. It is easily one of the finer looking titles and approaches HD-DVD in picture quality, something that earlier titles have not been able to do.
Audio: Where the Warner Bros. titles certainly do not stack up against the HD-DVD releases is in the sound department. "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" features only a standard Dolby Digital 5.1 multichannel mix. The higher bit-rate and better sounding Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix that is found on the competing format is missing from all of the Warner titles. "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" sounds fairly decent. Sound is clean and clear and the soundtrack populates all speakers with nice moments of ambient sound and a full sounding musical score. I did not expect an aggressive mix with this film, but it delivered routinely. The scene where a car goes careening over the heads of the main characters had particularly great stereo imaging. The Dolby Digital soundtrack easily competes with some of the Blu-Ray soundtracks I have heard thus far, but doesn't quite rank up there with the wonderful uncompressed PCM soundtracks used by Sony.
Extras: The Commentary by Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer and Shane Black makes the journey from the HD-DVD release to the Blu-Ray release, as does the Gag Reel and Theatrical Trailer. The commentary track was worth a second visit to the film. I particularly enjoyed Val Kilmer in this commentary. He was relaxed and quite personable. Black and Downey Jr. were pretty cookie cutter in their approaches and sounded as if they were there to advertise their product and promote every aspect of the picture. The gag reel and trailer pass by quickly with out much fanfare, but having a couple supplements is nice. Noteworthy is that the HD-DVD release is a 'Combo' title and features both a DVD and HD-DVD transfer. However, for that bonus, you will pay about $3 more than you will for the Blu-Ray title.
Quick Notes: I was surprised by "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and it was certainly a better picture than I expected. I think it was the title that scared me away. This is among one of the best looking titles on Blu-Ray and it approaches HD-DVD in picture quality. It isn't as good as the top titles on that format, but it is nice to see that Blu-Ray can deliver a promising product. The supplements are a nice addition, but the sound quality is disappointing. On HD-DVD, this title fit onto a single-layer disc that contains only 15GB of data. This single layer Blu-Ray release is a 25GB data layer and the soundtrack is the higher compressed old-school Dolby Digital track. Nice to see Warner's support of the format and this is one of the best titles yet on Blu-Ray.
Story: 8
Video: 8
Sound: 7
Extras: 3
Rumor Has It...
Next up on my hit parade was the Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy "Rumor Has It..." Kevin Costner is still, in my opinion, one of the great American actors. He is an everyman actor that excels at playing a typical American male. Of course, his 'heroic' films "Waterworld" and "The Postman" may have been a bit of a stretch. I have defended "Waterworld" for a long time and still consider it a fun film, but that is a whole different article. In "Rumor Has It...," Costner is an aging male who has romanced more than one generation of Huttinger women. The film finds him s the fictional influence behind "The Graduate." Jennifer Aniston is the young woman who questions her true father and travels to discover if Costner is really her biological father. Mark Ruffalo is disposable as the fiancée and Shirley MacLaine is very good as the domineering mother who tries to rule her grandaughters' lives and still feels contempt towards Costner's character after he bed her many decades earlier before he left her for her daughter. Rob Reiner directs.
Video: "Rumor Has It..." is presented in a 1.78:1 transfer. The picture is clean, but I felt the colors routinely appeared a tad bit washed out and not nearly as vibrant as "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." The level of detail was also soft in a few scenes. I don't know if filters were used to hide the wrinkles and facial defects on the actors faces or if the source print is just not nearly as high detailed as many titles, but "Rumor Has It..." looked like an upconverted standard definition titles more than once. The source materials were clean and the film has minor film grain, but this picture just did not impress me in the least.
Sound: This is definitely not the kind of film where the soundtrack stands out. Most romantic comedies include some environmental sound effects, a couple nice songs and dialogue. "Rumor Has It..." falls into this familiar ground. The dialogue of the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is very clean and clear. The film's music sounds warm and nicely fits the various scenes in the film. There are some nice moments when there is ambient and environmental sounds to populate the speakers, but the vast majority of the film takes place in the front channels. I don't think either an uncompressed PCM mix or a Dolby Digital Plus mix would have been greatly beneficial to the picture, as there is not much of note to push through the speakers.
Extras: Uhm.... theatrical trailer. That is it folks. The HD-DVD release is one of the fancy combination discs and costs a couple dollars more than the Blu-Ray. Here, you get just the trailer.
Quick Notes: The Kevin is in fine form here. The story is cute and I did enjoy how they tried to wrap it around "The Graduate," but that part of the plot did not dig much deeper than skink surface. The rest of the cast was pretty good, but I'm not sure Mark Ruffalo is a leading man opposite of Jennifer Aniston. If I were here, I would've stuck with Costner. Picture quality was underwhelming and the soundtrack wasn't given much to impress anybody with. There are really no supplements. This is a pretty bare-bones release that finds a more spacious Blu-Ray disc and does nothing extra with it.
Story: 6
Video: 5
Sound: 5
Extras: 1
Good Night, And Good Luck.
