Transformers: Whos got it?

[Race Car Driver]

Ill grab it when the stores open up.

Im just gonna get the regular old DVD though.

I still refuse to give into the HD "war"

And until one is "dead" or a nice combo unit can be had for 299 or less, I think I am going to keep it that way.

/stubborn

[Dmantis]

I'm picking it up today on HD DVD. I'm expecting it to rip it up. I saw it 2 times in the movies and thought this is going to make for a killer Home theater movie demo.

[Pez]

I am getting the HD DVD version during my lunch break today. I am very excitied for this movie as I grew up playing with Transformers.

[George Bellefontaine]

I'll be picking up the standard dvd today.

[Hdale85]

Was going to preorder from amazon but with shipping I figured I might as well pick it up locally. I'll be picking it up today when the wife gets home. The HD-DVD of course .

[Charles]

Some Circuit City's have a buy one get on free on HD DVD's and Blu Ray for movies $29.99 and under. Picked up 2 HD DVD copies of Transformers today (1 for friend) for $31.80 out the door. Also picked up about 14 other HD DVD's while I was there. May want to try it at your local CC, can't beat the price. The 2 stores I went to were Mall of Georgia and Gwinnett Place N.E. of Atlanta. There are reports of most stores nationwide doing this promotion. Special is reported to go through Saturday.

12 of the 14 others I picked out were $24.99 which made them $12.50 each, pretty good deal and the sale is not studio specific.

[Hdale85]

Ok well....going to have to get over to CC I suppose. Little further then BB but sounds like it may be worth it.

[PewterTA]

Got the HD Version.

HANDS DOWN, the best HD transfer I have ever seen in my life. The picture is flawless...if you can find an artifact...look again, it isn't one. lol.

The sound, while I was surprised not lossless, is one of the best soundtracks I've heard. The sound of metal on metal while the transformers...well transform...is amazing, they definitely use the surrounds for little sound effects to put placement of things coming on and off screen. The bass is well IMHO perfect, comes through amazingly well and with fury... enough that I thought a couple times I'd have to bump the bass down...but what fun would that be?!

If you have an HD player, this is THE best money you can spend to show 'HD' off to anyone.

Rating:
:T :T :T :T :T

[Charles]

^^^
I agree, just finished watching it and the picture and audio is top notch.

[Pez]

Just got done watching it - while it suffers some of the same flaws just about every action movie does I was very pleased (dont get me wrong, I love action movies). Considering how long I have been waiting for this (ever since it was first discussed a few years ago) it did not dissappoint. After a little down time at the begining the action was non-stop. I still cant believe how good the robots looked. Just wish I knew about the CC deal cause I paid full HD DVD price - but with this movie it was money well spent.

[PewterTA]

Go to CC and buy it and another movie... then take 'that' Transformers back to the place you bought it and return it.

[Chris D]

Wow, Charles! BB is having the sale this week for BOGO of select BD's, but this is the first I've heard of a BOGO for ANY HD-DVD, or ANY BD! Wow!

I pre-ordered it in HD from Amazon. Shipped today. No CC's in Alaska.

Yeah, I'm real surprised that the sound's not lossless on such a showcase disc. Maybe the studio's planning another Uber Edition later.

[NMG]

Just finished watching the HD-DVD version and yeah, it was incredible :B

There was one part in the battle scene near the end when I thought stuff was going to fall off the walls from the extended low bass and I only have a single 12 . . . LOL. Great PQ and SQ. Overall, a highly impressive disc :T

[Hdale85]

I picked it up bit have not watched it yet. I did watch it in theaters though so interested to see how much better the HD-DVD is.

[Dmantis]

I watched it lastnight in HD DVD and it's fantastic. Audio and video is top notch. Reference disc for sure. Excellent demo'ing movie .

[joetama]

I might get it...

Maybe...

[Charles]

The Circuit City sale on HD DVD may have been a glitch, you may want to check further before making a special trip.

[maseline_98]

I was wondering if the HD-DVD had a SD-DVD version on it. I know a lot of the HD-DVDs do this and I was curious if this was one.

[Race Car Driver]

I watched the SD DVD last night, and what an amazing movie!
I didnt see it in the theater, however this became my new favorite movie, and demo disc!

Man, not only did the movie make me laugh!! But it was a GOOD MOVIE! The picture quality was there, the sound was AMAZING!! The fight scene with the Decpticons and Autobots was just crazy, gave my whole system a workout.

I've been holding off on buying some DVDs because I want to wait until I get a high def player of some kind, however, this is one DVD I am glad I bought!

[Hdale85]

Well I may not watch the disc for a while...for some reason it won't play on my pc. Maybe because I use AnyDVD HD which strips the HDCP protection...and they have some new bypass for it or something? I need to just get an HDCP video card.

[John Holmes]

I picked it up bit have not watched it yet. I did watch it in theaters though so interested to see how much better the HD-DVD is.

I watched a few scenes from the HD version last night. I also saw this at a digital theater. The HD-DVD has an even better picture!

The only issue that was brought up by most, (discussed in "At The Movies" section) was the softning of detail during the fight scenes of the theatrcal release. This is not present on the HD version. The PQ is about the best I've seen to date.

[RebelMan]

Yeah, I'm real surprised that the sound's not lossless on such a showcase disc. Maybe the studio's planning another Uber Edition later.

Rumor has it the extras consumed the necessary disc space that would have been available to lossless codecs. This seems to be the first case where the inherent spatial limitations of the 30GB HD-DVD dual layer format has reared it's ugly head. Unfortunately, it's a price early adopters have to pay for Paramount's well thought out decision :roll: to be a single HD format supporter. Given that I refuse to pickup an HD-DVD player I'll happily make do with the upscaled DVD version instead.

