My Two Cents
All right, let’s get this over with. Our friends over at Trek Core have learned (and they’re right) something that’s going to infuriate Star Trek fans, and sadly suggests that neither Paramount nor Bad Robot have learned from fan complaints about their previous Star Trek Blu-ray mistakes. As you know, Star Trek Beyond is expected to street on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on 11/1, all with lots of extras... except filmmaker audio commentary. Well, you guessed it... once again, the iTunes Digital download version is going to have an exclusive “enhanced” commentary.
[Editor’s Note: Turns out there’s another Target-exclusive Bonus Disc too. See here: “Bonus blu-ray disc with over 90 minutes of extras including 45 minutes of exclusive content: Get a behind the scenes look at the film’s incredible visual effects, costumes and props. Plus, see how Director Justin Lin and the cast and crew of Star Trek Beyond created the climactic Battle of Yorktown, and more!”]
So... yeah. [Read on here…]
Well... based on an overwhelmingly positive reaction to my look at art books on 2001: A Space Odyssey last night, it seems like you guys enjoy it when we roam a bit off in the wilderness here at The Bits, thematically speaking. So I think we’ll try and do it a little more often in the weeks and months ahead. It’s certainly fun and it definitely keeps things interesting. Thanks for all the kind words, and I’ve very glad you liked the article. [Read on here…]
All right, the big news today is that Network Distributing Ltd. in the U.K. has announced the Region B release of Gerry Anderson’s UFO: The Complete Series on Blu-ray on 11/14 (SRP £69.99). The series is restored in high-definition and includes all 26 episodes with audio in the original mono as well as new 5.1 mixes, and a ton of new and legacy special features. Among them is a brand new feature-length documentary called From Earth to the Moon, featuring interviews, archive video, audio, and stills (some never-before-seen). There’s also the new The Women of UFO documentary, a newly-produced SHADO “briefing film” called Identified: SHADO New Recruits Briefing, textless episode title backgrounds, textless end titles, stock footage, TV spots, extra footage for Identified and Exposed, unused footage from Timelash and The Long Sleep, Italian trailers, audio commentaries on Identified (with Gerry Anderson) and Sub-Smash (with Ed Bishop), S.I.D. Computer Voice Session and audio outtakes for these sessions and Kill Straker!, an archive Ed Bishop audio interview from 1996, the Tomorrow Today: Future Fashions with Sylvia Anderson featurette, extensive image galleries (with previously unseen images), and an exclusive 600-page book on the making of the series by archive television historian Andrew Pixley. [Read on here…]
All right, we’ve got a couple interesting things for you today. First up, Sony unveiled its first 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player, the UBP-X1000ES, at the CEDIA Expo recently. It’s an ES Series reference unit that supports the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, BD-ROM, DVD Video, DVD Audio, CD, and SACD formats, as well as numerous video codecs compatible with Amazon Video, YouTube, etc. It can upscale content to 4K, features HDR compatibility and offers “a dedicated picture mode for HDR content – when playing 4K HDR content on a 4K SDR television the X1000ES utilizes a unique Sony algorithm to reproduce the proper brightness and color gradations to provide the best picture possible.” It’s compatible with Dolby Atmos and DTS-X, plus has a “32-bit processing DAC compatible with both native DSD (at up to 11.2 MHz) and LPCM (at up to 192kHz) Hi-Res Music files, which are available in a number of different formats.” [Read on here…]
All right, we’re closing out the week with one last new title announcement: Disney and Amblin Entertainment have set Steven Spielberg’s The BFG for Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD, Disney Movies Anywhere, and On-Demand release on 12/6. Extras on the Blu-ray will include 5 featurettes (Bringing “The BFG” to Life, The Big Friendly Giant and Me, Gobblefunk: The Wonderful Words of The BFG, Giants 101, and Melissa Mathison: A Tribute). Sadly, the best featurette is a digital exclusive, which I hate and you hate, but apparently nobody at Disney cares we hate… John Williams: Scoring a Dream. Anyway, audio on the Blu-ray will be English 7.1 DTS-HD MA. You can see the cover artwork to the left there. [Read on here…]