George Clooney hit the director's chair with the highly nominated film "Good Night, And Good Luck." Nominated for Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay, the film takes a look at the early days of television broadcasting when Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) decides to move away from the 'safe' broadcasting of the day and lock horns with Senator Joseph McCarthy and his Communist Witch Hunt of the early Fifties. Shot in glorious Black & White and interlaced with actual news footage from the broadcasts of the day, "Good Night, And Good Luck" takes an in-depth look at the CBS broadcasters who risked their careers and their network to bring an end to McCarthyism. This is one of those informative films that teach a good history lesson while it entertains. I'm a huge fan of the History Channel, so when a movie offers up and education and entertainment, I'm usually very receptive. Clooney worked hard on this film to achieve accuracy and worked directly with Murrow in maintaining historical accuracy.
Video: Black and White is beautiful. And in the 1.85:1 1080p transfer, "Good Night, And Good Luck" is a wonderous looking film. The level of detail contained in this transfer may make this the best looking film on the Blu-Ray format. This is about as clean as a film can look and though Black and White is almost forgotten in today's world, the medium can look absolutely stunning when done right. Props to director of photography Robert Elswit A.S.C.. Black levels, shadow detail and contrast are very important when it comes to a good black and white film and they all excel here. The grayscales that fall in between the deep black and vibrant whites are very nicely done and no digital blurring occurs between the various grey levels. The stock footage used in the film was cleaned up and looks quite well in its inserted locations. This is a well done transfer that stands up with any Blu-Ray release and finally gives the format something to be very proud to display.
Sound: The soundtrack in the film feels like a throwback to the days when the film's camera choice was commonplace. The soundtrack feels nothing like a modern surround sound track and the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix rarely transcends anything more than perhaps a 2.0 mix. The center channel pulled most of the duty in the soundtrack and the left and rear speakers had work to do, but this mix was quite center heavy. The rear surrounds and the subwoofer got to take the day off for most of this film. Out of curiosity's sake I watched the film through my television speakers via the HDMI cable. It sounded about as good as it did through my Infinity Overture speakers. Dialogue was very important for this picture and it was rendered very nicely. The soundtrack fits the story, but is underwhelming in today's world of 5.1 sound.
Extras: I really wish that Samsung would have take the Toshiba route of handling a 4:3 480i image and pillar-boxed the picture. The fifteen minute featurette Good Night, and Good Luck Companion Piece was a nice watch, but it looked horrendous stretched out to fit the widescreen dimensions of my television. This little documentary featured the real Edward R. Murrow and a lot of time is taken to discuss the accuracy of the picture. I would really have liked this to have been longer and more in-depth. We are discussing history here and I'm sure there is a lot of great stories that could have been included. The Commentary by Director/Screenwriter George Clooney and Producer/Screenwriter Grant Heslov The few minutes I did take to listen to patches of the commentary were pretty good. It is hard to fit every commentary track into my viewing habits and I admit to losing interest quickly on this one. Finally, a theatrical trailer is also included.
Quick Notes: This film looks absolutely stunning in its distinguished black and white transfer. I'm going out on a limb here, but I feel that "Good Luck and Good Night" is the best looking title yet on Blu-Ray. It noses out its Warner Bros. stablemates "Training Day" and "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." Color may be absent, but detail surely is not. This is also an absolutely great film and deserved the Oscar nominations it received. I liked this film better than I did "Crash." This is currently the only WB title available only on Blu-Ray, though an HD-DVD release is forthcoming. If you are going to pick up a title from this studio in the first wave of titles, may I suggest this one?
Story: 9
Video: 10
Sound: 4
Extras: 4
Training Day
Denzel Washington is typically the good cop. He is that 'good guy' actor that always brings down the bad guy. The guy has made a hell of a career out of being a hero and a stand up guy. He turned a lot of heads when he took the role of bad cop Alonzo Harris and found himself hoisting his second Academy Award. Ethan Hawke is his green partner Jake Hoyt as the film covers their first day on the job together and Hoyt very quickly learns that Harris is not juts a street tough cop, but a dirty cop that needs to be stopped. "Training Day" is a suspenseful thrill ride and Washington proves he is just as effective on the other side of the law as he is upholding the law. Hawke is just fine as the rookie, but this film really shines on the acting chops of the man who was named after the doctor that performed his birth. "Training Day" is easily one of Washington's best films. There is a lot of action and a lot of street cred shown during its 122 minutes. You don't get to see many films that focus on a dirty policeman, but "Training Day" puts you through a definite training day in showing how corrupt one man can really be.
Video: I know, I know. You are looking for the big HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray face of. You'll have to wait a couple paragraphs more. For now, let us concentrate mainly on the Blu-Ray aspect of the release. The good thing is that "Training Day" is a very fine looking picture. Detail is routinely very good and often three dimensional in appearance. Colors are finely saturated and look quite impressive. I did notice a good many digital artifacts, some of which are not visible to the untrained eye and others that are a bit distracting. Denzel has dancing stubble in this picture. There were other moments of pixilation in background textures and gradients. Not the sharpest transfer if you did very deep, but 90% of the population doesn't care to look this deeply in a transfer. The level of deep and sharp colors make up for the compression faults more often than they do not. I was looking at this title with Eagle eyes for the forthcoming comparison, and these artifacts exist on other titles, but they seemed to pop out to me here. Still, regardless of the faults of this title, this is one of the best looking Blu-Ray releases. Black levels are deep and true. Contrast is good and skin tones are perfect.
