Monday, September 29, 2008

Blu-ray Releases for September 30, 2008

Paramount once again delivers the highlight of the week with the two-disc edition of the summer superhero blockbuster Iron Man including an excellent hi-def presentation of the film along with a bevy of supplemental material. On the superhero front, Fox answers back with the director's cut of Daredevil which is arguably vastly improved from its somewhat underwhelming theatrical cut.

Sony stays relatively quiet again this week (after mysteriously pulling a few romantic comedies off the schedule) with only the 90's teen comedy Can't Hardly Wait, while Universal offers up a number of compelling releases with a trio of Judd Apatow comedies Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up (available together in the Ultimate Unrated Comedy Collection boxset), as well as a trio of horror flicks The Thing, Dawn of the Dead (2004) and Land of the Dead (also collected together in the Halloween Starter Pack).

Speaking of Halloween, it's not surprising to see a number of other horror films on the schedule: Disney with M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, Dark Sky with Tobe Hooper's influential 1974 original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Warner with the slasher duo Rest Stop: Dead Ahead and Rest Stop: Don't Look Back, Image with the Asian supernatural horror/fantasy film Re-Cycle, Echo Bridge with the made-for-TV Salem Witch Trials, and Anchor Bay with a couple of boxsets bundling up previous releases in the Masters of Horror Bundle and the Blu-ray Zombie Bundle.

Looking past Halloween, is it too soon to break out the winter holiday decorations and put up the lights? Echo Bridge doesn't seem to think so, since they are releasing a trio of Christmas-themed TV-movies Angel in the Family, A Christmas Visitor and The Man Who Saved Christmas

If superhero action, relationship comedies, Halloween horrors or Christmas family dramas aren't what the doctor ordered, perhaps some music will do the trick? You can choose from a pair of operas, Verdi: La Traviata from Arthaus Musik and Bellini: Norma from Opus Arte, or from a trio of concerts, Jethro Tull: Live at Montreux and Legends: Live at Montreux from Eagle Rock and Roy Orbison: A Black and White Night from Image. Image is also releasing the Discovery Channel's documentary series on the NASA space program When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions.

As if this week's release schedule was not already bursting at the seams, Amazon has made available a few Blu-ray Asian imports from MSI: the Hong Kong crime action-thriller Fatal Move, the romantic drama Secret and Tsui Hark's martial arts epic Seven Swords.

