Cover art for the Serenity R1 HD-DVD - Firefly&Serenity

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April 12 2006

Cover art for the Serenity R1 HD-DVD. So how different is it from the normal DVD cover? Well...

They chopped a bit of River's head off. There you go, a world exclusive.

Simon | Firefly&Serenity | 02:55 CET | 27 comments total | tags: serenity, dvd

Ah...the one where Serenity shoots lasers. Good stuff. Not.

Rogue Slayer | April 12, 03:11 CET

How much better quality is this supposed to be?

Capt Mel | April 12, 03:27 CET

It is different. Really. It's almost unnoticeable, but the distinction is there. If you watch very, very close, you will see that the... you know... and the... is a bit more to the.... no, wait, let me think. I almost got it... I do get it! Oh, my God! It was so obvious! It's the same! (Or shall I say it's the shame?)

Darkness | April 12, 03:31 CET

At least it's better than Doom's artwork...

MySerenity | April 12, 03:32 CET

I should take that phrase, Myserenity, and put it into the cards that I shall give as a gift along the movie to those I, still, have to buy a copy. I am thinking about a birthday this May. The poor girl will need an apology. She, the poor girl, loves her artwork to be pretty. Fortunately the movie is waay better than Doom too. Thinking of it, almost anything is, really...

[ edited by Darkness on 2006-04-12 01:42 ]

Darkness | April 12, 03:39 CET

How is it possible that they still imagine that that cover was a good idea? I don't get it, I just don't...

Djungelurban | April 12, 03:53 CET

"At least it's better than Doom's artwork..."

Bah! Do not insult Doom! All men cower before Doom's intellect!

Um... Doom thought you were speaking of Dr. Doom. Doom's bad.

Hey, look! Llama!

Niels van Eekelen | April 12, 03:58 CET

Maybe all that red and silver junk is a slipcover? Who needs that much advertising obscuring the product?

will.bueche | April 12, 03:59 CET

Ugh -- all over again. If it was possible to make the cover even worse, they managed to find the way. But we do still have the llamas. (Too bad someone at Universal didn't decide to go with the llama bit and actually plant one somewhere just to acknowledge the fans.)

palehorse | April 12, 04:06 CET

And why the need to chop the covers? ¬_¬

[ edited by Angel TheVampire on 2006-04-12 02:27 ]

Angel TheVampire | April 12, 04:26 CET

Wow, that R1 cover art just never gets any more attractive does it. I've seen porn movies with better art on the cover of the DVD.

Not that I've ever watched the actual movies ... obviously ... just seen the cover art ... on a friend's DVDs ... honest ... la la lah ...

The Arcane | April 12, 04:53 CET

And why the need to chop the covers?

I think in this case the less is more.

delirium_haze | April 12, 05:20 CET

If you want to compare the difference between DVD and HD-DVD, you can use Quicktime movie trailers as an example. Open a "large" trailer, and then for the same movie, open a 720p trailer. That's pretty close to how much better the films look on the newer format.

The Dark Shape | April 12, 05:24 CET

I wonder if there'll be new extras. If it's just the regular version of the DVD ported over to HD-DVD, I wouldn't bother with it and, unless you have a lot of money to burn, kinda think anyone who already owns the regular DVD would be a fool for buying into this.

Wait until the format wars are over (HD vs. Blu-Ray), hold out for an improved release (even if that means waiting for the 10th Anniversary version or whatever). I know lotsa folks are gonna wanna further support the franchise when this comes out, but really, your money would be better spent on season sets of Firefly to donate or give as gifts, or the guaranteed cheaper regular Serenity DVD.

Kris | April 12, 05:32 CET

God, the llamas are still there.

I'm still glad that I got the Australian regular DVD.

Numfar PTB | April 12, 05:45 CET

On the format wars thing I don't think HD-DVD or BluRay are going to stick around too long. The HVD is in development as we speak and that will blow the former two out of the water.

