Whedonesque : Comments on 16248 : Firefly's Blu-Ray Debut Up For Pre Order.

Ordered. Now I have to go buy an HD tv and a Blu-Ray player. Darn.

Fingers crossed for this being a 'region-free' release. For those who don't know, despite Blu-ray having region encoding, a significant amount of the discs made at the moment don't actually bother with it, and so would work abroad. Of course, there are plenty more that don't. It's always a bit of a gamble until someone actually buys it and tests it out. I'm not sure what Fox's track record is with this . . .

[ edited by MattK on 2008-05-02 23:28 ]

MattK | May 02, 23:27 CET

As excited as I am about this, I really wish that they would give us some new key art...

kevingann | May 02, 23:36 CET

Um, excuse my ignorance, but how much more is there to see in high definition?

I'm not sure I get why I would buy higher res discs of TV series.

KS | May 03, 00:02 CET

'Cause if they do it right ( a la, "Lost" S3), it's so very pretty. Plus, we should get a surround track. FOX likes DTS Master HD, so, droool....

ETA: Color, detail, picture quality in general...all better. Plus, yes, you may see things in scenes you never noticed before because of the improved quality.

[ edited by pat32082 on 2008-05-03 00:07 ]

pat32082 | May 03, 00:05 CET

KS It really is a big difference, if you have the tech to play and see it. If you want to do a test, run down to your local electronics dealer that has a dedicated HD room. Best Buys with Magnolia usually have them (I think). Watch a BluRay or equivalent in that room and then try and watch the same thing on regular TV or DVD as soon as possible after. You'll notice the difference.

And yeah, it's not just the video, but the audio too.

danregal | May 03, 00:07 CET

And the added cast reunion feature that you won't be able to get anywhere else.

TamaraC | May 03, 00:39 CET

It should be noted that this was one of the first series that Universal decided to transfer to blu-ray.

The world wonders why;)

Madhatter | May 03, 00:44 CET

How many of you are racing right now to correct Madhatter's reference of Universal to Fox?

Oops, guess I was too. :)

danregal | May 03, 00:45 CET

So busted! Good catch, danregal.

Madhatter | May 03, 00:56 CET

I'm guessing that Madhatter is having problems saying the F-word :-)

dcubed | May 03, 01:41 CET

KS.

DVD is 720×480 (480p)

Blu-ray is 1920×1080 (1080p)

But you need a 1080p (HDCP complient) TV to see the difference.

Zoic_Fan | May 03, 02:07 CET

A person doesn't need to cuss to make a point. We're better than that.

Madhatter | May 03, 02:34 CET

MattK, as I understand it, Fox is the only major studio to pretty much region lock everything they release - recent Fox Blu-Ray titles such as Juno, The Fly, Predator and Commando have all been locked. Their track record in terms of quality has been excellent for new releases (such as Juno) not so much for those catalog titles I mentioned. I guess Firefly is a catalog title for them, but it's reasonably new, so fingers crossed, and I'll just have to be patient and wait for the local release...

reidca | May 03, 06:35 CET

Wow, that price strikes me as waaaay too high. I'm preordering to get the best price between now and release, but if it doesn't come down I may cancel.

As far as the art, I'm guessing that's just a rough mockup someone did. I imagine they will have new art.

jam2 | May 03, 07:02 CET

Thanks for the info, reidca.

On a different note, we won't be getting the CGI in high definition will we? Because they'd have to be re-rendered, which I think would be too expensive to be bothered with. This won't be too much of a problem, because we didn't see much in terms of space (in the sense that there were no space battles, like Battlestar), but it's still a bit of a shame.

MattK | May 03, 11:29 CET

Everybody's making a fuss! - CGI might look a little out of place but they can process the original imagery and give it a face lift if you like (it will be an upscaling of the video - it won't look as good as an original done in HD but it will be the next best thing, you've only got to look at DVDs which have been upscaled on Blu-ray players to see that).

Gossi confirmed in an earlier post that this will most likely be region encoded, but if we all have a little faith they will release internationally too.

p.s. even if you don't have a HD Input on your TV, you can still use component video (if you have that enabled on your Digital TV) to get 720P HD resolution ! [now there's a handy tip!]

[ edited by Zol. on 2008-05-03 12:05 ]

Zol. | May 03, 12:03 CET

Price-wise, I actually think this is pretty reasonable. Looking at how other TV-on-Blu-ray releases are priced, I expected to get slammed for anywhere between $100-120.

The Dark Shape | May 03, 15:19 CET

WOW blue ray is expensive--ya think they will go down at all

major question will blue ray at least play ((maybe not the high res part) on currect regular dvds and WILL my currecnt dvds play on a blue ray machine when I get one . . .

also do they make region free blue ray machines

dont even wanna ask about the price

rivergirl | May 03, 16:24 CET

Rivergirl,

Nope blu-ray won't play on regular dvd players, but yes current dvd will play on blu-ray players. And in most cases the blu-player will upscale your standard disks to look prettier.

http://www.blu-ray.com/ for lots of answers to questions as well.

I don't know about region free blu-ray players, hadn't actually thought about it.... will investigate

fmwt | May 03, 17:30 CET

Blu-Ray players play regular DVDs and upscale them. Prices will come down as economies of scale kick in. High Definition discs are still an incredibly niche market (even though disc sales are up 351% over this time last year, its still a small pool of people who are buying them). Multi-region BD players are starting to pop up, but they are mostly modified existing players. There will be region free players in the future, you can bet on that,

Looking at how other TV-on-Blu-ray releases are priced, I expected to get slammed for anywhere between $100-120.

I dunno, Weeds is only $23.95 per season (MSRP of $39.95)... though I see Rescue Me Season 3 s $52.95 now (had seen it for $20-something not long back).

ETA -

But you need a 1080p (HDCP complient) TV to see the difference.

Not at all true, 1080p is just the optimal way to view them.

zeitgeist | May 03, 17:34 CET

Actually, even if you watched the BD at 480i resolution (which is standard DVD res), you'd still probably have less edge enhancement.

720p and 1080i, standard hi-res, show a major difference.

The Dark Shape | May 03, 20:06 CET

Fingers crossed for this being a 'region-free' release. For those who don't know, despite Blu-ray having region encoding, a significant amount of the discs made at the moment don't actually bother with it, and so would work abroad. Of course, there are plenty more that don't. It's always a bit of a gamble until someone actually buys it and tests it out. I'm not sure what Fox's track record is with this . . .

Well, it's official now: *only* Region 1:

Firefly Bluray

This is quite a blow. Or a slap in the face, rather. Or maybe a blow, after all, as I feel pretty crushed by such a blatant act of sabotage. But it sounds like Fox alright: unite all Blurays under one Region, so that everyone can be interfered with or ignored equally.

rb | May 16, 13:35 CET

May 02 2008