Sound: Blu-Ray owners are offered only a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack in its native English language. Two foreign language tracks are included, but I would have much rather had just and English mix with more power to it. Regardless of the technical inadequacies of the mix, it still sounds pretty darn good. Gunfire comes across sharp and deep. Bass freely rumbles throughout the film. The rap songs contained in the films soundtracks bump nicely. This is a good soundtrack to crank up and enjoy. All six speakers are busy during "Training Day." There are a lot of environmental effects and during the heavier action scenes, all channels are aggressively active. Comparing the title to my standard definition release yielded a nearly identical sounding soundtrack. The bass was a bit tighter on the SD-DVD release, but I believe that may be to the higher quality of my Pioneer Elite DVD player. That may be the telling fact – this is a good sounding soundtrack, but it is essentially identical to the five year old standard definition release.
Extras: I feel like singing. Why you ask? Because "Training Day" is one of those rare Blu-Ray releases where you get a good deal of supplemental materials. A Commentary track by director Antoine Fuqua features a lot of details on the making of the film. This is a pretty standard commentary track. Fuqua does a commendable job and in my spot checking of the track, he spoke through almost every scene without much of a break. Additional Scenes and the Alternate Ending expands the story of the film ever so slightly. This fifteen minutes of extra footage are worth taking a look at and does add some to the story, but better serve the title under the extras menu and not in the finished product. HBO First Look: The Making of Training Day is a prototypical HBO talking-heads/EPK making of documentary. It is more advertising fluff and offers some behind the scenes information, but is mostly promotional in nature. There are 2 Music Videos and a Theatrical Trailer. All-in-all, one of the better collections of supplemental materials found yet on a Blu-Ray release.
Quick Notes: "Training Day" is a great film. Denzel is a powerful presence as the bad guy and Ethan Hawke is effective as the young rookie. Video quality shows some faults in compression, but mostly exhibits a detailed and colorful picture. This is one of the best looking Blu-Ray titles. The soundtrack appears to be the exact same Dolby Digital track that was used on the standard definition release. Aside from the high level of detail in the picture quality and the effective story, where this title shines is in the value added content. In the grand scheme of things, this is a nice collection, but when discussing just the Blu-Ray format, this is a might nice collection. "Training Day" is a good release for the format and probably worth a look.
Story: 8
Video: 9
Sound: 6
Extras: 7
Round 1: HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray - Training Day
These couple paragraphs are probably going to be the most read part of this article. And why? Because "Training Day" is considered one of the better HD-DVD releases and everybody interested in these high definition home video formats wants to know if the Blu-Ray release can hold up to the HD-DVD middleweight champ. I could answer that question very easily with one simple word. Either two or three letters long. However, I guess I should validate my final decision on who comes out on top, so please bear with me for a couple paragraphs. Will Toshiba and the HD-DVD release pound Sony and Blu-Ray or will the newcomer smack the older release right square in the chops?
Taking a look at the video transfers between the two releases was not as hard as I had expected. My initial impressions where that the titles would look fairly close to each other. This was not exactly the case and I had to do my comparisons solely against moving pictures. Switching the HDMI cable made this troublesome and pausing the picture was not an option as the Samsung is far superior in this regard. Most important on this comparison is an issue where the Blu-Ray release is cropped when compared to either the HD-DVD release or the older standard definition title. The aspect ratio is listed at 2.4:1 for both releases, but the Blu-Ray title appears to actually be finer and closer to 2.35:1. A slight amount of information is lost on both sides of the image for the Blu-Ray release. One particular scene I checked featured Denzel Washington sitting in his car. He was much closer to the edge of the frame on the Blu-Ray release.
The picture quality of the Blu-Ray title suffers in other ways. The compression artifacts I saw while watching the film are much lesser in severity on the HD-DVD release. A few of them still exist on the other format, but they are nowhere near as common or visible. I tend to think that VC-1 vs. MPEG-2 is much of the reason for this. It is hard to argue with ten years of compression technology. The Blu-Ray picture was also about 10% darker. This did allow for the night sequences to feel darker and more foreboding, but the rest of the film colors were ever so slightly duller because of this effect. Detail is similar between the titles and it is near impossible to find a scene where the level of detail is shaper on one format or the other (compression problems with the Blu-Ray aside). As far as picture quality goes, HD-DVD wins due to the cropping and the problems with compression. I also preferred the brighter colors and picture of the HD-DVD release.
Sound quality is a knockout blow. The Blu-Ray release gets a ported or copied version of the standard definition Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. The HD-DVD title gets not only a superior Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix, but a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack. Comparing the Dolby Digital Plus against the older mix quickly shows the fuller sound, truer bass and cleaner feeling that the new Plus mix is capable of. The Blu-Ray did have a harder hitting .1 LFE channel, but I enjoy the tighter and more controlled bass of the Plus version. Both soundtracks were tested through analog inputs and digital inputs. I tend to believe that the space requirements that may behind the compression problems in the video have gunned down the Blu-Ray release by not allowing enough room for the superior soundtracks.