[ edited by delirium_haze on 2006-04-12 03:47 ]

delirium_haze | April 12, 05:47 CET

There's always something in development. The current two have a major advantage each: Blu-ray has the PlayStation 3, obviously, and HD-DVD has brand name recognition.

The Dark Shape | April 12, 06:54 CET

DVD resolution is 720x480(NTSC) and 720x576(PAL).

HD-DVD and Blue Ray resolution is 1920x1080.

Here is the Serenity trailer in 1920x1080 resolution, for those interested in checking it out.

http://images.apple.com/movies/us/hd_gallery/gl1800/serenity_1080p.zip

Zoic_Fan | April 12, 07:16 CET

So is anyone here going to buy this release on the 18th?

Simon | April 12, 12:45 CET

So is anyone here going to buy this release on the 18th?

Not I. I already have HDTV, but... wouldn't you know it? All the older HDTV units are obsolete because they don't have the HDMI input capability. All of a sudden, the copy protection policy seems to be that you have to have HDMI input, or you get an image that's degraded to regular TV quality. I'm not about to buy another HDTV for that reason alone.

Besides, I'm perfectly happy with regular DVD, progressive scan, and component output to the TV. I can't yet imagine that HDTV with HD-DVD or BluRay will be so much better that it will make me want to abandon all sense and upgrade my entire system once again.

MissKittysMom | April 12, 15:16 CET

I've been reliably told Serenity is *NOT* encoded with copy protection on HD-DVD, so it will play with older HDTV sets in high res.

The reason, I suspect, is they want to win customers with the higher quality now. I bet Kong gets released with copy protection enabled, though.

gossi | April 12, 15:57 CET

I'm not going to buy it. At least not yet. For one I have no player of the discs and for another I have a regular old tv. I'd like ot have a bigger better high def tv but I don't want to spend the money on that just yet.

war_machine | April 12, 16:44 CET

I'd concur with war_machine. It's too expensive, too soon at the moment. Only one of those standards will survive, and I don't want to end up with the duff one (Betamax..)

gossi | April 12, 17:08 CET

I think it's like the step from VHS to DVD in that you won't really miss the higher quality until you're used to it (it wasn't until I got digital TV that I really started to dislike watching films on VHS since the quality was so much lower than what I was used to on a daily basis). And, as has been said, it makes sense to wait and see how the formats shake out.

Also, pretty hard to justify spending up to 5 times more on a telly than I spent on my car (yep, i'm that cheap ;-).

Saje | April 12, 17:21 CET

A year or two ago, you could get a glass CRT HDTV (even widescreen) for a semi-reasonable price. All the LCD/plasma/whatever technologies are still way too much. I don't know if the glass CRT models are still around.

Saje is right; you don't miss the quality until you get used to "better" then step back. I *hate* watching VHS now, but probably part of that is that HDTV sets show VHS (lack of) quality in exquisite detail. My A/V receiver does up-conversion on VHS to progressive-scan component color output, which also probably contributes to the lousy VHS quality.

I won't even think about upgrading (again) for a few years, though. There are too many other things in my life that have higher priority. (PC upgrades among them. Life was simpler as a Luddite.)

MissKittysMom | April 12, 18:49 CET

Saje, where did you find a car that cheap? I'm impressed, dude! ;-)

We're still regular TV/DVD in our house, and we have to tape shows on VHS instead of TiVo if we want to watch them some other time. I feel so primitive! ;-)

billz | April 13, 03:09 CET

Heh, off a friend's wife billz. Nice little runner though a) it celebrated its 21st birthday last month (I say 'celebrate' but it was just a few litres of petrol and some lead additive, it's not a big party car ;) and b) it's somewhere in the colour spectrum between baby puke and the sort of diarrhea you might get if you only ate green jelly-babies for a month.

Also, it sometimes goes into reverse when you're looking for first (which makes pulling away a little adventure every single time ;).

Saje | April 13, 15:31 CET

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