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I’ll drink to that. Home Media Magazine reports that more Bond films will soon be available on Blu-ray Disc. MGM, through distributer 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, is currently producing six of the Bond classics for release on Blu-ray. The scheduled release dates are Oct. 20 in the U.S., and Oct. 21 in the U.K.. Full Story »
Spike TV will host the broadcast premiere of “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” and cable premieres of “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace” and “Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.” next month in high definition (HD). The network will also be showing the six-part “Star Wars” series in its entirety, in HD, along with encore presentations.
Previously only available on DVD and HD DVD, Warner Bros. is set to release Batman Begins on Blu-ray Disc. The release date is July 8, 2008, which is ten days before the latest Batman picture The Dark Knight is scheduled to be released in theaters.
Films starring actor Sir Michael Caine will be of the first British classics to be digitally restored in high definition, this according to UK pub The Guardian. Caine will be honored this month for his 75th birthday with screenings of “Zulu” and “The Italian Job”. Viewers with SKY HD will be able to view the films.
This coming Tuesday will bring the last two films from Paramount to be released on HD DVD. “Things We Lost in the Fire” and “Into the Wild” will end a run for Paramount, who, along with Dreamworks, went exclusive with HD DVD back in August of 2007.
The announcement comes after a decision from Toshiba on February 19 to no longer produce HD DVD players and drives. Universal Studios, who was a major backer for HD DVD, quickly followed Toshiba’s announcement saying it would start releasing movies on Blu-ray Discs.
Dreamworks has not made a formal decision to switch to Blu-ray Disc. The last heard from Chief Exec. Jeffrey Katzenberg was that they would continue to release on HD DVD until told otherwise. “We have a partnership with Toshiba and have an obligation to see this through,” he told Reuters.
With an Xbox 360 you can now download MGM movies in HD, as well as standard definition movies, through Xbox LIVE. Microsoft’s popular gaming console is the first of its kind to offer this feature. The deal between MGM and Microsoft was announced at CES ‘08, with a goal of 50 movies to become available for download.
Will Blu-ray prices come down as quickly as they did when HD DVD was around? No. Will consumers buy high definition Blu-ray discs at $29.99 and higher for new releases? No way.
Sure you have the early adopters, the one who bought players for $1200 and didn’t mind paying $35 for a disc. And, you have some who were waiting for the format war decision to be made, and are now willing to pay $399(Sony BDP-S300) for a player. But for the mass consumer, Blu-ray is still too expensive.
Now you can rent HD movies from Apple for $4.99. The high definition format is apparently 720p, which is upconverted to 1080p. The sound format is Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. The download takes forever though, unless you have cable internet or Verizon Fios (fiber optic). Apple claims that at 6mbsp you can start watching in a minute. At 2mbsp you’re looking at 2 hours. At dial-up speed forget it, you may as well go to bed.
If you don’t want to wait for HD, you can always download an SD version of the movie with stereo sound for $3.99. Download speed, unless you are on dial-up, isn’t a factor.
Apple TV is supported by all the major studios including Fox, Lionsgate, MGM, Miramax, New Line Cinema, Paramount, Sony, Touchstone Pictures, Universal, Disney and Warner Bros.
Here is an actual letter to a Netflix subscriber. They are going completely Blu-ray. Looks like HD DVD is on it’s way to a slow and painful death.
Dear …,
You’re receiving this email because you have asked to receive high-definition movies in the HD DVD format. As you may have heard, most of the major movie studios have recently decided to release their high-definition movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. In order to provide the best selection of high-definition titles for our members, we have decided to go exclusively with Blu-ray as well.
While we will continue to make our current selection of HD DVD titles available to you for the next several months, we will not be adding additional HD DVD titles or reordering replacements.
Toward the end of February, HD DVDs in your Saved Queue will automatically be changed to standard definition DVDs. Then toward the end of this year, all HD DVDs in your Queue will be changed to standard definition DVDs. Don’t worry, we will contact you before this happens.
-The Netflix Team
Is this the beginning of the end for Toshiba and HD DVD? Today Barnes & Noble announced a 50% sale on its HD DVD collection. Does this mean they are liquidating their inventory and only going with Blu-ray? It seems it would make sense to continue to sell HD DVDs until the demand fades. But with Blu-ray Disc commanding the majority of the high definition market after the Warner Bros decision, we’ll have to see how the other retailers respond before making the prediction that HD DVD will concede.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM) has secured carriage for its MGM HD Channel on Verizon’s FiOS TV service, bringing feature film hits from the MGM library to Verizon FiOS TV subscriber households in full high definition splendor. The announcement was made today by Douglas A. Lee, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Digital Media for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and Jim Packer, Co-President, MGM Worldwide Television.
The first signs of HD DVD ultimate demise may be coming from the UK on March 10. After the news on Universal and Paramount abandoning the exclusive HD DVD deal, it seems that Amazon UK is listing three Paramount Blu-ray titles with that definitive release date: Trading Places, Coming to America and Anchorman, the latter of which was never available in Blu-ray before (as far as we can see.) Amazon UK doesn’t list the HD DVD versions, and these are all new Zone 2 releases, not US imports. Could this be an error on Amazon’s part or just a sign of things to come?
Fans of summer smash hits and groundbreaking TV series are tapping into the web-enabled communities offered by HD DVD. “Transformers” from Paramount Home Entertainment and “Heroes: Season One” from Universal Home Entertainment are among the titles that saw significant online usage of the web-connected features.
“Transformers,” which continues to be one of the top selling titles in any high definition format, had more than 80,000 unique online users, with 31% returning to download additional content as it became available. Universal’s current web-enabled titles, which include “Heroes: Season One”, “Knocked Up”, and “Evan Almighty”, saw an average of 30% of HD DVD purchasers going online to download content and connect with other fans. Full Story »
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