We won't have to wait long to find out Universal's
plans for Blu-ray,
Reuters just noted that later today the studio will announce plans to release about 40 movies on the format in the second half of the year, including
Doomsday. The only studio to support solely HD DVD from the beginning will come out with all three of its Mummy films:
The Mummy,
The Mummy Returns, and
The Scorpion King July 22 (sounds like someone's bitter about HD DVD and taking it out on Blu-ray owners to us), with catalog releases jumping over from red like
Miami Vice,
Knocked Up,
American Gangster and others before the year is out. Keep an eye out for specifics later on, like whether those
U-Control and
community features from the HD DVD versions will make the jump intact
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jnas @ Apr 17th 2008 5:41AM
I'll forgive them as long as they give me Heroes. :D
shawnmos @ Apr 17th 2008 7:15PM
Ask and ye shall receive: http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Universal/TV_on_High-Def/Disc_Announcements/Heroes_Double-Header_Coming_to_Blu-ray_this_August/1659
iainl @ Apr 17th 2008 6:32AM
"(sounds like someone's bitter about HD DVD and taking it out on Blu-ray owners to us)"
I'm not a big fan of the Mummy series either, but I do rather suspect it has more to do with the new Mummy film coming out on August 1st than anything else. The anti-Blu execs have been given the shove at Universal.
Mark @ Apr 17th 2008 8:17AM
Ugh, another Mummy movie? I sort of liked the first but the second and the Scopion King spinoff were just awful.
Jove @ Apr 17th 2008 7:20AM
dont buy em. period. the all mighty dvd format doesnt have the prefect movies either.
XDragon @ Apr 17th 2008 7:34AM
All I care about is Gladiator from Universal/Dreamworks; I guess that's why i didn't miss them when they were not making Blu, but i'm glad they're now on board! Then again, they didn't even release Gladiator on HD-DVD so its really been a long waiting game.
Jnas @ Apr 17th 2008 7:56AM
ENGADGET HD, i'm not sure if you are aware but the commenting system is really buggy. After making a comment, it doesn't come straight away, and it takes a while. Even now, it says there are "4 comments made", even though three are present.
Mark @ Apr 17th 2008 8:31AM
Buggy, and visually confusing. I just replied to somebody in Engadget and managed to reply to the guy above by mistake. Some color hints wouldn't go amiss.
Jove @ Apr 17th 2008 3:31PM
this new engadgethd sucks doesnt it. well to me at least.
Ivan @ Apr 17th 2008 8:05AM
I'm all thumbs up for having as many titles as possible on the "winning" HD format. I might not have bought into the whole things myself but I'll be glad to have choices if and when I do.
Mark @ Apr 17th 2008 8:16AM
Universal has clearly managed to secure some post production facilities. Can't have been easy with everyone else fighting for them too. I don't see many Universal titles in that list I would want to own, but the more the merrier. I wonder if they'll re-do their existing HD-DVD titles or shove them out the way they are now. American Gangster will be interesting to see if they put the extended edition on the disk or not.
Galley @ Apr 17th 2008 8:51AM
"Serenity", now!
Captain Blu-ray @ Apr 17th 2008 9:32AM
As long as I get Serenity, King Kong, Heroes, and Battlestar Galactica on Blu-ray, I'll be thrilled.
So whe're's Paramount/Dreamworks? I've got a list for them too...
Matthew Brundage @ Apr 17th 2008 9:53AM
"Back to the Future" trilogy too, while you're at it.
mike @ Apr 17th 2008 9:57AM
arg, forget hd-dvd titles. I already have all those. How about releasing some titles that desperatly need the HD treatment, like jurassic park series. I tried to watch jurassic park from my dvd the other day and the quality is so crap its unwatchable. Its deffeintly a very poor transfer I can see after watching on a nice HD set. What a waste of money on those dvds. If jurassic park 4 ever gets off the ground, im sure HD versions of 1-3 will be released around movie time for the extra $ - Like what they are doing here with the mummy series as a tie in to the the mummy 3.
wreckedchevy @ Apr 17th 2008 10:56AM
try the superbit releases i was quite impressed
WebDev511 @ Apr 17th 2008 10:21AM
I hope this means they've managed to port U-Control over to BD-J. Unlike some, I actually do find value in the extra features.
kcmurphy88 @ Apr 17th 2008 11:55AM
U-control, heck, let's have every studio with wildly different control interfaces. Some use menus, some use the audio and display buttons, some use color keys (making universal remotes hard to use). Now bring U-control!
With DVDs I know how to set up a movie without a lot of thought. With Blu, though, it's really the Wild West. Now they're going to embed HD-I into BD-J? How about some standards?!? Is that too much to ask?
DrXym @ Apr 17th 2008 3:31PM
It won't be HDi though there is no reason that Microsoft couldn't reposition HDi as middleware which is turned into Java.
I do think the studios do need to agree some common functionality. For example, if BD-J discs wrote out bookmarks in a common format, it would be easy for players to resume or arrange them.
kcmurphy88 @ Apr 17th 2008 11:55AM
Comment system sucks, BTW.
Zixxer @ Apr 17th 2008 12:05PM
the final blow to hd-dud.
LiqwidZero @ Apr 17th 2008 2:47PM
Yeah... you were left in the dust ages ago, weren't you? Universal announced their switched a little more than a month ago, I believe.
And please don't call it "HD DUD", it makes you look stupid.
Zixxer @ Apr 17th 2008 5:35PM
my bad, must've been a typo...
Dan @ Apr 17th 2008 10:38PM
Cause they're so close together...
UnnDunn @ Apr 17th 2008 4:14PM
Still not interested in Blu-ray.
Felix @ Apr 17th 2008 6:27PM
Universal, you are forgiven. Guess I got to re-buy The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. I owned those 2 in HD DVDs, but just for test (no more HD DVD for me). The rest of my hi-def movies are all in Blu-ray (I own 77 BDs to date). Long Live Blu-ray.