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Remastered RoboCop finally coming to Blu-ray
The revamped version of RoboCop won't be known as the first Blu-ray title to undergo some serious retooling due to widespread outcries over quality (or should we say, the lack thereof), but the film will finally be headed to BD in just under a month. Reportedly, the remastered, unrated edition will land on October 9th for around $39 MSRP, but will strangely not include any bonus features. Nevertheless, the content has apparently been "authored in MPEG2" and will be delivered on a 25GB disc with DTS HD and French / Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital audio tracks. Here's to hoping this version makes it past reviewers, eh?[Via HighDefDigest]
Fifth Element Blu-ray exchange program details announced
Considering what a mythical reference title The Fifth Element was when released on DVD (and Superbit, and Laserdisc!), it was surprising to see it reviewed as just another softly-focused, dirty, and scratchy launch title for Blu-ray. Many reviewers and fans complained about the lackluster MPEG-2 encoding, and the general poor quality of the transfer. Sony has announced details and contact information about a plan to exchange the first -- now discontinued -- batch of Blu-ray Discs for the remastered edition, due to be released in July. The new version is a new 1080p transfer from a different master, and includes Dolby TrueHD as well as uncompressed PCM audio. It will also be encoded in MPEG-4 AVC, which will hopefully show off the improved compression of the newer codec. Quite an olive branch from Sony for those who have already picked it up, and a show of good steps toward making Blu-ray titles the best they can be. Now the question remains, how many of the other initial MPEG-2 Blu-ray titles will be remastered like this?
600 PowerMacs used for 007 Ultimate DVD Collection
Eureka! After all this MacBook/Intel Mac news lately, we finally come across some news about the good ol' faithful PowerMac, or to be more specific: 600 of them. Taking a cue from Microsoft Vista naming conventions, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is releasing a James Bond Ultimate Edition DVD Collection, in which every 007 film has been remastered and digitally enhanced for that oh-so 21st century gleam. The remastering was done by DTS Digital Images using 600 PowerMac G5s, or what I like to refer to as "more PowerMacs than you or I will ever see in a lifetime".Mike Inchalik, DTS Digital Images vice president of strategy and marketing, stressed the renowned reliability of PowerMacs as a key factor in this undertaking. The company had to process 42 miles of film and scanned each frame at a resolution of 4,000 x 3,000 pixels in preparation of higher-resolution releases in the future. Ultimately, over 700 terabytes of storage were required for the project as each single frame of film is a whopping 45 megabytes. Apple, if you're listening, I think you're gonna have to boost your MacBook Pro hard drive capacities for movie editors. Just a hunch.Check out the full details on this project's undertaking, as well as some hints at future portable (iPod) video technologies, at Macworld UK.[thanks Yak!]