Well, the Blu-Ray title is knocked out. Still, we have the question of supplements. To put it simply, the list is identical. I do prefer the menus on the HD-DVD title and have come accustomed to looking at the list of extra materials while the film is still playing, but this is a minor annoyance. I'm not even going to discuss the hourglass on the Samsung. That is a hardware annoyance and not a software annoyance. Still, Blu-Ray went up against one of the better looking HD-DVD titles and it lasted for part of the first round. It fought strong and valiant, but with MPEG-2 in its corner and HD-DVD trained by VC-1, the rookie was not quite ready for the fight. When it came time for Blu-Ray to cry out and be heard, HD-DVD pummeled him. It is hard not to sound biased here, but the HD-DVD title is clearly the better of the two. This is still one of the best Blu-Ray titles, but HD-DVD still has the likes of "Sahara," "The Chronicles of Riddick" and "Aeon Flux" that are that format's heavyweights.
Final Words
Warner Bros. has entered the Blu-Ray camp with its first four releases. Three of these are currently found on HD-DVD and the fourth is on its way. Two of the titles are 'combination' titles on HD-DVD that contains a DVD side as well. This allows for the Blu-Ray titles to be a couple dollars cheaper and seemingly the better value. However, the sound options are not as 'modern' as they are on the competing format and there are questions of 'cropping' with the picture quality. Warner Bros. has turned out the best looking Blu-Ray titles yet. "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," "Good Night, and Good Luck" and "Training Day" may be the best three looking titles on the format. It is interesting to see one of HD-DVDs initial supporters making titles for both formats and I will be very curious to see how everything pans out in the future. This is both an exciting time as we have high definition video formats on the marketplace (I don't count D-Theater, as I refuse to own a VCR style player), but it is also a frightening time as we are locked in a format war. I know Warner Bros. will be providing quality titles regardless of the war's outcome and their first Blu-Ray releases are a strong indication to that belief.
Warner Bros. releases first Blu-Ray titles and is the first studio to release on both formats. How do they compare?
By Dean Winkelspecht
Warner Bros. released their first wave of Blu-Ray releases to the general public on August 1st. They are the first and only studio to currently support both formats. This is an important milestone in the current format war, as Warner Bros. suggests with their move that both formats will be around for a while and they show that a studio can support both of the competing formats. Three titles have already been released on HD-DVD: "Training Day," "Rumor Has It..." and "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." "Good Night, And Good Luck" has been announced for HD-DVD and was expected to street alongside the Blu-Ray release, but it has been delayed until August 22nd. A lot of interest is centered on how the titles perform against one another. I've taken a look at the first players on the market for the new High Definition formats, now it is time to take a look at the software. In the first of my series of articles covering the new high definition formats I will be taking a look at how the Warner Blu-Ray titles stack up and compare the HD-DVD titles to their corresponding Blu-Ray releases.
First Glance: The Pretty Blue Cases and Java Menus
As soon as I opened up the cardboard box that delivered my four Warner Bros. titles, I could see that the WB was taking a different approach to their Blu-Ray releases than either Lionsgate or Sony had done thus far. The pretty 'blu' cases that contained the Warner Bros. releases are more akin to the HD-DVD cases released by the studio than they are the Blu-Ray cases of the other two studios. They are more rounded along the edges and corners and not 'flat' as the other studios titles are. There is one major difference between the Warner Bros. HD-DVD titles and their Blu-Ray releases, the two 'feet' at the bottom of the case are missing. These discs will not stand on their own as the HD-DVD cases and Sony and Lionsgate's Blu-Ray releases will. Minor detail, but noteworthy on the packaging differences. I do enjoy the pretty blue color though. The 'Blu-Ray' logo is not embossed by Warner Bros., instead it is painted onto the case. Just like their HD-DVD titles.
Inside the case are the Blu-Ray discs that have nice cover artwork on the discs. Sony should take note here. A promotional insert is included that announces upcoming titles of "Million Dollar Baby," "16 Blocks," "Firewall," "The Fugitive," "The Perfect Storm," "Space Cowboys," "Under Siege," "Caddyshack," "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," "Swordfish," "Blazing Saddles," "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride" (Woohoo), "Syriana," "Full Metal Jacket," "House of Wax," "Lethal Weapon" and "The Searches." Certainly a healthy and diverse list of upcoming titles to look forward to and I'm sure Blu-Ray owners will be happy to see that Warner Bros. truly is committed to Sony's format.
Popping the disc in yields slightly different results that what their HD-DVD titles offers. The film begins to play immediately. The promotional trailer that announces Warner's upcoming HD-DVD titles is not part of this release. After seeing that little trailer as many times as I have, I was quite happy to see a Blu-Ray version missing from these titles. One other difference between Warner's releases is how the menus work. Pressing the 'Popup Menu' button on the Samsung remote brings up a quick menu that allows you to select 'Languages,' 'Scene Selections' and 'Special Features.' Unlike HD-DVD, pressing 'Special Features' will pause the film and take you to a separate menu. You are unable to select an extra while the film is playing in the background. Selecting a special feature on the fly is currently not an option with the Warner Bros. releases.
