The movie that won Sandra Bullock her first Academy Award, The Blind Side, also boasts an Oscar-worthy Blu-ray transfer.

Hi-Def Digest said the football drama was “distinguished by excellent clarity and contrast, but the image maintains a film-like feel, thanks to a delicate, unobtrusive grain structure that supplies marvellous texture”; Blu-ray.com called it “an able-bodied beaut, even if Alar Kivilo’s matter-of-fact cinematography is burdened with oversaturated skintones and overcooked contrast”; and The Cinema Laser quipped it “sports a highly pleasing 1080p presentation that almost never fumbles the ball”.

The Blind Side goes on sale Wednesday, the same day as a raft of other Warner Bros Blu-ray releases, including Generation Kill, When in Rome, Creation, The Burning Plain, Nowhere Boy and A Single Man.

WB also has a strong back catalogue slate this week, headed by Swingers, And When Did You Last See Your Father, Basic, Stage Beauty and Vanity Fair.

Also new from Wednesday are the TV-remake of The Day of the Triffids; the latest crime drama from Training Day’s Antoine Fuqua, Brooklyn’s Finest; Jim Sheridan’s simmering sibling tensions drama, Brothers; and, on two double-feature Blu-rays, the four The Prince & Me movies.

Later in the week watch for three more Luc Besson attractions (Subway, The Fifth Element, The Last Battle), the documentary series, World War II in HD Colour, Blood: The Last Vampire, Dragon Ball Z – Kai Collection 1, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Talking Heads – Stop Making Sense and Leonard Cohen – Songs from the Road.

Quinton Aaron in The Blind Side

US Blu-ray art

Whoa, this is heavy — next month the Back to the Future trilogy will bow on Blu-ray.

The three-disc set with a lenticular cover goes on sale on October 27 for under $60.

Also being dusted off for HD that month are the first two Shrek movies, Beauty & the Beast, Elvis on Tour, Dead Man and two of Australia’s most iconic heroes, Breaker Morant and Kenny.

Heading the new releases are Iron Man 2, The A-Team, How to Train a Dragon and the final season of Lost while back to haunt us in time for Halloween will be George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead trilogy, Evil Dead and the re-make of Nightmare on Elm Street.

In order of release:

October 6: Universal Soldier: Regeneration, Doghouse, Doctor Who: Season 5, Volume 4, Iron Man 2: Triple Play, South Park: Season 13, Shrek: Special Edition, Shrek 2, The Return, The Skeleton Key.

October 7: The Horseman.

October 8: Kill Speed.

October 12: Possession

October 13: A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Losers, Pandorum, 44 Inch Chest, The Children, Elvis on Tour, Hung: Season 1.

October 14: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Collection 2, Kenny, Dead Man, Crusty Demons: Volume 15.

October 20: World’s Greatest Dad, 2.22, Breaker Morant, I Love You Too, Leap Year, Beauty & the Beast, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Lost: Season 6, How to Train a Dragon, 4.3.2.1.

October 21: Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead.

October 27: Micmacs, The A-Team, Legion, Evil Dead, Back to the Future Trilogy.

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As I write in this week’s The Box cover story for The Press newspaper, “Choosing the television that’s right for you can be as bewildering as trying to fathom the programming strategies of TV networks.”

Among the considerations is the high-end option of apps, or widgets, such as those analysed in this CNET.com update of what’s available.

Bear in mind these vary from one country to the next, with NZ being among the more poorly served. However, Samsung and Sony are leading the charge to reverse this with their new models.

Indeed, among Sony’s BRAVIA Internet Video latest channel additions are MoshCam and UCTV.

MoshCam has a large collection of complete live concerts, including acts like Janes Addiction and Jack Johnston; UCTV (uctv.fm) offers a range of interviews and fly-on-the-wall docos with musicians and producers as well as music.

Both show the potential of the platform with longer-form material. Sony’s also planning local channels and is soon to launch a Billabong sports channel.

Meanwhile, Freeview general manager Sam Irvine reminds me that arguably one of the best features of most new TVs is their integrated Freeview|HD receiver, as it cuts the clutter of free HDTV reception.

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee, James Gandolfini, Anna Chlumsky, David Rasche, Steve Coogan.
Director: Armando Iannucci.
Screenplay: Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche.
Score: Adem Ilhan.
Cinematography: Jamie Cairney.

What Yes, Minister might have been to the Falklands War, In the Loop is to the Iraq War. Spun off TV’s The Thick of It, it hilariously and piercingly dramatises just how Britain might find itself propping up a dubious ally in a Middle Eastern conflict through the doctoring of intelligence information. The cast is as brilliant as the writing, there’s half-an-hour of deleted scenes that deserved to make the final cut, and writer/director Armando Iannucci shares a commentary with the actors. The Blu-ray wasn’t issued at the same time as the DVD because the distributor wanted to wait until its Australian home video release. While the movie has a drab palette, the markedly improved resolution adds immensely to its immediacy – as does this week’s publication of ex-UK PM Tony Blair’s memoir, A Journey.

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Peter Capaldi and James Gandolfini.

TelstraClear has renamed its soon-to-launch PVR the T-Box Personal High Definition Video Recorder.

Long in gestation, the home media device promises to combine the best features of TiVo and My Sky HDi with the HD Holy Grail bonus of 1080p video.

