HD DVD and Blu-ray releases on July 31st, 2007
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Jul 30th 2007 11:39AM
posted Jul 30th 2007 11:39AM
This week's hottest title is without a doubt 300, not only is it one of the biggest releases of the year, but it's also available on every format -- and it's released in an otherwise boring month for titles. The HD DVD version has the edge, 'cause while the Blu-ray camp waits for profile 1.1, Warner pulls out all the stops with PIP and web-content. It's not all bad for Blu-ray, as their version does include both a PCM and TrueHD soundtrack. HD DVD continues to catch up to Blu-ray and is now within seven, but looking forward a few months, it doesn't look like HD DVD is going to catch up any time soon. HD DVD 265 vs Blu-ray 272.
Blu-ray
- 300 (Warner)
- IMAX: Blue Planet (Warner)
- IMAX: Roving Mars (Disney)
- Planet Earth (US Version) (Discovery Channel)
- Shooter (Paramount)
- 300 (Warner)
- Darkman (Universal)
- Hot Fuzz (Universal)
- IMAX: Blue Planet (Warner)
- Planet Earth (US Version) (Discovery Channel)
- Sea of Love (Universal)
- Shaun of the Dead (Universal)
- Shooter (Paramount)
Hasn't planet earth been out for a while? I've seen commercials for it on HD DVD and Blu-Ray on tv for weeks, and once at Target I had to return a DVD version of it because even though the box said DVD the discs were all HD DVD.
HD-DVD more then gives their 'edge' away by the $5 extra you have to pay for 300 on HD-DVD. $34.99 vs. $29.99. When you factor in 99% of people looking at the ads will just think HD-DVD costs more for the same thing, this doesn't help the HD-DVD camp as much as it hurts it.
Following the link, it says that this is the US version - they're the same except the narrator is Sigorney Weaver (Ghostbusters!) instead... Crazy (although maybe it'd be better - sometimes I have a hard time understanding what the narrator is saying with his thick accent, and I need to use the subtitles :) ).
"HD DVD continues to catch up to Blu-ray and is now within seven,"
I would like to point out (since this site never does) that HD DVD actually has MORE titles than Blu-Ray, if you count international releases such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Reign of Fire, Brother's Grimm, etc (yes, you can get BD "exclusive" titles for HD DVD, go figure). Since BD isn't region coded, these titles SHOULD count, but this site doesn't like to mention that despite numerous people bringing it up. Heck, HighDefDigest even reviews many of them for us!
The site doesn't mention it because you can't find those imported titles in stores, and thus their volume and availability is very low. Furthermore you pay a small price premium to import them over domestic releases. All of those are factors why Joe Sixpack will never take advantage of importing the titles, and therefore they are not relevant to all but a few early adopters.
@Keith:
"All of those are factors why Joe Sixpack will never take advantage of importing the titles, and therefore they are not relevant to all but a few early adopters."
Newsflash for you -- everyone who buys HD DVD or Blu-Ray is an early adopter. The formats sells roughly 10,000 disks/month, compared to MILLIONS of DVDs/month.
And have you looked at the things posted on this site? They are NOT for J6P, they're almost entirely for early adopters. Not a very good argument.
PLUS - I frequently see articles on this site talking about products that are only available in Japan (for example). Why mention those if J6P won't be able to buy them in a store?
Hopefully BD will all start getting some TrueHD love from now on. However, I will gladly pay (err or Netflix) a few dollars more for a movie when the HD-DVD player is half the cost of the BD players and won't be crippled come October.
Wow Ben, that last sentence scared me. I was afraid you'd finish a sentence about HDDVD in a complimentary manner, but you managed to pull it out by prognosticating titles yet to be released for BR. Whew. ;)
@Xyz
I agree with your sentiment. Importing discs is not as hard as some would make it seem. I bought the UK import of The Presige from an online retailer and had it in hand within 4 days. I think it shipped the day I bought it (from Ohio, no less!). Totally painfree and worth the premium - I could easily sell it on AVSForum for within $5 of what I paid. $5 is what I'd pay to rent the title at my local Blockbuster...oh wait, they're BR-only. Oh well.
I think that the HD DVD/BD bickering can be temporarily put to the side for the REAL question here that everyone seems to be missing. Will these HD versions of Planet Earth have the extra materials on them that the British HD versions notably lacked?
**checks Discovery Store online**
Son of a crapper. It looks like they don't. WHAT GIVES DISCOVERY?!?