List of Blu-ray Releases for Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The 40-Year-Old VirginThe 40-Year-Old Virgin
Unrated
2005 | Universal | 133 minutes | MSRP $29.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Angel in the FamilyAngel in the Family
2004 | Echo Bridge | 88 minutes | MSRP $14.99
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Bellini: NormaBellini: Norma
2005 | Opus Arte | 188 minutes | MSRP $45.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Blu-ray Zombie BundleBlu-ray Zombie Bundle
2008 | Anchor Bay | 312 minutes | MSRP $89.91
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Can't Hardly WaitCan't Hardly Wait
10 Year Reunion Edition
1998 | Sony | 100 minutes | MSRP $28.95
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
A Christmas VisitorA Christmas Visitor
2002 | Echo Bridge | 88 minutes | MSRP $14.99
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
DaredevilDaredevil
Director's Cut
2003 | Fox | 133 minutes | MSRP $39.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Dawn of the DeadDawn of the Dead
Unrated Director's Cut
2004 | Universal | 110 minutes | MSRP $29.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Fatal MoveFatal Move
2008 | MSI: Universal/Rocket | 113 minutes | MSRP $45.99
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Forgetting Sarah MarshallForgetting Sarah Marshall
Unrated
2008 | Universal | 112 minutes | MSRP $39.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Halloween Starter PackHalloween Starter Pack
2008 | Universal | 316 minutes | MSRP $59.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Iron ManIron Man
Ultimate 2-Disc Edition
2008 | Paramount | 126 minutes | MSRP $39.99
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Jethro Tull: Live at MontreuxJethro Tull: Live at Montreux
2003 | Eagle Rock | 117 minutes | MSRP $24.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Knocked UpKnocked Up
Unrated and Unprotected
2007 | Universal | 133 minutes | MSRP $29.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Land of the DeadLand of the Dead
Unrated Director's Cut
2005 | Universal | 97 minutes | MSRP $29.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Legends: Live at MontreuxLegends: Live at Montreux
1997 | Eagle Rock | 107 minutes | MSRP $24.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
The Man Who Saved ChristmasThe Man Who Saved Christmas
2002 | Echo Bridge | 100 minutes | MSRP $14.99
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Masters of Horror BundleMasters of Horror Bundle
2008 | Anchor Bay | 755 minutes | MSRP $119.88
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Re-CycleRe-Cycle
2006 | Image | 109 minutes | MSRP $35.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Rest Stop: Dead AheadRest Stop: Dead Ahead
Uncut
2006 | Warner | 85 minutes | MSRP $28.99
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Rest Stop: Don't Look BackRest Stop: Don't Look Back
Uncut
2008 | Warner | 89 minutes | MSRP $28.99
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Roy Orbison: A Black and White NightRoy Orbison: A Black and White Night
1988 | Image | 64 minutes | MSRP $24.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Salem Witch TrialsSalem Witch Trials
2003 | Echo Bridge | 177 minutes | MSRP $14.99
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
SecretSecret
2007 | MSI: Universal/Rocket | 102 minutes | MSRP $52.99
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Seven SwordsSeven Swords
2005 | MSI: Universal/Rocket | 153 minutes | MSRP $54.99
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
The Sixth SenseThe Sixth Sense
1999 | Disney | 107 minutes | MSRP $34.99
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
The Texas Chainsaw MassacreThe Texas Chainsaw Massacre
1974 | Dark Sky Films | 83 minutes | MSRP $29.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
The ThingThe Thing
1982 | Universal | 109 minutes | MSRP $29.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Ultimate Unrated Comedy CollectionUltimate Unrated Comedy Collection
2008 | Universal | 378 minutes | MSRP $89.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
Verdi: La TraviataVerdi: La Traviata
2008 | Arthaus Musik | 132 minutes | MSRP $45.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com
When We Left Earth: The NASA MissionsWhen We Left Earth: The NASA Missions
2008 | Image | 258 minutes | MSRP $69.98
View Blu-ray Details | Buy from Amazon.com

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Panorama Playhouse: Starship Troopers

Microsoft Research has recently made available as a free download a very interesting program called Image Composite Editor (ICE).  They describe it as follows:

Microsoft Image Composite Editor is an advanced panoramic image stitcher. You shoot a set of overlapping photographs of a scene from a single location, and Image Composite Editor creates a high-resolution panorama incorporating all your images at full resolution. Then save your stitched panorama in a wide variety of formats, from common formats like JPEG and TIFF to multi-resolution tiled formats like HD View and Silverlight Deep Zoom.

The description is terse but intriguing. I was curious to see how applicable this tool might be to stitching together movie frames to create panoramic frame composites, so I decided to see what could be done using the Starship Troopers Blu-ray as a source.

My first thought was that it would likely work best with a relatively static shot that has a simple vertical or horizontal pan.  There's a nice one near the beginning of the movie at the downtown Buenos Aires campus.  Starting small, I took the following four non-cropped 1.85 1920x1080 frames and simply dragged them into the ICE main window:

starship_1_01 starship_1_02 starship_1_03 starship_1_04

After thinking about it for a few seconds, it gave me the following composite which appears to be completely seamless:

starship_ice_1

Using the built-in cropping tools, I got a pretty nice looking 1862 x 2607 image as a result:

Starship Troopers Composite 1

So far so good, but what if a lot of things are moving around during the pan?  Let's try another simple vertical pan, but this time with lots of activity.  Here's a more complicated set of ten frames with a bottom-to-top vertical pan and lots of moving figures and changing lights:

 starship_2_01 starship_2_02 starship_2_03 starship_2_04 starship_2_05 starship_2_06 starship_2_07 starship_2_08 starship_2_09 starship_2_10

Once again, I simply dragging these images into ICE and let it work its compositing mathemagic:

ice-2

Another quick rectangular crop gives an impressively seamless picture, this time at 1909x1700 pixels:

Starship Troopers Composite 2

Bits and pieces of each frame seem to have been plucked out to combine together into a (mostly) coherent whole.  Wowsa!

Not everything that I tried worked out perfectly and perhaps I'll talk about the failures and explore more complicated camera movements next time, but it's not often that I am so astonished by a piece of software.  If you are the least bit interested in photography, you really owe it to yourself to download this program and goof around in the panorama playhouse.


Starship Troopers