Five months ago the telco started demonstrating the T-Box in its Wellington and Christchurch outlets but software snags have delayed customer installations.

After a protracted alpha testing stage, the beta trial started last week.

“Around 120 people — a mix of staff and customers — have been trialling it and so far the feedback has been very positive,” a spokesman told ScreenScribe.tv. “We hope to make a launch announcement soon.

“Once that is made all those customers who have registered their interest in getting the T-Box will be contacted and given first option to have this great product installed.

“Customers who haven’t registered will be advised very soon how to request installation of the T-Box.”

Although the PVR has been renamed to be consistent with Telstra Australia’s T-Box, which was launched in late 2009, the two products are significantly different: T-Box NZ is a premium pay-TV set-top box whereas T-Box Australia uses Freeview to deliver broadcast TV channels and delivers Bigpond content over broadband.

The specifications are the same as when the PVR was originally announced in November but TelstraClear confirms new content and features are being developed – “though nothing to announce yet.”

The Dominion Post earlier reported the T-Box would cost $499 but Telstra says pricing plans will be confirmed shortly.

New in Town: Sky Movies, 8.30pm Saturday.

Renee Zellweger, JK Simmons and Harry Connick Jr star in a romantic-comedy about a hotshot city-slicker consultant from Miami who finds herself stranded in small-town Minnesota mid-winter. Quipped The Hollywood Reporter: “Strictly old hat — and a poorly assembled hat at that.” (2009)

Four Holidays: Sky Movies, 8.30pm Sunday.

This comedy is for everyone who’s ever had more than a turkey bone to pick with their family at Christmas. If only the movie itself wasn’t such a turkey. About a married couple who’s forced to share Christmas Day festivities with separated parents four times over, it was best summed up by Variety: “Oddly misanthropic, occasionally amusing but thoroughly cheerless”. Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn star. (2008)

Hitman: TV3, 8.30pm Monday.

If you thought Deadwood star Timothy Olyphant dumbed down his career to be the villain in Die Hard 4.0, wait until you see him play a shaven-headed hitman with a bar code on the back of his skull in this gruesome, ludicrous video-game dramatisation. His mysterious assassin works for an equally murky agency that assigns him to kill Russia’s president – the not-so-surprising twist is he turns out to be the patsy in someone else’s sights. (2007)

French Kiss: Sky Movies Greats, 8.30pm Monday.

This droll, romantic-comedy delight concerns a jilted American in Paris who’s courted by a French rascal with a penchant for pinching jewels. Frothy, formulaic but loads of fun thanks to the dream teaming of Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline. Lawrence Kasdan directs. (1995)

TV2′s abrupt rescheduling of Tuesday nights, replacing re-runs of The Mentalist with movies, failed to dent the momentum of Outrageous Fortune.

TV3′s HD comedy/drama last night drew two-to-three times the viewership of Red Eye in all the key demographics, the gap being widest with TV2′s target audience, 18-39 year-olds (18.9% vs 5.8%).

The trend continued when Fortune’s HD stablemate, Californication, easily out-rated the second half of Red Eye, although not by the same margin, leaving Fringe, in the one-off later time slot of 10.15pm, unable to reach 6% of key demos.

Another of TV3′s NZ HD attractions, The Secret Lives of Dancers, also is rating well at 8pm, with last night’s episode keeping pace with TV2′s reality hit, My Kitchen Rules.

On Mondays, TV3′s HD reality show, Road Cops, is holding its own opposite TV2′s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, while TV One’s HD season finale of Rapid Response won its competitive 8pm slot.

And on Saturday, TV One’s premiere of its HD cooking show, Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook, mashed the competition when it dished up 10.3% of 18-49 year-olds and 13.1% of 25-54 year-olds.

The only new movie due on Blu-ray this week is one that bypassed cinemas, Repo Men.

High-Def Digest praised the quality of the HD video and audio but, in line with other critics, said the Jude Law-Forest Whitaker vehicle devolves “from a thinking man’s action thriller to your basic futuristic sci-fi trash romp, so overloaded in its excesses that it makes the Saw films look reserved”.

More reliable sci-fi is offered by Volume 3 of Doctor Who: Series 5 while the pick of the week is another BBC release, the wildlife spectacular, Nature’s Great Events (which TV One recently aired in SD).

Said Blu-ray.com of the HD transfer: “While documentary enthusiasts will have to contend with more artifacting and edge enhancement than they encountered on Planet Earth, [it] boasts a fairly attractive 1080i/VC-1 transfer that, more often than not, looks quite good.”

But DVD Verdict reckons it “easily ranks” among the excellent HD nature shows of late: “The awesome beauty of nature is nicely showcased in this series by great camerawork.”

Otherwise, the week offers a slew of back-catalogue releases that range from the impressive (Minority Report, Road to Perdition) to the indifferent (You, Me And Dupree, Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Bulletproof, Honey).

According to The Digital Bits, the Blu-ray of Minority Report “looks superb” while Home Theater Forum said the elements “are all here; deep blacks, remarkably bright, clean, and issue free whites (no crush or blooming), and the presence of the use of digital noise reduction appropriate, and edge enhancement missing. This is exactly how this film should be seen.”

Despite Road to Perdition’s bumpy storytelling, DVD Town could find “nothing to fault” about the video presentation: “The dual-layer BD50, MPEG-4 encoded, 2.35:1 ratio transfer is first-rate all the way.”