I’ve been waiting for the review of FIREPROOF on Bluray.com for a few weeks since they had previously released the Facing the Giants one. I’m pleased to report the news is good, Fireproof does well on Bluray. For those of you who don’t know, Fireproof was shot on the Varicam and tethered to a MacPro computer (my buddy Bill Ebel was on-site editor and ingested the feed as shooting happened). It was captured from the HD-SDI source of the Varicam to Apple Prorez 422, a new codec at the time. From what I heard, Apple caught wind of them planning on this and Fireproof became a bit of a guinea pig to see how the codec would do. The Varicam is by chip-size and resolution, a 720p camera so there was an up-rez done to the footage on ingesting…but I’m pleased to announce the 1080 image of Fireproof seems to deliver just great!
The biggest surprise (and biggest relief in my opinion) is that the special features come in 1080p as well. The HVX200 was used on set and offset as the primary behind the scenes camera, including the interviews from what I understand. Shot in 1080p, I’m pleased to see the extras delivered this way. Often some Bluray’s get slapped with a SD source for the Behind the Scenes, but not here. Even the bloopers are in HD! 
Thanks to Sony for releasing such a high quality release. I’m looking forward to enjoying Fireproof in the greatest possible quality when it comes out one week from today!
Read the review here: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Fireproof-Blu-ray-Review/5408/
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fireproof
If you check out the-numbers.com you find lots of sales information for DVDs and box office information. I’ve kept my eye on Fireproof for months and saw the number of units sold rise again and again. These numbers are estimated and there’s no way this is 100% accurate but at least according to their website, FIREPROOF is the #24 on the list of top selling DVD’s so far this year. 1.8 Million units which is bound to be more if you included Christian book stores and a bunch of other avenues. The film is right next to films like Best Picture Winner Slumdog Millionaire and films like Watchmen. Congratulations to Sherwood on this achievement!
http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/annual/2009.php
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fireproof
For those of you who are subscribed to any of the Provident Films subscription lists, you received an email recently that included this at the bottom:
Coming Soon to Blu-ray Disc
This September, you will be able to see FIREPROOF and Facing the Giants in a way you’ve never been able to before: on Blu-ray Disc! That means you can soon bring home the high-quality version of these high-impact stories!
The Blu-ray versions of both FIREPROOF and Facing the Giants will be available wherever you purchase DVDs, including your favorite Christian retailer, beginning September 8.
That’s a pretty exciting deal considering both the films have been a smash on DVD given their market. I’m looking forward to buying both and reviewing them when the time comes. I’m curious to see how the films hold up on a 1080HD Blu-ray disc. Facing the Giants was filmed in DVCPROHD on the Panasonic Varicam in 720p so it will be a bit softer. Fireproof was also shot on the Varicam but was captured as they shot via the HDSDI to a Mac converting all the footage directly to 1080p Prores. That means the film while from a 720p source, it’s of a much greater source quality than that of Giants. For those of you who didn’t notice, the Fireproof DVD was given a horrible bitrate on the film itself causing all kinds of artifacting and such in the image, especially in the action sequences. The bonus features had a higher bitrate than the film overall, so hopefully the BR Disc redeems the image quality that was lacking on the DVD.
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bluray, facing the giants, fireproof, sherwood
A new blog entry is available on the Standing Firm Blog. Give it a look and find out where we are in the Post-Production process of our first feature film. Some exciting news and prayer requests.
http://standingfirmmovie.com/blog/2009/03/05/working-the-editeating-the-elephant/
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bill ebel, fireproof, News, prayer, standing firm