The BBC version is what was out before. I have it, it's available in the US, which was a surprise to me. I'd be interested in trading it out for the Discovery version if the Discovery is any better in terms of video quality, though I kind of doubt it.
I'm interested in the IMAX movies. If anything, they have the best chance of being considered reference quality, at least as close as possible for a film-sourced HD disc. Hopefully they don't screw that up.
Does that count inlude the adult titles? There are 5-7 hd-dvd titles and one bd? If it doesn't it's even closer...
Is this Peter North?
There are about 30 HD DVD adult titles and about 5 on BD. HD DVD has had over 300 titles to choose from in the US for most of July and BD has yet to break 300. Of course none of that matters to Blu-bois; content is only king when we talk about studios just like capacity only matters when we talk about BD50s all the while ignoring the fact that most BDs are BD25s and most HD DVDs are HD30s.
Of course facts seldom matter to the BDA or their supporters. Heck even calling it Blu-ray is a lie; the diode is blue, but the "ray" is violet.
@MasterCKO: What extra features are you referring to...? I didn't realize I was missing anything. Maybe I don't want to know... :)
I would just like to point out that if you live in the Phoenix area or Cali, Fry's Electronics will have the 300 on sale Tuesday for only $28.99. It's still not $24.99 but still better than the other stores. The manufacturers need to figure out they aren't winning anyone over by overpricing a "dual format" disc.
Or you could just order it from Amazon for $27.99, free shipping, no tax... :) And if you have the 10% discount from buying movies there in the past, it's only $25.
I don't mind paying the extra for the HD DVD combo disks because I think the extra $4 is worth it to have both the DVD and HD DVD version on the disk. However, I will admit that it limits me from making blind buys of movies that "sound interesting," but that I don't know much about.
Thanks Clifton! I'm in Phoenix, I'll go pick it up tomorrow!
The thing I don't understand is why don't they just add the DVD for free. It costs next to nothing to produce a DVD, and it the yield of producing HDDVD is 4x the yeild of BR, so why not package it in there for free. I really think price point of movies set by Hollywood is Toshiba's biggest downfall at this point. If they would cut the price, they'd probably mop the floor with sony.
Cheap players help, but really, how much have you spent on movies in comparison to players over the last decade?
300 does have a few extras that are HD-DVD exclusive. I know one of them is a game, I think another one is a video commentary track that can play in the corner as the movie runs. The 300 DVD site http://www.300ondvd.com/ has the details. Their site is a bit tedious, so I apologize for not having better information.
EXACTLY. here's a perfect example of why I LOVE combo discs. I have my Hi-def setup both Blu-Ray and HD DVD in my living room right? well that's all cool and all, but I have only dvds in my bedroom and my office. So I very often take my combo disc from living room and slip into my office or bedroom dvd player. How cool is that. Last night for example, I was working late in my office and I went down, checked out my combo HD DVD collection and slipped in Superman Returns. Perfect!
I heard the encoding quality wasnt optimal on the UK Blue Planet, with some gradients looking even better on the US Discovery broadcasts (!)
Anyone know of an early review that might give a clue as to the encode quality on this US version?
-Christopher
Oh MY, tomorrow is gonna be shopping day for HD DVDs. I'm gonna get these babies. ALL GREAT MOVIES!
300 (Warner)
Hot Fuzz (Universal)
IMAX: Blue Planet (Warner)
Shaun of the Dead (Universal)
Shooter (Paramount)
Went late this afternoon to BESTBUY so i can pickup 300 on HD DVD.....SOLDOUT!.....They had a bunch of BLUERAY still available...I took a drive to CIRCUIT CITY and they only had 3 HD DVD'S left...My luck! They also had a bunch of BLUERAYS left.
I don't know where you're getting these sales numbers from but according to Amazon, Blu-ray has significantly greater number of movies available for purchase:
http://eproductwars.com/dvd/index.cfm
The link you provided does not include total available films; it only lists the top sellers.
Start with these links:
http://www.hddvdstats.com/index.php
http://www.blu-raystats.com/index.php
Those numbers are accurate up until the 24th. So you have the following:
HD DVD BD
7-24 272 279
7-31 releases 8 5
total 280 284
Adult titles 30 5
new total 310 289
Imports 150 10
real total 460 299
I liked the scene when the james earl jones looking general dude went to whip one of the spartans and the spartan soldier jumped at him and cut his arm right off. then told him it's not your arm anymore. that was nice man.