I tried searching to see if this had been discussed, and I found nothing in my search.

I finally splurged the $30 and bought Batman on BluRay. This is the packaging, not the one with the Blu Ray band like this.

Both BluRays have the 3 Prince videos on them (as does some special edition regular DVD). I must say, although the movie itself looks good on BluRay, and the Prince videos look pretty good, I'm really disappointed that "Partyman" is fucking edited! It doesn't have the middle section with the monkey, that ex-Revolution member at the piano, "Hey baby whatchu smokin'?". None of that. I was just pissed the fuck off, because I (like others, I'm sure) like the video the most of the three Batman era videos.

"Batdance" seems to be intact as it was, and I've not watched "Scandalous" yet.

Everything does look good though on BluRay. The DVD case is a book of sorts. Oddly it has instructions to get my digital copy, yet it's a 1-disk set. There is no digital copy disk, nor room or space for it, in the packaging. Really weird on that tip. Computers don't have BluRays readily so I can't really put that into my Mac and get my digital copy. BUT then as I look on the back of the case, I notice that they've pseudo-glued one of those labels to the back of the casing. Between that flimsy label and the case itself is a slip case with the digital disk in it. WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT UP THAT? LOL I had to laugh at myself for not finding it. It's not exactly a regular way of doing things w/ a digital copy. I was miffed there for a few minutes.

Not a fan of the menu on the BluRay. It seems.....messy, and muddled. But its saving grace is that there are a ton of extras.

Anyone else have the movie on BluRay?

ernestsewell said:

no l dont have those movies on BlueRay.....
anyway l am not a great fan of BlueRay...l heard so many complained abt BlueRay
lol.....theres so much confusions with BlueRay.....etc

Dude..id love these motherfuckers...does it transfer well?

Hey Ernest! I bought Purple Rain on Blu-ray last summer (don't have Batman). I had high expectations, but my personnal experience was a bit disappointing. I actually prefer my regular dvd (the 20th anniv. ed.) on my panasonic upconvert player/recorder. Go figure. Glad your experience is better, though.

I would get it just to C the Batdance Video
[Edited 12/26/09 14:43pm]

Elle85n09 said:

me too..
i gutted cos there wasn't much of a difference with the dvd version and the blu-ray.
I'm hoping my new 42" plasma rectifies this

muirdo said:

It really did look good. Some of the old DVD copies of Batman were just TOO dark. You couldn't see any of the detail, but on the BluRay it's really clear. I think the DVD is very grainy. VERY grainy. Not nearly as much on the BluRay.

The videos look good. Like, I never knew Prince's "Partyman" suit had glittery pin stripes on it. I could see it better on the BluRay.

muirdo said:

I thought the PR BluRay was pretty good compared to the original 4:3 DVD years ago. The 20th anniversary showed a lot of improvement, and the BluRay is about the same. Not spectacular, but let's remember the movie is old, it was low budget, etc. Wasn't exactly Lucas doing Clone Wars or something.

What if Prince did a 3d Concert DVD or live show?

RakelRosalita729 said:

Hot dayum that'd b sweet

ernestsewell said:

LOL Good point! Tim definitely had a bigger budget for Batman and I have it on regular dvd. Maybe I'll rent it on blu-ray to see if I can tell a difference on that movie.

I have this blu-ray as well, and like you, was totally miffed about getting the short version of the Partyman video. I'd even gathered my family around to witness the hilarious awesomeness of that video, and voila: cut down to nothin'.

Wish Warner could release a comprehensive video collection...

(P.S: Hey Canadians - Future Shop has this blu-ray on right now for $14.99! [I paid $34.99])
[Edited 12/27/09 10:57am]

I was gonna buy it just for the Prince videos but found out they were in standard definition - so not much point. Although the original video source material obviously wouldn't be in HD it would of been cool to see a bit of an upgrade.

I guess if you play the DVD version upscaled in your BR player it'd be the same as the BR version?

This brings up an interesting point, are there any references to the video/film quality that Prince has recorded his funky videos in? My only guess is that the Purple Rain era ones were recorded on film, the rest on videotape. Any ideas?

stevenevermind said:

even in standard definition you could potentially have a higher bitrate and multichannel lossless sound on bluray over dvd. the music videos are in stereo so if you had a pcm lossless soundtrack on the original disc you wouldn't notice much different in sound on bluray (although it could be 24 bit sound), but you could notice an improvement in video with a higher bitrate, such as improved colour depth and blacks

ernestsewell said:

PR was originally released on NTSC region 1 cropped as pan and scan 4:3, but the original PAL region 2 release release was in widescreen. the PAL release suffered from the usual speedup. one of the main benefits of bluray in PAL countries is 24p playback at the right speed

PR in HD was a big improvement, even over the reissued dvd. much better sound and video

if the original promo's were shot on film they could potentially be remastered to HD, but if shot on video then the best you can get is upscaling to HD. i'm sure as technology improves there will be better methods of mastering old SD video material to HD formats. using a higher bitrate can help by reducing dvd artifacting

unique said:

Material that is shot on film surpasses HD quality - lens and film captures everything that is there (of course, there are dependencies on quality of lens and film). HD is only a reference to a digital medium and was designed to bring digital video closer to "film quality".

The method of shooting to film captures all of the information present, but presentation of all that detail in other formats (video, television etc) is limited by the resolution of the playback equipment.

Its why old films can still benefit from an HD release. The source material doesn't need to be shot in HD, as someone said earlier (that only applies to digital filming - there is not such thing as SD or HD when it comes to film and film is already at a higher resolution than digital HD), but older films will require some remastering and "digital cleaning" as the newer ability to view the higher resolution will reveal any imperfections (dust, scratches on the film etc).

PR looks fantastic on Blu-Ray (I haven't got Batman.....yet!) and certainly benefits from the transfer.

Mindflux said:

i know that, thus my comment which you quoted. i can bore people to tears with the technicalities of the subject

Any you guys know what the typical professional recording format was used for most music videos in the 80s?

stevenevermind said:

a lot of popular music videos were shot on film rather than video to give better quality, as the promos were intended for repeated showing across the world. there were also certain artifacts in video caused by certain lighting, such as trails, so film was used to avoid this

post production and the end master may have been done on video, so in those cases you aren't realistically going to be able to get a new HD master from filmstock

unique said:

Precisely - it was supporting and supplementing your post. I certainly wasn't quoting in disagreement. It was more for everyone else's benefit

ernestsewell said:

The full video can be found in excellent quality on the free fan release DVD "PTV Vol.II" along with all the Batman era videos, including unreleased Batdance mixes.