[Hdale85]

All the extra's are on a second disc. So I don't see how thats possible.

[RebelMan]

All the extra's are on a second disc. So I don't see how thats possible.

It's possible. The HD-DVD release is chock full of supplements and hi-def extras necessitating the need to span across multiple disks. Paramount studios stated disc space restrictions forced the need for a lossy audio soundtrack to provide the feature rich experience.

[NMG]

I haven't had the pleasure of experiencing any lossless formats, however, if it is significantly better than the SQ on this particular disc, it must be amazing. I was very impressed with the regular sound from the disc.

[Jack Gilvey]

I'll probably pick this up, looks like fun. HD DVD of course, no reason to buy SD at this point.

[RebelMan]

I'll probably pick this up, looks like fun. HD DVD of course, no reason to buy SD at this point.

There is one very good reason to buy the SD version... it's much cheaper! :B

[Race Car Driver]

Yep, Got the SD and a bottle of pop for 16.xx out the door.

I spent the other 15$ on a cheap hooker and blow...













ok, not really.

[Chris D]

Well, with the other stuff, you won't even notice whether you bought the HD version or not!

[Jack Gilvey]

There is one very good reason to buy the SD version... it's much cheaper! :B

True...that's a good reason to buy Night Train, too.

I'll Netflix this one first, anyway.

[maddog]

I picked up the HD DVD at CC's 2 for 1 sale. Got it for less than $15, which is less than the SD DVD. The audio is reported to be 24-bit 1.5 Mbps DD+, which is arguably better than 16-bit lossless. If it is true that they could not put a 20 or 24-bit lossless on there because of space limitation of the 30 GB disc, Paramount should have used VC1 instead of AVC for the video. VC1 would have allowed a lower bitrate with the same PQ. That's the fault of Paramount, not the HD DVD format.

[Jack Gilvey]

I have no doubt that if the package said "TrueHD", very few would know the difference.

[Hdale85]

Well got it to work on my PC by connecting through the analog input instead of DVI. The analog doesn't look bad so I'll leave it on there for now until I get an HDCP video card. Going to watch it after dinner here in a bit.

[RebelMan]

The audio is reported to be 24-bit 1.5 Mbps DD+, which is arguably better than 16-bit lossless.

Perceptual compression algorithms are always inferior to lossless codecs. The bit depths of DD+ and the like are variable. The 24bit reference generally pertains to the master from which the encoding is processed and the maximum quantization possible of a sample in time.

If it is true that they could not put a 20 or 24-bit lossless on there because of space limitation of the 30 GB disc, Paramount should have used VC1 instead of AVC for the video. VC1 would have allowed a lower bitrate with the same PQ. That's the fault of Paramount, not the HD DVD format.

This is speculative at best. Paramount had several options at their disposal but each was governed by the limits of the medium.

[George Bellefontaine]

Watched it last night. Excellent popcorn flick. Wow picture and wow sound. Well worth owning for that alone.

[audioqueso]

Hello everyone! It's been a while...

I picked this up last week. Watched it on a little Sony 32" LCD I just picked up (I just moved), with no audio system hooked up to it. Just the tv feed by my laptop's DB15 output. Regardless of how simple my setup was, this movie is gorgeous!!! I can only imagine what it would have looked like in my last home setup (65" plus B&W HT setup). I wonder how good it looks to you guys with 1080p setups. Love this movie!!!

[Chris D]

Just picked up my A35 today. Hooked it up to my new 1080p 120Hz flatscreen.

Checking out Transformers in 1080p 24Hz during the "Heroes' commercials. So far, the first thing to say is... definitely a Michael Bay film. Larger than life, cheesy but semi-cool military scenes with lots of airplanes, hero music.

HOLY FRACKIN' !#$#BALLS, I can't believe the picture quailty!

[Nolan B]

I got it and its brainless fun....and looks amazing. Its the #1 sellng HD movie from either format. 100,000 units sold the first day and 190,000 over the next 6 days!

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Michael_Bay/DreamWorks/Paramount/Disc_Sales/Transformers_HD_DVD_Smashes_First-Week_Sales_Records/1093

[Chris D]

Watched it all the way through. Dumb, but fun. Especially in the front, I kept thinking, "Yeah... this is DEFINITELY a Michael Bay film".

I was AMAZED by the animation, CGI, or whatever you want to call it of the Transformers battling it out. Wow!

All in all, pretty enjoyable and glad I made the purchase.

[hawkfan]

Quite possibly THE best movie...ever

[George Bellefontaine]

Quite possibly THE best movie...ever

Well...I wouldn't quite go that far, but it was darn good entertainment.

[hawkfan]

Well...I wouldn't quite go that far, but it was darn good entertainment.

Indeed. Pardon my gushing over this movie, but I'm a tech head who watched the Transformers, Go-bots, and Voltron religiously as a kid. It's good to see a live action movie of a cartoon/comic done right, especially with the amount of CGI involved. Believe me, it could have been much worse(anyone remember "Hulk"?). I felt that this movie was wonderfully executed . It's been a long time since I was "wowed" by an action movie.

[George Bellefontaine]

Understood, hawkfan.

[greenhorn]

We Rented It

We rented it, wasn't really expecting much, rented because I was interested in how it was going to look and sound. I'll be asking for it for my birthday. Looked great, sounded great too... and it was a fun movie. I loved the comedy aspects, could of had more of the parents especially the Mom.

Very good popcorn movie, just a movie to kick back, watch and have a good time :T

[Charles]

Definitly not a classic for my age catagory (almost 50), but a fun watch. The PQ and SQ really is near reference in HD. WOW!