Before the menu comes up do they have the cool Universal logo bumper that morphs into the Blu-Ray logo? Universal's HD-dvd intro is still my favorite.

Eh... kind of a mixed bag it sounds like. That's too bad...I was gonna wait on The Mummy movies anyways. I don't see why they have to over complicate things... just use the same cases, test the discs (especially on the most popular player!) and ship em.

How does the Blu-ray picture quality look compared to the HD DVDs for Mummy, Mummy Returns, and Scorpion King?

Cases look kind of bland, but at least they've toned down the swooshes considerably.

Sigh. Are they at least the same height as the cases every other studio is using?

Keep in mind that the PS3's HDMI output has "hot" bass. The console's audio decoders add a couple dB to the LFE in comparison to the correct output of standalone players, which makes things seem louder and more forceful. So it's not really an apples-to-apples comparison.

I don't know where you guys got your Universal product from, but I got my copies yesterday and the Blu-ray cases are EXACTLY the same as everyone elses. In fact, it looks like they're using the same cases WARNER BROS. uses for their releases (in terms of how of the cases look). And they're' the same color blue as everyone else's too.

Granted, I only own 2 Warner Bros BD movies, but I compared both of those to the 4 movies I got yesterday. Looks like The Mummy comes in a normal case while the other 3 do not. Maybe Universal is just using random cases they could get right now?



Here is a picture of a random selection of each studios case. I included an import BD as well. Notice The Invasion HD DVD case? That was a replacement case I bought off of eBay for some of my Hollywood Video titles. They look identical.

Yes, same height.

Yeah, the squareness of those matches the HD DVD replacement cases I bought.

I don't know if I will be ready to upgrade the Mummy movies right away, but if the price drops eventually I will get them on BD. I'll stick with the DD+ HD DVDs for now, but I'm glad Universal improved them a bit for BD.

I've never heard that before - pretty interesting. Of course I use my BD30 for Blu-Ray over my PS3 so I haven't read up on all the audio topics for PS3.

I'll be doing my comparisons with an XA2 and the BD30.

So who wants to bet we'll see a fresh round of firmware updates to help accommodate Uni menus?

I'm playing all my Blu movies on a PS3...I can't imagine trying them on a Sony 300 or Samsung 1200. What feels "smooth" to me may be clunky for those people. I wonder what Best Buy would do if I brought them a copy of my Mummy BD and ask to use their player? Hmm.

If you have the ability to bitstream the codecs to an HDMI 1.3 receiver, that would be the best comparison, because the receiver does all the work and eliminates the disc players as variables.

Unfortunately, as we know, the PS3 cannot bitstream the advanced codecs. It only decodes them internally.

Mmm...The Thing. Mmmm...The Kingdom. Mmmm...Jarhead.

I bought The Brothers Grimm, I think, a long time ago, and it came in one of those squarey BD cases. I ended up sticking it on a different BD, and then selling it.

I do via the Onkyo 605. I typically bitstream from both players.

I still have my BDP-S1 connected - I'll try them out in there too....in three weeks.

Can't wait for these Mummy blu-rays... any more info Gizmo can provide is definitely appreciated.... (really jealous right now - and you still have The Ruins sitting there sealed! Argh! At least that one is only a few days away!)

It must be a random case thing...all my Universals (Mummy, Mummy Returns and Scorpion King) are rounded on the edges. They look EXACTLY like my Batman Begins box. Weird.

They must be using random cases then. Not a big deal and maybe mine are just special