Come on Z, stop being silly.

These Universal releases are disappointing at best. The last round (BA, LL, BOTFOJ) ranged from mediocre to disappointing. I'll wait for the reviews, but I'd be surprised to see anything better out of these. It's almost like Uni is hedging their bets with HD-DVD.

It definately looks like Universal is pumping out the releases and not paying alot of attention to cleaning up the prints or whatever they do to remaster these.

I think they are putting out alot of old catalog releases to compete, but will pay more attention to their big releases.

Is this a good strategy? I dont know, but they seem to be more concerned about getting titles out over higher quality.

Weren't Legend and Elizabeth rumored for 9/18 also? And also Battlestar Galactica Season 1?

TrueHD on Universal discs again?

OK, this is getting surreal now.

How do you go from some middling to weak HD-DVD catalog titles of movies that were never going to look great to begin with (Liar Liar, Bruce Almighty, etc.) to Universal hedging their bets with HD-DVD?

Isn't that, um, a GIGANTIC ILLOGICAL RIDICULOUS STRETCH?

Besides, have you read reviews (or better yet, actually watched the discs) of other recent Uni releases like Born on the Fourth of July or Sneakers - you know, ones that turned out very nicely? How do you explain those?

It is obvious Universal wants to have as many titles out on HD by the holidays as possible, in order to give the format as deep of an available catalog as possible so it can remain a viable option for consumers (no matter how cheap the players are, no one is gonna buy one if they have nothing to play on them).

But I'm tired of hearing these increasingly ridiculous conspiracy theories because of a couple of Jim Carrey movies that looked ugly in theaters and were always going to look ugly on video.

OK, end rant. I feel better now.

That movie was the third DVD I bought, before I even had a player, and it remains a favorite. Yes, it is a silly B movie with crude first gen CGI, but I will happily replace my SD DVD with the HD DVD if the reviews show the PQ is decent.

Freak out much? My lord that was an exhausting read of gibberish.

I own Fourth of July. It's ok. For an HD release, it's disappointing. Look at the Good Shepherd, now THAT's an HD release for you.

Let me help spell it out for you. What "big" titles has Uni released lately? That would be few to none. And the ones they have are catalog titles that don't look very good. So that begs the question - what are they waiting for? You say "the holidays". Well friend, that makes no sense. Here were are, just ending a major HD promotional push and Uni did not take advantage by releasing big titles. This is a studio with a vast movie vault of some of the best titles in movie history, and they give us Liar Liar with SD extra ports. That's not good. It's not a conspiracy theory, it fits the facts.

This HD (for either format) fanboism is truly retarded. It's one of the reasons I went dual format.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...on_Blu-ray/721

House of 1000 Corpses Blu-ray September 18:

Lionsgate Unleashes 'House of 1000 Corpses' on Blu-ray
Tue Jun 26, 2007 at 02:00 PM ET
Tags: Disc Announcements, Lionsgate (all tags)

Just in time for Halloween, Lionsgate Home Entertainment will scare up the Rob Zombie fearfest 'House of 1000 Corpses' on Blu-ray.

Due in stores September 18, 'House of 1000 Corpses' earned instant notoriety during its original 2003 theatrical release, thanks to Zombie's reverence for '70s exploitation cinema and over-the-top Grand Guignol violence. The film has since earned a devoted cult following on video, and spawned the 2005 sequel 'The Devil's Rejects' (which Lionsgate already released on Blu-ray last August).

'Corpses' will hit high-def in particularly bloody fashion, featuring a 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 transfer and both uncompressed PCM 7.1 Surround and Dolby Digital EX Surround tracks.

Extras will mirror most of what is currently found on the standard-def DVD version, including audio commentary with Zombie and friends, a featurette, cast and crew interviews, a still gallery and theatrical trailers.

Lionsgate has set a $29.95 list price for the Blu-ray.

and it's still the theatrical R-rated cut of the film... come on Lionsgate, give the Blurayers a juicy extra!

Really? You must have forgotten to enter it into either of the collection links on your sig.

Oh, I'm a dual-format owner, too. And yes, I am a fanboy - of movies. I could give a shit which format wins (although I like the aesthetics of HD-DVD better).

But I certainly don't go around posting constructive, thoughtful, non-fanboyish stuff like this.

You certainly did not look hard enough if you didn't see it on there (not to mention I'm not done putting up everything yet).

You can point all you want to that post - for a fan of movies, you think you might appreciate the studio with the biggest library of movies making some higher profile releases to support their format of choice.

Or you can continue your pointless rant.

If they were hedging their bets, they wouldn't be cranking out so many catalog releases in the first place. They'd slow down or stop releasing on the format altogether. You know, kind of like Fox on Blu-ray. Now that's a studio hedging its bets. Universal is all-in with HD DVD.

I hope so, because I'm still crossing my fingers somehow, HD-DVD pulls this one out.

However, while they are releasing catalog titles, they seem to be doing very little in the way of proper HD re-mastering with them, and then porting over the SD extras. That's just not good enough IMHO.

You are right about Fox.

I can't wait to get The Last Starfighter.

Universal rules.

For those who can't wait, The Rock, Con-Air, Crimson Tide and Bruce Almighty are available on Blu-Ray from France and are confirmed Region-Free. I'm assuming The Rock, Crimson Tide and Con-Air should be available in the U.S. by the end of the year. Bruce Almighty is a Universal title in the U.S, so probably not.

Available from here for whatever the Euro rate is: http://www4.fnac.com/Shelf/article.a...7B71695A8&Fr=0

Specs and extras gleaned from AVS:

The Rock extras include everything from the Criterion DVD sans their exclusive audio commentary.

the French BR edition of 'Crimson Tide' appears to be the theatrical cut and not the director's cut.

I just want The Rock out of those, but I'll wait.

Universal is doing is what every studio does: pulling titles out of their catalog that they have HD masters for and releasing them. Yes, it's true that some of those HD masters are a few years old and not up to current standards. Unfortunately, aside from real prestige titles the studio has little economic incentive to spend a lot of money remastering them, considering how catalog sales have been going for both formats.

But you'll find that's the case with every studio. The only reason it seems like Universal is having more of a problem than others is because they're actually bothering to releasing titles from their frikkin' catalog. On the Blu-ray side, Sony and Disney are being extremely selective in what they release, focusing only on new titles or catalog picks that they know will make good eye candy. And Fox has stopped releasing altogether.

So it comes down the question: Do you want their catalog titles, or do you want them to pull back and only release new movies?

And as for porting over the SD extras, you'd rather they pulled a Fox and didn't bother to put anything on the disc?

The Blu Bits says to expect The Rock and Con Air on 10/23. It's in The Rumor Mill.

hence why Warner Bros. should be handed a gold medal, they are the only studio that appears to be embracing HiDef capabilities and applying it to catalog titles - I can't wait to see the future 4K DVD mastering (i.e, 'Cold Hand Luke')

Fox are utter retards in this respect

The Condemned Blu-Ray - 9/18

DVDEmpire lists it as DTS-HD 7.1 as well House of 1000 Corpses on the same day. I believe those may be the first 7.1 titles in the U.S.

Really looking forward to this one:

http://www.davisdvd.com/news/hd-dvd.html
http://www.davisdvd.com/news/blu-ray.html

Alexander - Sept. 18 - both formats (no mention of which cut)

Yep, Warner rocks. They were the leader on DVD in its formative years as well.

It's just too bad they hung onto those damn snappers for so long.