Displaying items by tag: BBC

All right, we’re starting things off this week with more new disc reviews. Four of them, in fact...

Tim has posted his thoughts on Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend (1945) on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics, as well as Michel Lemoine’s Seven Women for Satan (1975) on Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro, and John Guillermin’s 1976 remake of King Kong, a Paramount title on Region B-locked Blu-ray from our friends down at Umbrella Entertainment.

And Dennis has turned in his thoughts on The Buster Keaton Collection: Volume 4 on Blu-ray from the Cohen Film Collection, an excellent release that includes Go West (1925) and College (1923).

All of the above are worth a look if you’re interested. And we’ve got more reviews on the way all week, so be sure to watch for them. [Read on here...]

This is just a quick update to let you all know that we’re working on new 4K reviews here at The Digital Bits today.

And we’re going to be posting the first of them this weekend, including Ad Astra from 20th Century Fox and Game of Thrones: The Complete Eighth Season from HBO.

So stay tuned for those.

Also, we’ve got some great stuff planned for you all next week, including a new film retrospective from our own Michael Coate in his History, Legacy & Showmanship column.

In honor of The Rise of Skywalker, we’ll also have our next Star Wars feature on Tuesday, which is The Empire Strikes Back – A Visual Guide to Changes, Fixes, and Tweaks in the Disney+ 4K Version. Our recent guide to A New Hope was hugely popular, so we’re pressing on with the sequels too! Drew has pulled together a ton of great comparison images for you. [Read on here...]

We’ve got a bit of interesting 4K Ultra HD news for you today...

First, on the all digital front, Lionsgate has just set Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker as Digital only 4K release on 2/4.

It’ll feature Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio.

Of course, we know that most of you are physical disc consumers, so we’ve got a street date update for you guys today as well—covering forthcoming Blu-ray and 4K new releases.

The following information comes from studio and retail sources, but none of these titles have actually been announced yet.

So just be aware that the dates listed below could change a little bit still, as often happens before the studio makes their street dates official. [Read on here...]

All right, the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show is finally under way in Las Vegas today, with a number of the major CE manufacturers holding big press conferences to announce their product line-ups for the year. In fact, I’ve just now sat through Samsung’s big press event (more on that in a minute). I’ll check back in with more tomorrow, but for now let’s get to what news we have so far concerning 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray at the show...

In terms of new 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player hardware, obviously Oppo Digital has just launched their debut player on the format, the UDP-203 (SRP $549). I’ve been testing this unit for about a week now and it’s just tremendous. For a first-generation player, it’s very solid, very fast, and it plays just about everything – Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, DVD, DVD-Audio, CD, and SACD, plus a wide variety of digital video and audio formats via network and USB. It’s compatible with HDR-10 right out of the box, and it’s also hardware compatible with Dolby Vision; a firmware update in the months ahead will add full Dolby Vision compatibility (keep in mind that no Dolby Vision UHD BD software is yet available, though software is forthcoming – again, more in a moment – and you can stream it now via Netflix and Vudu). Oppo is also working on an audiophile-upgraded version of this player, the UDP-205 (SRP around $1K), due for release later this year. [Read on here…]

We’ve got some great news today for you fans of the BBC’s Sherlock: PBS has just announced that Season Three will officially premiere here in the States on 1/19/14 on Masterpiece, following the 9 PM broadcast of Downton Abbey.  This is bar none my favorite show on television right now, so I’m very excited by this.  As before, the season will contain three new 90-minute episodes: The Empty Hearse (1/19), The Sign of Three (debuts on 1/26) and His Last Vow (2/2 – Superbowl Sunday as it happens), eached based on a classic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story.  Blu-ray and DVD versions (SRP $39.98 and $29.98) are NOW available for pre-order on Amazon.com (street date is TBA, but our guess with be early Feb 2014)!  You’ll find the temp cover art below.  And of course, the BBC has confirmed that Season Four is already in the works.   Great news all around!

Now then, today’s Hell Plaza Oktoberfest review from Dr. Jahnke is none other than James Wan’s recent The Conjuring on Blu-ray from Universal.  And turns out it’s pretty great.  Don’t miss it.  [Read on here...]