Are the movies available on HD yet?

When are they due out?

Not that I can afford a HD player!

 

No they are not.

Likely in Spring or fall 2009. They are being prepped though.

Blu-ray player range from $279.99 for a cheapie to $379.99 for fine quality Sony model and up.

Do you even own an HDTV??

If you don't, good models range from $500 to $2000 (and Up) depending on size.

Not alot more than folks paid for a 25" quality color tv 35 years ago. (which adjusted for inflation is a whole lot less.)

 

Not yet.....

 

Well, even if you have an HDTV and cannot afford an Blu-Ray player, an upscaling DVD player seems to do the trick (or regular DVD player with component). I saw First Contact for the first time on an HDTV the other night, and it looked better than it did in the theatre more than a decade ago.

 

Upscaled DVD is fine up to a point, and players do the job with wildly varying degrees of success - in many cases it's often better to switch off the processing and send source direct to your HD TV/monitor, which will likely do a better job of scaling. IMHO the Denon 3930 DVD player is one of the best you can buy for upscaling to 1080p res. Just remember though, even this machine can't touch the same movie delivered on Blu-ray - you can't create detail that isn't there. I know Toshiba are working on super upscaling tech, but I remain totally sceptical... I'm literally chomping at the bit anticipating Trek movies on Blu - let's hope Paramount do a decnt job with the encodes.

 

I've seen the BBC HD channel and I wasn't impressed.

They do something to ordinary TV that smears out the pixels and makes the colour balance look like film colour.

There's just more pixels on HD, that's all, and you can really see them.

I have seen Blu-ray going in a Currys in Milton Keynes and it looked better.

I'd love to see ST4 in HD. You can't see the faces and displays very well on the new bridge at the end on my copy.

Hopefully, they'll keep improving HD and make it look more like film.

I saw Rocket man three months ago and you can see the pores in his skin, thow the picture was not as bright. I admit you can see pores even on BBC HD, though the pixels are too obvious.

 

I have all 10 films in HD, thanks to my friend who encoded them from HD broadcasts as super large video files that play on the Playstation 3. Very impressive, was just watching ST I and II today, and it was SUCH an improvement over standard DVD resolution.

 

They can mess up blu-ray as well; reviews of the new PATTON indicate that they basically wiped out tons of incredible detail in order to eliminate film grain ...

I don't know that you'll ever see that much detail at the end of TVH. It always seems to me that they used diffusion smoke there, as they did on the aircraft carrier (remember on Chekov's run how he seems to pass through a cloud bank INSIDE the halls) and the BOP.

 

Can someone here link to places where it's possible to buy these Star Trek movies in HD or blu-ray quality(for a good price)?

 

Nowhere. They haven't even been announced for Blu-Ray yet, let alone actually released.

 

I have seen half of the Trek movie in HD on various cable channels and they looked real good.

And now that DirecTV is going to support 1080p on their DVRs, I don't need to buy a Blu-Ray player. I just need to get off my lazy ass and buy a 1080p TV.

 

My Toshiba A30 HD-DVD player is a great upscaling DVD player. With the death of HD-DVD you may be able to find one really cheap.

 

TWOK was on Cinemax HD on sunday morning, looked pretty good.

I have not seen it that good since the theatre.


getting an HDTV and cable or satellite then recording it to a DVR is
the only real option at the moment.

 

Don't be so sure. DirecTV is notorious for compressing the hell out of their signal. Actually I think most providers do that.

There's no way that any broadcast signal, be it cable or satellite, is going to be as nice looking as real, authentic Blu-Ray.

 

DirecTV stopped the HD-lite broadcasting long ago. The new MPEG-4 channels are top-notch.

As to comparisons of DirecTV 1080p to Blu-Ray, it may or may not be as good, but most likely it will be good enough for me and I much rather record and watch HD movies on my DVR than buy discs. It's getting some nice reviews on image quality on the beta test at dbstalk,com (though some glitches still have to be worked out before a national release). And so far it's not broadcast 1080p but video on demand 1080p, though I have heard rumors that eventually some channels will be offered at 1080p.

 

I hope they get it right, saying its equal to blu-ray is a VERY bold statement to be making.

 

I see what you mean about using diffusion smoke in ST4, but couldn't they have just put vaseline on the lens?

I suppose the best way to see the films would be on a projector?

The longer I leave it before I buy a HD set, the better the picture will be, I hope, as it can always be improved?

 

A filter is less selective, smoke works in depth (and STIV was shot by the FLASHDANCE guy.)