Displaying items by tag: The Digital Bits

All right, thanks for your patience while I was away at the end of last week. My father-in-law passed away, so my wife and I flew across the country to attend his memorial and see family.

But there’s a good deal to catch up on today news-wise, so let’s get right to it. First things first...

Yes, we are aware of the rumors that Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is planning to bring The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films to 4K Ultra HD. They originated on the excellent 4K Filme.de website, which (I’m told) found the titles briefly listed on a Warner B2B website for German retailers. All six films were indicated for release on UHD (with the Extended Editions included) and with a tentative street date given of June 25, 2020. All right, now let’s put this in context...

First of all, there’s no doubt that Warner Bros. is going to release these films on physical 4K Ultra HD. These are literally their most demanded catalog titles on the format. Also, 2021 is the 20th anniversary of Fellowship of the Ring. And Amazon’s new Lord of the Rings prequel series, which reportedly begins production next month and will apparently be in production for two years, is likely to debut on Amazon Prime in late 2022. So the studio is certainly going to want to get those films ready for 4K release by then. [Read on here...]

All right, we start today with a bit of news for gamers that will also make physical media fans happy... or at least it should.

Sony has begun to reveal details about its forthcoming PlayStation 5 game console (and yes, that is the official name), which is due in late 2020 (in time for the holidays), and the great news is that they’ve confirmed it will have an optical 4K Ultra HD disc drive for movies and 100 GB optical game discs.

Other details include an SSD drive, an AMD Ryzen CPU, Navi GPU hardware with ray-tracing acceleration, controllers with adaptive triggers and improved speakers to boost haptic feedback, and more. You can read all the details here at Wired.

Now, here’s the thing: Physical media is in decline. There’s just no doubt about it. Sales are down, studios are getting more choosy about what they release on disc, and studios like Disney are dumping catalog titles on 4K disc ahead of paywalling them all as Digital 4K streams with HDR on Disney+. [Read on here...]

All right, we’ve got some big news for you MCU fans today.

But first...

Our own Tim Salmons has just completed his review of Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Far From Home in 4K Ultra HD.

And I’ve turned in a review of Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War in 4K (which slipped through the cracks when it first came out), this hot on the heels of last week’s catalog MCU 4K reviews.

With those reviews, we have now reviewed nearly the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe in 4K Ultra HD here at The Digital Bits. [Read on here...]

I’ve posted my thoughts on Disney and Marvel’s new Guardians of the Galaxy release on 4K Ultra HD this morning. This following yesterday’s review of Doctor Strange on the format.

And yes, you can expect my review of Ant-Man in 4K today.

Tim is also working on a review of Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Far From Home in 4K, so watch for that soon.

Next up on my review plate are Warner’s Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shining in 4K, so watch for at least one of them tomorrow (and both by next week).

In announcement news today, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has revealed that Easy Rider is now available in Digital 4K with HDR on various streaming platforms in honor of the film’s 50th anniversary. There appear to be no plans to release it on physical 4K. [Read on here...]

All right, we’ve got a couple more disc reviews and some news updates for you today...

First up, Tim has posted his thoughts on Scream Factory’s new Collector’s Edition Blu-ray release of John Carpenter’s Vampires.

And Dennis has take a look at Billy Wilder’s The Major and the Minor on Blu-ray, a Paramount title from Arrow Academy.

Also, I’m working on reviews of Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shining, and Toy Story 4, all in 4K. And again, I’ll post Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and Doctor Strange in 4K as soon as the discs arrive from the Disney Movie Club.

Speaking of the DMC, we’ve learned that the studio has pulled The Black Hole on Blu-ray from their online store. The reason is that they’re fixing the disc to correct for the authoring error that prevents you from seeing the film’s Overture (see our review of the Blu-ray here). [Read on here...]

Evening, folks!

This is just a quick update here at The Bits to let you all know that we’ve posted FIVE new and recent 4K Ultra HD title reviews here today and over the weekend.

Available now for your reading enjoyment are my thoughts on: Gremlins (Warner Bros), Zombieland (Sony), Iron Man 3 (Marvel/Disney), Ratatouille (Pixar/Disney), and Daybreakers (Lionsgate)

Those first two street tomorrow. So enjoy those and know that more reviews (including more regular Blu-ray reviews) are on the way tomorrow and later this week. [Read on here...]

We’ve got a bunch of new disc reviews coming over the next week or so, starting with a couple later today. So be sure to watch for them.

We do have a new History, Legacy & Showmanship column from our own Michael Coate today, celebrating the 50th anniversary of TV’s classic The Brady Bunch. It features a new interview with historian Herbie J. Pilato, and is well worth a read if you’re a fan. You’ll find it here.

Meanwhile, we’ve got a bunch of release news to report today, so let’s get started...

First up, our friends at The Home Theater Forum have revealed that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is going to be releasing Farscape: The Complete Series – 20th Anniversary Edition on Blu-ray on 11/19. The set will include all 88 episodes of the series along with 15 hours of extras and – at long last on BD here in the States – the series finale miniseries Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars. The aspect ratio is 1.33 for most of the series, but the last season and film are 1.78. Audio will be DTS-HD MA 5.1. Extras will include audio commentary, featurettes and documentaries, director’s cuts, TV promos, etc. We don’t know if this will be a complete carry-over of the previous DVD and BD extras, but we’ll have to wait and see. You can see the cover artwork at left. [Read on here...]

“The Brady Bunch is ’comfort TV’ to the highest degree.” — Classic TV historian Herbie J Pilato

The Digital Bits and History, Legacy & Showmanship are pleased to present this retrospective commemorating the golden anniversary of the premiere of The Brady Bunch, the classic family sitcom which originally ran on ABC from 1969 to 1974 and starred Florence Henderson as Carol/Mom, Robert Reed as Mike/Dad and Ann B. Davis as housekeeper Alice.

The series (and ultimately franchise) — created by Sherwood Schwartz (Gilligan’s Island, It’s About Time) and featuring as the memorable Brady kids Barry Williams (Greg), Maureen McCormick (Marcia), Christopher Knight (Peter), Eve Plumb (Jan), Mike Lookinland (Bobby) and Susan Olsen (Cindy) — premiered 50 years ago this month, and for the occasion The Bits features a Q&A with classic television historian Herbie J Pilato, who offers some recollections and insight into the timeless series. [Read more here...]

All right. So first things first: Apologies for the lack of a post yesterday and on Friday. My wife and I have both been dealing with different types of family crises over the past week, so those have been demanding my attention.

But… in order to get a little bit of a break from the stress of it all, I went to see Ad Astra yesterday in Dolby Cinema.

WOW, do I wish I had my $20 back.

Now, I love the realistic spaceflight/science fiction genre. It’s kind of my whole milieu.

And I was really looking forward to Ad Astra, encouraged by all the rave reviews and the promising trailers.

But having now seen it, I really have to get my thoughts about it out before I have a brain aneurysm. [Read on here...]

We’ve been talking about this release for months now based on industry sources and retail leaks, but it’s finally official: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and MGM have set 007: The Daniel Craig Collection for release on 4K Ultra HD on 10/22.

The set will include Casino Royale (in its extended unrated version), Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and SPECTRE.

Audio is DTS-HD Master Audio, but the discs will include Dolby Vision HDR.

Extras will be limited to audio commentary by the crew on Casino Royale, and two audio commentaries (one by director Sam Mendes and another by producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli and production designer Dennis Gassner) on Skyfall. [Read on here...]