Warner Home Video has revealed the specs and special features for the upcoming Blu-ray release of 'Batman Begins', which is scheduled to be released on July 8th. The release will come in two flavors: either as a standard Blu-ray or a limited edition Blu-ray gift set. Video will be presented as 1080p VC-1, and audio will come via a 5.1 Dolby TrueHD track.
Extras include 12 featurettes (including: "Genesis of the Bat", "Batman: The Journey Begins", "Path to Discovery", "Saving Gotham City", "Shaping Mind and Body", "Gotham City Rises", "Cape and Cowl", "Batman: The Tumbler"), the "Tankman Begins" MTV spoof, "Confidential Files" (text and images), and theatrical trailers.
Additionally, this release will feature an "In Movie Experience" (IME) PIP commentary track. This BonusView feature will only work on BonusView Blu-ray players, which includes the Sony PlayStation 3 and Panasonic DMP-BD30.
Exclusive to the Blu-ray release will be the complete six-minute prologue from upcoming theatrical release of 'The Dark Knight', which is set to hit theaters on July 18th.
As previously reported, the limited edition gift set will include a Batman Begins motion art lenticular, script pages, exclusive photos, storyboards, five collectible Batman Begins postcards, and $7.50 in movie cash toward a Dark Knight ticket.
This will be a great release. I sold my HD-DVD collection back in December when I new the format wa on it's last legs, so I've been longing to have this title back in my collection.
Knowing Warner, the release will be worth the re-purchase. I'm glad they've chosen to use P 1.1 instead of just doing a second encode and wasting the space. This will be awesome!
Throwing in a free movie ticket is a huge bonus too...the Blu-Ray can be pre-ordered for $20 and comes with a $7 off coupon for something I'd already buy! Very slick, Warner.
Too bad this is just another HD-DUD port and stuffed with a few extras. I'll just be happy when they run out of crappy HD DUD movies to port over and give us some higher bitrate blu-ray spec encodes.
No use for the ticket where I live, and the rest of the box doesn't sound appealing.
And if it is indeed a simple HD DVD port, transfer-wise, it's not worth preordering either. Can't encourage Warner to keep on being subpar. Although, if the transfer proves to be redone to the Blu-ray specification, I will preorder the standard edition.
I really wish they'd come out and make the re-encode issue official. Please just tell us one way or the other Warner. It's a pressing issue for us enthusiasts, and the silence only has me suspecting the worst.
They'd probably be making it pretty clear if there was a new encode of the movie afterall.
Limited edition gift set with the complete six-minute prologue from upcoming theatrical release of 'The Dark Knight'-- Blu-ray fans are being rewarded for their patience.
Real excited here about "Batman Begins" making is Blu-ray debut. This can only mean that "The Dark Knight" will go Blu immediately when the DVD is released. Know what this means...
TWO ACTION PACKED BAT-FLICKS ON BLU-RAY BY THE END OF THE YEAR!!!
This was a great movie and will be a must buy for me. I can't wait to see the film in blu I just watched it the other day and thought how crazy it would look in Blu
Great news, I have the hd-dvd version and it doesn't scream for a new video encode for BD, the one on the hd-dvd looks stunning. I hope the PIP feature looks as good as the hd-dvd, not the tinny pip found on RE Extinction... well now I can finally trade my dead format copy for the new BD editon.
Sorry to post this again... but hopefully Warner Bros will give this film a new transfer and encoding.
While Batman Begins was an excellent HD transfer at the time of its release - These days, it's looking pretty damn soft, up against more recent transfers from other studios.
Compare it to, say, Black Snake Moan (Paramount), Spiderman 3 and Black Book (Sony), Pirates of the Carribean and Bridge to Terribithia (Disney), or King Kong and Hot Fuzz (Universal) and tell me you disagree. Seriously... compare it!
On a 100 inch projection screen - even at 720p - the softness of the transfer is even more obvious.
Warner Bros... are you listening? Your transfers are good - but they're a definite step below what the other studios are putting out these days. Please re-transfer and re-encode this film!!!
Totally agree with "Electric_Haggis". Let's hope all this extra time spent making this disc allowed them to iron out the softness kinks. Still will get this, but will be pretty disapointed if no upgrade in PQ has been made.
Ah yeah worth the wait... I trust that WB will do a great job on the video transfer for Blu-ray...
Hopefully we will get the TrueHD track for Superman Returns at some point in the near future...
Who are they kidding, All WB is doing is selling us HD DVD Movies that are copied to Blue-ray disc's. VC 1 is exactly the same as Mpeg 2 except 1 parameter it changed so Micro soft could call it their own. Dolby True HD is vary compressed and lacks the dynamic range of DTS Master HD and PCM, although it is much better than Dolby digital 5.1. I thing for the next year all the HD DVD's are going to be copied to Blu-ray disc's. For the record AVC Mpeg 4 is the best Video codec at the present.
"Also, a number of you have asked about the BD transfers/encodes for V for Vendetta (5/20), Batman Begins (7/8) and The Matrix Trilogy (TBA 4th Qtr), so here's the reply from the studio:
"Each of these releases will repurpose the encode used on the HD release. They looked beautiful on HD and will look beautiful on BD. Each of these titles will be released on BD50s. We are very excited that the Matrix titles will be coming out on BD... they are going to look awesome. And with Animatrix added (not part of the HD release) it should be terrific."
Repurpose? Does that mean re-encode or same same encode? Thanks