First Glance: Sound and Vision
Warner Bros. has provided each release with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. "Rumor Has It...," "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and "Training Day" each come with a French 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack. "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and "Training Day" also include a Spanish 2.0 Dolby Digital stereo soundtrack. All four titles include English, French and Spanish subtitles. The four Blu-Ray titles sound perfectly fine. They are mastered in basic Dolby Digital 5.1 multichannel surround and do not feature an accompanying DTS release. Nor are they showing off the superior Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 or Dolby TruHD 5.1 mixes. Blu-Ray has impressed me with the Uncompressed 5.1 mixes, but so far, Sony is the only studio providing the uncompressed audio mixes. I would imagine that when the dual layer BD discs are releases, we will see more uncompressed and higher resolution soundtracks. Until then, the Blu-Ray titles have perfectly fine Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks that rival their standard definition DVD releases.
All four titles are mastered in 16x9 widescreen and 1080p resolution. I'll cover the aspect ratios and differences from the HD-DVD versions in my individual comparisons. What I will tell you right now is that the four Warner Bros. Blu-Ray releases are in fact the best looking titles to grace the format yet. I watched all four titles in close proximity of each other. In other words - one after another. I did not see a single glitch in either the picture quality or the soundtrack. Sony's infamous sound dropouts and picture blackouts were absent. The Lionsgate stutter was completely absent. Unfortunately, Samsung's BDP-1000 does not show the compression codec used but from what I have seen posted around the web, it appears Warner Bros. has mastered the titles using the MPEG-2 codec. This is a departure from the VC-1 compression they used on their HD-DVD releases. I know there was a lot of anticipation for these releases as the first true comparison between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray was possible. Regardless of the outcome of my individual comparisons, Blu-Ray owners should be happy with the picture quality of these releases.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
The first title I screened was the Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer vehicle, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." I passed over this title on HD-DVD partly because of the title and partly because it did not invoke any great level of interest. The $38 price tag was a detractor as well, as the HD-DVD title is a Combo Format release with a single layer HD-DVD disc on one side and a standard DVD release on the other side. For me, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" was a pleasant surprise. I enjoy Robert Downey Jr. and wish the actor had not suffered the drug problems he had, as we were unable to enjoy his acting talents during in incarceration. I find Val Kilmer films a mixed bag. He can be a very good actor at times and send me running for cover other times. Perhaps I'm still a bit stung by his portrayal of the Caped Crusader. Along with the stunning Michelle Monaghan and produced by mega producer Joel Silver, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is a solid caper film and one of the more interesting 'buddy' films in the past few years. Kilmer was not the most believable person to ever portray a homosexual male, but he had a good chemistry with Downey Jr.
Video: "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is presented in a vivid and impressive 2.4:1 1080p transfer. Compared to twelve previous Blu-Ray titles that I have watched, this was easily the most impressive and only rivaled by Warner Bros. other release "Training Day." "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is painted in a world full of color and the MPEG-2 transfer faithfully reproduces all of the bright hues that populate the film. There are a lot of dark scenes in the film and black levels hold up well during these moments. Detail was impressively sharp and consistent throughout the film. A few scenes did exhibit minor compression artifacts. One particular scene that takes place in an elevator with wood-grain walls is heavily pixilated and distracting to view. Aside from the handful of moments similar to this, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is a clean and quality looking Blu-Ray release. It is easily one of the finer looking titles and approaches HD-DVD in picture quality, something that earlier titles have not been able to do.
Audio: Where the Warner Bros. titles certainly do not stack up against the HD-DVD releases is in the sound department. "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" features only a standard Dolby Digital 5.1 multichannel mix. The higher bit-rate and better sounding Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix that is found on the competing format is missing from all of the Warner titles. "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" sounds fairly decent. Sound is clean and clear and the soundtrack populates all speakers with nice moments of ambient sound and a full sounding musical score. I did not expect an aggressive mix with this film, but it delivered routinely. The scene where a car goes careening over the heads of the main characters had particularly great stereo imaging. The Dolby Digital soundtrack easily competes with some of the Blu-Ray soundtracks I have heard thus far, but doesn't quite rank up there with the wonderful uncompressed PCM soundtracks used by Sony.
Extras: The Commentary by Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer and Shane Black makes the journey from the HD-DVD release to the Blu-Ray release, as does the Gag Reel and Theatrical Trailer. The commentary track was worth a second visit to the film. I particularly enjoyed Val Kilmer in this commentary. He was relaxed and quite personable. Black and Downey Jr. were pretty cookie cutter in their approaches and sounded as if they were there to advertise their product and promote every aspect of the picture. The gag reel and trailer pass by quickly with out much fanfare, but having a couple supplements is nice. Noteworthy is that the HD-DVD release is a 'Combo' title and features both a DVD and HD-DVD transfer. However, for that bonus, you will pay about $3 more than you will for the Blu-Ray title.
Quick Notes: I was surprised by "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and it was certainly a better picture than I expected. I think it was the title that scared me away. This is among one of the best looking titles on Blu-Ray and it approaches HD-DVD in picture quality. It isn't as good as the top titles on that format, but it is nice to see that Blu-Ray can deliver a promising product. The supplements are a nice addition, but the sound quality is disappointing. On HD-DVD, this title fit onto a single-layer disc that contains only 15GB of data. This single layer Blu-Ray release is a 25GB data layer and the soundtrack is the higher compressed old-school Dolby Digital track. Nice to see Warner's support of the format and this is one of the best titles yet on Blu-Ray.
