Blu-ray releases on September 2nd, 2008
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Sep 1st 2008 1:06PM
posted Sep 1st 2008 1:06PM
We close the book on August and get started with September as we barrel down on the holiday season when the real blockbusters start to hit the streets. But for now, we'll take what we can get and the biggest this week for Blu-ray fans was arguably the biggest titles ever released on HD DVD. Although Transformers didn't win any Academy Awards, it is two hours of fun and has some of the best audio and picture quality movies can offer. The HD DVD version was very highly rated and the Blu-ray Disc is no different. In fact, effectively the only difference between the two is all the extra audio goodness. While the HD DVD version was limited to a Dolby Digital Plus track (allegedly because of space limitations) Blu-ray sports Dolby TrueHD as well as a few foreign language surround sound tracks -- although this is really the only difference, the reviewers appreciate it. Not much else to get excited about, which is pretty much the same again for next week. Things do start to heat up towards the middle of September though as Weinstein finally goes Blu and a few titles you've actually heard of that were in theaters in the past year are on the calendar.Blu-ray
- Black Mask (Lionsgate)
- Cirque du Soleil: Corteo (Sony)
- Eraser (Warner)
- Every Which Way But Loose (Warner)
- The Gauntlet (Warner)
- The Invincible Iron Man (Lionsgate)
- Marine Aquarium (BCI)
- Married Life (Sony)
- Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow (Lionsgate)
- Outbreak (Warner)
- Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles (FUNimation)
- Transformers (2007) (Paramount)
- Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (Warner)
OK, seriously now, Every Which Way But Loose?? Under Siege 2?? With all of the movies out there more deserving of blu-ray they spend production time on these two??
It wasn't allegedly due to space contraints. Paramount themselves admitted it.
What a weak slate.
Transformers WILL sound better with the TrueHD soundtrack. Of course the only people that really matters to is those that never watched the HD DVD version on a well setup home theater. Well, at least they'll add another demo disc to their collection.
Yeah, I think I read in one of the AVS Forum threads that it was due to the HD-DVD format's bandwidth limitations.
Confirmation by Paramount themselves:
“We’re so happy to finally bring Michael Bay’s true vision to life with this release,” said Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount Pictures. “Because of Blu-ray’s expanded capacity, we are able to elevate the bit rate used for the picture as well as present uncompressed audio in the form of Dolby True HD.”
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/news/html/breaking_article.cfm?article_id=12858
@Grubert
Sorry gru, but that's marketing, not proof.
Most studios have been saving their good stuff for the holiday season. Fortunately the releases start getting stronger from here on out.
Exactly, the months of September and October are absolutely stacked with great releases by the time we get to Halloween my wallet will be exhausted!!
Transformers - bought
The Dark Knight - preordering
The Lord Of The Rings - next year
Indiana Jones 1 & 3 - confused and waiting
Gladiator - still waiting
I just bought the bluray. The loading takes like 2 mins or more and BD Live doesn't work! It was played on a PS3.
@ WEBdev
so, if a corvette engineer said that with the addition of a supercharger and suspension modifications they were able to make the ZR1 accelerate faster and corner better...you'd say this is marketing...and not proof that it does indeed accelerate faster, and corner better?
::hammer::