Official Hi-Def LOST At Last!
Disney IS going to be releasing LOST Season Three - The Unexplored Edition on Blu Ray! This is super significant for a couple of reasons. First, for us easter egg hunters it means a new transfer which targets Blu-Ray’s more aggressive bit-rate. Cable is around 13-15mbps vs Blu-Ray’s 40mbps. Even though its very fine, anybody who has done intensive easter egg hunting through a raw Transport Stream captured from a cable box knows that there is ‘digital grain’ in the picture. So a Blu-Ray transfer IS going to have better quality. Also the native resolution of Blu-Ray is 1920×1080(p) vs 1280×720(p) of broadcast HD. Bottom line, we will be able to read Ben’s diary without hundreds of hours of image processing. The High Def format war has just been won in my house. (Don’t tell my Xbox 360)
As for extras, Hollywood reporter says: "Lost: The Complete Third Season — The Unexplored Experience" follows Dec. 11 on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. The 23-episode, seven-disc set comes with a one-on-one with star Matthew Fox, a featurette on "The Others," a documentary chronicling 24 hours in production and a selection of never-before-seen flashbacks. Also included are behind-the-scenes looks at 10 episodes, audio commentaries, deleted scenes and bloopers.
UPDATE! www.tvshowsondvd.com has confirmed through their sources at Disney that the Blu Ray set is NOT going to happen. 
(image courtesy of http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/)
sounds good, i wasn’t much into the idea of buying the box sets after i watched the eps on air and easy to view again so ddn’t really see the point, however after watching my sis lost se2 extras i can see why and this sounds as though it will have a lot more in it which is why we prob have to wait so long, that and it ties in nicely for the christmas market hu, its just a shame we have to wait so long, i think i’ve got lost turkey
Comment by nickk — May 31, 2007 @ 1:33 pm
Doc:
I’m not familiar with “Blu-Ray” technology. Will it work in a standard DVD player attached to a Hi-Def monitor?
Comment by gusteaux — May 31, 2007 @ 2:15 pm
So I assume that it will be released on “regular DVD” as well?
Comment by gusteaux — May 31, 2007 @ 2:56 pm
Ooops. Just reread the Hollywood Reporter blurb which says DVD and Blu-Ray.
Comment by gusteaux — May 31, 2007 @ 2:59 pm
http://www.davisdvd.com/news/blu-ray.html
the news on that site about the season 3 blu-ray says the set comes out a month before season 4 starts, that would mean LOST would start Jan. 11th instead of February
Comment by DarthVibbert — May 31, 2007 @ 3:15 pm
quick guide to blu-ray discs:
to see a blu-ray movie in HD you need a HDTV and most importantly a blu-ray player.
If you have a playstation 3 then you already have one.
TVs capable of displaying the optimum 1920×1080p resolution are currently a lot more expensive than other HDTVs. However, blurays can be played in 1080i, a format that all HDTVs bought recently (ie in the last few years) can display.
The difference between 1080i and 1080p is all to do with the refresh rate of the image. They have the same resolution, but the 1080p picture is higher quality.
Basically, if you buy the lost blu-ray set (I will be!) and you have a bluray player and a HDTV, you’re all set to view it in near optimum quality.
I hope this helps to anyone who is confused about HD and all that
Comment by shaun — May 31, 2007 @ 3:45 pm
Booo! To bad they aren’t using HD-DVD.
Comment by d3bruts1d — May 31, 2007 @ 4:15 pm
As much as I like the way HD-DVD rolls off the tongue, it has a lower bitrate than Blu-Ray (29.4mbps) and nearly half the capacity. Which is fine for movies, but bad for TV series sets.
Comment by DocArzt — May 31, 2007 @ 4:19 pm
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Disney/Disney_Says_No_to_Lost,_Badder_Santa_on_Blu-ray/671
Comment by Aaron — May 31, 2007 @ 4:40 pm
BUZZ KILL!!
Comment by DocArzt — May 31, 2007 @ 5:10 pm
Hey, is it just me or does it sound like we’re going to have to wait longer for a DVD that doesn’t have as much extra stuff as Seasons 1 and 2 did?
