Official: No Jack The Giant Killer Blu-ray - Officially Disappointing!

[X3 Beast]

Watch a black-and-white movie on DVD or Blu-Ray. Instead of the dark shadows smoothly fading into each other beautifully like on the original film, you get blotchy gradients of gray. Eventually we'll be so used to that gradient stuff that we won't care. But it's still an example of how film doesn't look better on DVD or Blu-Ray.

I have a number of black and white movies on Blu-ray. And don't experience anything like what you're seeing.
Your TV set must not be calibrated right or something. Because there's been plenty of B&W films that look amazing.
The Day The Earth Stood Still and Casablanca for instance are nothing short of A-Mah-Zing on Blu-ray compared to DVD.

[Space version 2.0]

Honestly, I don't care much about a quality difference for something like this, I just prefer Blu Ray over DVD. It's a much more durable media, doesn't get scratched as easily.

[ihavemyreasons]

Didn't read all the posts on this, but my take is that I would opt to buy the bluray of every release over dvd or VOD but only if it gets released at the same time. So while I'd really, really prefer the quality of bluray releases, I'm impatient and almost always going to order whatever version gets released first and I don't have the money to burn to buy different formats of the same release.

[BEERxTaco]

Somewhat off topic, but I have tried 3 times to download the iso file for this and it has failed every time. Not sure what is going because I don't sit and watch it, but when I come back the download dialogue box is closed (as if everything was fine) but the folder I downloaded it to is empty. Trying again...

[Thrashalla]

Somewhat off topic, but I have tried 3 times to download the iso file for this and it has failed every time. Not sure what is going because I don't sit and watch it, but when I come back the download dialogue box is closed (as if everything was fine) but the folder I downloaded it to is empty. Trying again...

Contact support@rifftrax.com and they should be able to get you a link that is friendlier for your system.

[ihavemyreasons]

Somewhat off topic, but I have tried 3 times to download the iso file for this and it has failed every time. Not sure what is going because I don't sit and watch it, but when I come back the download dialogue box is closed (as if everything was fine) but the folder I downloaded it to is empty. Trying again...

definitely follow thrash's advise about contacting support. For me the iso seemed to be a much slower than usual download even taking into cosideration it's size, but I left it to download overnight and it successfully completed for me sometime last night.

[SJP]

Honestly, I don't care much about a quality difference for something like this, I just prefer Blu Ray over DVD. It's a much more durable media, doesn't get scratched as easily.

This, too.  I like me a nice, hard to scratch disc as well.  I take care of my DVDs, but where I work I see a LOT of DVDs and CDs come back needing to be put through the ol' sanding machine to get them like new.  The Blus?  Wipe the fingerprints off of them and they work again.  Don't even need a microfiber cloth, just a shirt sleeve.

[RVR II]

Honestly, I don't care much about a quality difference for something like this, I just prefer Blu Ray over DVD. It's a much more durable media, doesn't get scratched as easily.

This, too.  I like me a nice, hard to scratch disc as well.  I take care of my DVDs, but where I work I see a LOT of DVDs and CDs come back needing to be put through the ol' sanding machine to get them like new.  The Blus?  Wipe the fingerprints off of them and they work again.  Don't even need a microfiber cloth, just a shirt sleeve.

OH, So using them under the feet of my couch as sliders to move it around on my living room hardwood floor is not recommended then

[Wernski]

Raefire has a point, though, that the film they're riffing (and the short) isn't likely to be a struck-from-film print.  I wouldn't be surprised if it's just a downloaded file that be standard def or less resolution that they use.  This is Rifftrax, after all, not Criterion.
In fact, I believe that's the explanation they gave when asked why they don't release Blus of their other, non-Live DVDs.
But the live portions of the show, the footage of the guys etc, will all be fresh, HD footage that would benefit from greatly from Blu treatment.  I've decided to hold out, too.  But worst case scenario, I'm still happy with DVDs over just downloads.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

 I agree Blu-Ray isn't needed for most Rifftrax movies, but in the case of the live shows:

The Blu-Ray is nice for when they split the screen and have the guys on the side in the 3 little boxes, the extra resolution keeps all the boxes clearer.

This one does look pretty good on DVD since they didn't compress it down to single layer size, using 7GB helped keep the artifacts to a minimum.

[pstokely]

Will the HD remastered Manos be ready by August?

[Edward J Grug III]

The sales numbers of the previous BluRay releases couldn't be very accurate as they are for movies that Rifftrax has released in so many versions - Of course people are sick of buying the same thing again and again.

Jack on BluRay would have been a much better test.

[MrTorso]

Will the HD remastered Manos be ready by August?

They have already said that they have their own print that they are using for the live show.

Raefire has a point, though, that the film they're riffing (and the short) isn't likely to be a struck-from-film print.  I wouldn't be surprised if it's just a downloaded file that be standard def or less resolution that they use. 

Not necessarily true. They have transferred many of their shorts from film for use on the site. Sure they aren't doing frame by frame restos on them but they have done plenty of their own transfers for RiffTrax use.

[X3 Beast]

The sales numbers of the previous BluRay releases couldn't be very accurate as they are for movies that Rifftrax has released in so many versions - Of course people are sick of buying the same thing again and again.

Jack on BluRay would have been a much better test.

Exactly. That's why it's a shame they're pointing to the previous releases to try to claim there isn't a market.

Big shock. The last 2 Blu releases were just re-releases of two earlier releases. So not many likely upgraded.

And the pair of releases before that were planned for release at the same time, but then were delayed til after the DVDs.

[Smith Dr John Smith]

Shows you don't know I'm a Multimedia graduate who damn well knows the difference. My issue is that Jack isn't exactly a new, digitally filmed movie made for the HD era, or a painstakingly remastered classic that people care about getting the quality right on.

And again, this just shows you don't know what you're talking about. Because ANY movie on film is going to still look better in HD.
Film already has a greater image quality than even Blu-ray can present. That's why even old movies can look great on Blu-ray.
This isn't just about the Rifftrax aspect of the presentation, but the movie itself benefits from the High-Def presentation.
The rest of your post clearly shows you don't understand how film works, and that Film Grain actually is part of the movie.

Yeah well said anyone who says that the Blu Ray versions of say Citizen Kane or The Adventures of Robin Hood don't look better and let you see more details then their DvD counterparts has no idea what they are talking about.  Old films do look better on blu ray,just watch North By Northwest if you don't believe it.  The fact is film has more detail then HD and that is true of all film that is why even something like Manos can be giving an HD release.  Now video tape was for year limited to SD quality and that has to be specially filmed for HD but film has always recorded more detail then even Blu Ray and modern HD TVs can show.  Saying DvD looks the same as Blu Ray is like saying an iPod MP4 file looks the same as an MPEG2 file when both are blown up to use all of a 40 inch TV screen.  In fact you don't even have to do that just download both the MP4 and MPEG2 of any short and then play them on your computer and tell me that the added data in the MPEG2 doesn't make the picture clearer.