Story: 8
Video: 8
Sound: 7
Extras: 3
Rumor Has It...
Next up on my hit parade was the Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy "Rumor Has It..." Kevin Costner is still, in my opinion, one of the great American actors. He is an everyman actor that excels at playing a typical American male. Of course, his 'heroic' films "Waterworld" and "The Postman" may have been a bit of a stretch. I have defended "Waterworld" for a long time and still consider it a fun film, but that is a whole different article. In "Rumor Has It...," Costner is an aging male who has romanced more than one generation of Huttinger women. The film finds him s the fictional influence behind "The Graduate." Jennifer Aniston is the young woman who questions her true father and travels to discover if Costner is really her biological father. Mark Ruffalo is disposable as the fiancée and Shirley MacLaine is very good as the domineering mother who tries to rule her grandaughters' lives and still feels contempt towards Costner's character after he bed her many decades earlier before he left her for her daughter. Rob Reiner directs.
Video: "Rumor Has It..." is presented in a 1.78:1 transfer. The picture is clean, but I felt the colors routinely appeared a tad bit washed out and not nearly as vibrant as "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." The level of detail was also soft in a few scenes. I don't know if filters were used to hide the wrinkles and facial defects on the actors faces or if the source print is just not nearly as high detailed as many titles, but "Rumor Has It..." looked like an upconverted standard definition titles more than once. The source materials were clean and the film has minor film grain, but this picture just did not impress me in the least.
Sound: This is definitely not the kind of film where the soundtrack stands out. Most romantic comedies include some environmental sound effects, a couple nice songs and dialogue. "Rumor Has It..." falls into this familiar ground. The dialogue of the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is very clean and clear. The film's music sounds warm and nicely fits the various scenes in the film. There are some nice moments when there is ambient and environmental sounds to populate the speakers, but the vast majority of the film takes place in the front channels. I don't think either an uncompressed PCM mix or a Dolby Digital Plus mix would have been greatly beneficial to the picture, as there is not much of note to push through the speakers.
Extras: Uhm.... theatrical trailer. That is it folks. The HD-DVD release is one of the fancy combination discs and costs a couple dollars more than the Blu-Ray. Here, you get just the trailer.
Quick Notes: The Kevin is in fine form here. The story is cute and I did enjoy how they tried to wrap it around "The Graduate," but that part of the plot did not dig much deeper than skink surface. The rest of the cast was pretty good, but I'm not sure Mark Ruffalo is a leading man opposite of Jennifer Aniston. If I were here, I would've stuck with Costner. Picture quality was underwhelming and the soundtrack wasn't given much to impress anybody with. There are really no supplements. This is a pretty bare-bones release that finds a more spacious Blu-Ray disc and does nothing extra with it.
Story: 6
Video: 5
Sound: 5
Extras: 1
Good Night, And Good Luck.
George Clooney hit the director's chair with the highly nominated film "Good Night, And Good Luck." Nominated for Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay, the film takes a look at the early days of television broadcasting when Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) decides to move away from the 'safe' broadcasting of the day and lock horns with Senator Joseph McCarthy and his Communist Witch Hunt of the early Fifties. Shot in glorious Black & White and interlaced with actual news footage from the broadcasts of the day, "Good Night, And Good Luck" takes an in-depth look at the CBS broadcasters who risked their careers and their network to bring an end to McCarthyism. This is one of those informative films that teach a good history lesson while it entertains. I'm a huge fan of the History Channel, so when a movie offers up and education and entertainment, I'm usually very receptive. Clooney worked hard on this film to achieve accuracy and worked directly with Murrow in maintaining historical accuracy.
Video: Black and White is beautiful. And in the 1.85:1 1080p transfer, "Good Night, And Good Luck" is a wonderous looking film. The level of detail contained in this transfer may make this the best looking film on the Blu-Ray format. This is about as clean as a film can look and though Black and White is almost forgotten in today's world, the medium can look absolutely stunning when done right. Props to director of photography Robert Elswit A.S.C.. Black levels, shadow detail and contrast are very important when it comes to a good black and white film and they all excel here. The grayscales that fall in between the deep black and vibrant whites are very nicely done and no digital blurring occurs between the various grey levels. The stock footage used in the film was cleaned up and looks quite well in its inserted locations. This is a well done transfer that stands up with any Blu-Ray release and finally gives the format something to be very proud to display.
Sound: The soundtrack in the film feels like a throwback to the days when the film's camera choice was commonplace. The soundtrack feels nothing like a modern surround sound track and the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix rarely transcends anything more than perhaps a 2.0 mix. The center channel pulled most of the duty in the soundtrack and the left and rear speakers had work to do, but this mix was quite center heavy. The rear surrounds and the subwoofer got to take the day off for most of this film. Out of curiosity's sake I watched the film through my television speakers via the HDMI cable. It sounded about as good as it did through my Infinity Overture speakers. Dialogue was very important for this picture and it was rendered very nicely. The soundtrack fits the story, but is underwhelming in today's world of 5.1 sound.