And where the hell is that video game demo they promised us?? Oh yeah, the DVD is probably coming out AFTER the video game. Wow, the greedy marketers over at ABC are really trying our patience with this one.
Comment by BlackSmoke — May 31, 2007 @ 5:30 pm
On the recent announcment that lost will not be released on Blue-Ray… Whew, now I can afford Christmas presents for the kids.
Comment by TabulaRasa — May 31, 2007 @ 7:05 pm
Yeah Doc, that is indeed a major bummer. I was looking forward to December (good Lord, thats forever in itself) after reading about the Blu-Ray version and looking forward to hunting through some high quality shots myself, not that i would have had to do much work myself, you and Dark pretty much have every angle down.
Comment by tanside — June 1, 2007 @ 7:30 am
just because something is capable of something, doesn’t mean a thing. bd is capable of 1080p, but if there would be a lost bd set, it would only play in 720p (upscaled to 1080i). lost is shot in abc’s chosen hd medium of 720p, and you can’t create pixels where there were none. if there would be a lost bd, you would be wasting you money because they would not be offering anything more than an upscaled version of the content originally shown on network tv. this goes for all abc programming.
go out and buy a good upsacaling dvd player. lost on a standard dvd looks just as good when played upscaled from 480p as when it was originally broadcast on my 1080i television in 720p.
Comment by KoozyK — June 1, 2007 @ 7:33 am
Doc,
12/11 is way too far off, I can’t take it. What’s going on With the 3b? I need something.
Comment by Sara — June 1, 2007 @ 8:04 am
3b Is Coming! It will be here in June.
Comment by DocArzt — June 1, 2007 @ 10:40 am
We should remember how expensive Blu-Ray movies are, too. While the HD-DVD format doesn’t have the bitrate and the file capacity, it is cheaper than Blu-Ray. For example, Heroes S1 on HD-DVD will be $70, but when this site first made mention of LOST on blu-ray it put out a possible price of #200…
http://www.thetailsection.com/lost_news/lost_coming_to_bluray.php
Yeah, I’m a big fan of LOST (I actually recently purchased all of the McFarlane figures and the hatch set costing around $110), but paying $200 for what I already have on DVD is approaching my breaking point…
Comment by Brandon — June 1, 2007 @ 11:35 am
It’s June right now!!! ^_^
Comment by TrillianM — June 1, 2007 @ 12:51 pm
ABC did provide details about their online HD channel today. In May, ABC announced that they were going to provide some content online in HD, but now we know some of the specifics. We just have to wait until July.
Comment by TabulaRasa — June 1, 2007 @ 7:20 pm
Damn, would have loved to have seen this on Blu-Ray. I’ve got a decent setup at my house now, with a 50″ plasma, a receiver with upscaling, and a PS3, and I really can tell the difference between DVD and Blu-Ray. I don’t buy many movies, but those I do, are now on Blu-Ray. $200 seems like way too much though. Seems that BRs are about 150% of the DVD price. So $60ish -> $90ish? That would be OK for me I think.
Note, I don’t have a 360, so I really can’t comment on the HDDVD/BR comparision.
I do hope that this ‘format war’ ends quickly. I can’t help but think that forcing producers to choose a format, or make it in 3 different formats creates costs that are being passed to the consumer, and limiting our choices in movies.
–fish
Comment by fish — June 7, 2007 @ 6:44 am
No, lost isn’t “shot in 720″, the master is 1080p, other channels choose to broadcast in 1080i, that doesn’t. I’ve seen caps of such broadcasts and there are clearly more detail in there compared to ABC’s 720 broadcasts. For a blu-ray release, they’ll go back to the 1080p HDCAM SR source and encode it to a high bitrate in full 1080p
Comment by buzz — June 9, 2007 @ 9:17 am
Wow fish. Something is definitely wrong in your setup. I’m running a 42″ 1080p LCD with Xbox-306 +HD/DVD and can EASILY tell the difference between a dvd and an HD-DVD. There is just no comparison. Is your hidef equipment connected to high bandwidth connectors (component/dvi/hdmi)?
Comment by DocArzt — June 11, 2007 @ 5:59 am