Extras: I really wish that Samsung would have take the Toshiba route of handling a 4:3 480i image and pillar-boxed the picture. The fifteen minute featurette Good Night, and Good Luck Companion Piece was a nice watch, but it looked horrendous stretched out to fit the widescreen dimensions of my television. This little documentary featured the real Edward R. Murrow and a lot of time is taken to discuss the accuracy of the picture. I would really have liked this to have been longer and more in-depth. We are discussing history here and I'm sure there is a lot of great stories that could have been included. The Commentary by Director/Screenwriter George Clooney and Producer/Screenwriter Grant Heslov The few minutes I did take to listen to patches of the commentary were pretty good. It is hard to fit every commentary track into my viewing habits and I admit to losing interest quickly on this one. Finally, a theatrical trailer is also included.
Quick Notes: This film looks absolutely stunning in its distinguished black and white transfer. I'm going out on a limb here, but I feel that "Good Luck and Good Night" is the best looking title yet on Blu-Ray. It noses out its Warner Bros. stablemates "Training Day" and "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." Color may be absent, but detail surely is not. This is also an absolutely great film and deserved the Oscar nominations it received. I liked this film better than I did "Crash." This is currently the only WB title available only on Blu-Ray, though an HD-DVD release is forthcoming. If you are going to pick up a title from this studio in the first wave of titles, may I suggest this one?
Story: 9
Video: 10
Sound: 4
Extras: 4
Training Day
Denzel Washington is typically the good cop. He is that 'good guy' actor that always brings down the bad guy. The guy has made a hell of a career out of being a hero and a stand up guy. He turned a lot of heads when he took the role of bad cop Alonzo Harris and found himself hoisting his second Academy Award. Ethan Hawke is his green partner Jake Hoyt as the film covers their first day on the job together and Hoyt very quickly learns that Harris is not juts a street tough cop, but a dirty cop that needs to be stopped. "Training Day" is a suspenseful thrill ride and Washington proves he is just as effective on the other side of the law as he is upholding the law. Hawke is just fine as the rookie, but this film really shines on the acting chops of the man who was named after the doctor that performed his birth. "Training Day" is easily one of Washington's best films. There is a lot of action and a lot of street cred shown during its 122 minutes. You don't get to see many films that focus on a dirty policeman, but "Training Day" puts you through a definite training day in showing how corrupt one man can really be.
Video: I know, I know. You are looking for the big HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray face of. You'll have to wait a couple paragraphs more. For now, let us concentrate mainly on the Blu-Ray aspect of the release. The good thing is that "Training Day" is a very fine looking picture. Detail is routinely very good and often three dimensional in appearance. Colors are finely saturated and look quite impressive. I did notice a good many digital artifacts, some of which are not visible to the untrained eye and others that are a bit distracting. Denzel has dancing stubble in this picture. There were other moments of pixilation in background textures and gradients. Not the sharpest transfer if you did very deep, but 90% of the population doesn't care to look this deeply in a transfer. The level of deep and sharp colors make up for the compression faults more often than they do not. I was looking at this title with Eagle eyes for the forthcoming comparison, and these artifacts exist on other titles, but they seemed to pop out to me here. Still, regardless of the faults of this title, this is one of the best looking Blu-Ray releases. Black levels are deep and true. Contrast is good and skin tones are perfect.
Sound: Blu-Ray owners are offered only a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack in its native English language. Two foreign language tracks are included, but I would have much rather had just and English mix with more power to it. Regardless of the technical inadequacies of the mix, it still sounds pretty darn good. Gunfire comes across sharp and deep. Bass freely rumbles throughout the film. The rap songs contained in the films soundtracks bump nicely. This is a good soundtrack to crank up and enjoy. All six speakers are busy during "Training Day." There are a lot of environmental effects and during the heavier action scenes, all channels are aggressively active. Comparing the title to my standard definition release yielded a nearly identical sounding soundtrack. The bass was a bit tighter on the SD-DVD release, but I believe that may be to the higher quality of my Pioneer Elite DVD player. That may be the telling fact – this is a good sounding soundtrack, but it is essentially identical to the five year old standard definition release.
Extras: I feel like singing. Why you ask? Because "Training Day" is one of those rare Blu-Ray releases where you get a good deal of supplemental materials. A Commentary track by director Antoine Fuqua features a lot of details on the making of the film. This is a pretty standard commentary track. Fuqua does a commendable job and in my spot checking of the track, he spoke through almost every scene without much of a break. Additional Scenes and the Alternate Ending expands the story of the film ever so slightly. This fifteen minutes of extra footage are worth taking a look at and does add some to the story, but better serve the title under the extras menu and not in the finished product. HBO First Look: The Making of Training Day is a prototypical HBO talking-heads/EPK making of documentary. It is more advertising fluff and offers some behind the scenes information, but is mostly promotional in nature. There are 2 Music Videos and a Theatrical Trailer. All-in-all, one of the better collections of supplemental materials found yet on a Blu-Ray release.
Quick Notes: "Training Day" is a great film. Denzel is a powerful presence as the bad guy and Ethan Hawke is effective as the young rookie. Video quality shows some faults in compression, but mostly exhibits a detailed and colorful picture. This is one of the best looking Blu-Ray titles. The soundtrack appears to be the exact same Dolby Digital track that was used on the standard definition release. Aside from the high level of detail in the picture quality and the effective story, where this title shines is in the value added content. In the grand scheme of things, this is a nice collection, but when discussing just the Blu-Ray format, this is a might nice collection. "Training Day" is a good release for the format and probably worth a look.
Story: 8
Video: 9
Sound: 6
Extras: 7
Round 1: HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray - Training Day
These couple paragraphs are probably going to be the most read part of this article. And why? Because "Training Day" is considered one of the better HD-DVD releases and everybody interested in these high definition home video formats wants to know if the Blu-Ray release can hold up to the HD-DVD middleweight champ. I could answer that question very easily with one simple word. Either two or three letters long. However, I guess I should validate my final decision on who comes out on top, so please bear with me for a couple paragraphs. Will Toshiba and the HD-DVD release pound Sony and Blu-Ray or will the newcomer smack the older release right square in the chops?
Taking a look at the video transfers between the two releases was not as hard as I had expected. My initial impressions where that the titles would look fairly close to each other. This was not exactly the case and I had to do my comparisons solely against moving pictures. Switching the HDMI cable made this troublesome and pausing the picture was not an option as the Samsung is far superior in this regard. Most important on this comparison is an issue where the Blu-Ray release is cropped when compared to either the HD-DVD release or the older standard definition title. The aspect ratio is listed at 2.4:1 for both releases, but the Blu-Ray title appears to actually be finer and closer to 2.35:1. A slight amount of information is lost on both sides of the image for the Blu-Ray release. One particular scene I checked featured Denzel Washington sitting in his car. He was much closer to the edge of the frame on the Blu-Ray release.
The picture quality of the Blu-Ray title suffers in other ways. The compression artifacts I saw while watching the film are much lesser in severity on the HD-DVD release. A few of them still exist on the other format, but they are nowhere near as common or visible. I tend to think that VC-1 vs. MPEG-2 is much of the reason for this. It is hard to argue with ten years of compression technology. The Blu-Ray picture was also about 10% darker. This did allow for the night sequences to feel darker and more foreboding, but the rest of the film colors were ever so slightly duller because of this effect. Detail is similar between the titles and it is near impossible to find a scene where the level of detail is shaper on one format or the other (compression problems with the Blu-Ray aside). As far as picture quality goes, HD-DVD wins due to the cropping and the problems with compression. I also preferred the brighter colors and picture of the HD-DVD release.
Sound quality is a knockout blow. The Blu-Ray release gets a ported or copied version of the standard definition Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. The HD-DVD title gets not only a superior Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix, but a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack. Comparing the Dolby Digital Plus against the older mix quickly shows the fuller sound, truer bass and cleaner feeling that the new Plus mix is capable of. The Blu-Ray did have a harder hitting .1 LFE channel, but I enjoy the tighter and more controlled bass of the Plus version. Both soundtracks were tested through analog inputs and digital inputs. I tend to believe that the space requirements that may behind the compression problems in the video have gunned down the Blu-Ray release by not allowing enough room for the superior soundtracks.
Well, the Blu-Ray title is knocked out. Still, we have the question of supplements. To put it simply, the list is identical. I do prefer the menus on the HD-DVD title and have come accustomed to looking at the list of extra materials while the film is still playing, but this is a minor annoyance. I'm not even going to discuss the hourglass on the Samsung. That is a hardware annoyance and not a software annoyance. Still, Blu-Ray went up against one of the better looking HD-DVD titles and it lasted for part of the first round. It fought strong and valiant, but with MPEG-2 in its corner and HD-DVD trained by VC-1, the rookie was not quite ready for the fight. When it came time for Blu-Ray to cry out and be heard, HD-DVD pummeled him. It is hard not to sound biased here, but the HD-DVD title is clearly the better of the two. This is still one of the best Blu-Ray titles, but HD-DVD still has the likes of "Sahara," "The Chronicles of Riddick" and "Aeon Flux" that are that format's heavyweights.
Final Words
Warner Bros. has entered the Blu-Ray camp with its first four releases. Three of these are currently found on HD-DVD and the fourth is on its way. Two of the titles are 'combination' titles on HD-DVD that contains a DVD side as well. This allows for the Blu-Ray titles to be a couple dollars cheaper and seemingly the better value. However, the sound options are not as 'modern' as they are on the competing format and there are questions of 'cropping' with the picture quality. Warner Bros. has turned out the best looking Blu-Ray titles yet. "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," "Good Night, and Good Luck" and "Training Day" may be the best three looking titles on the format. It is interesting to see one of HD-DVDs initial supporters making titles for both formats and I will be very curious to see how everything pans out in the future. This is both an exciting time as we have high definition video formats on the marketplace (I don't count D-Theater, as I refuse to own a VCR style player), but it is also a frightening time as we are locked in a format war. I know Warner Bros. will be providing quality titles regardless of the war's outcome and their first Blu-Ray releases are a strong indication to that belief.
