Starz Home Entertainment (Anchor Bay) Goes Blu (1 Viewer)

http://www.homemediaretailing.com/ne...ticle_ID=10786

Interesting and exciting news. How about some Evil Dead in HD? Groovy.

No thanks, already bought WAY too many editions of that movie. When they get up to speed and release Halloween, then I'll be interested.

One would think an edition of Halloween would be right around the corner... Anyway, one can hope. Frankly, I thought it would have taken at least another year for an independent to choose a side.

Well, they are releasing yet another edition of Halloween later this year...
*crosses fingers*
It would MAKE my October to be watching a high def version of Carpenter's classic...

This is incredibly disappointing news for me, as an HD DVD buyer.

The more developments that come in the more sorry I am that I jumped into the game this early.

as someone who is now format neutral, but still considers himself an HD DVD supporter first, this news is more disappointing than the Blockbuster announcement.
I was really hoping that lower production costs would have weighed more in the favor of smaller indepenedant labels. Guess that was wrong.

anyone catch this
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So is that what we can expect over the next 12 months...a whopping one title per month average from MGM.

so in essence, If you want a particular title from MGM, you have to buy Blu-ray.
But you will also have to live to 140 to ever see it released. Go Blu!

Being a dual format owner, as long as they bring out the Big Guns in horror I'll be happy - still waiting for a dang Warner announcement for The Exorcist!

Bring me on some Dawn of The Dead!

Most of the stuff I didn't sell off from my SD collection was Anchor Bay titles (Halloween titles, Evil Dead titles, Romero Zombie films, Near Dark, etc). As soon as they start announcing some of these titles, it will be time for their SD counterparts to hit eBay (with the exception of titles that are not likely to be Blu or HD for a few years).

Well, First Look is supposedly releasing HD DVD, although their first release is a month or two away.

It'll be interesting to see what they come up with. I expect they'll eventually load up on kick-ass extras, though I wonder how buyers will react to how the sometimes less-than-ideal condition of their catalog titles translates to HD.

BTW, when did the "Starz" thing happen? It seems like jettisoning a perfectly good brand name; I initially thought the animated Hellboy movies were being distributed by some Universal label.

Since catalog titles seem to be doing pretty poorly in high def, I don't expect Anchor Bay/Starz to release that many of their catalog titles. I'd love to see Dawn Of The Dead or Halloween or even The Evil Dead as much as anyone but I bet they will release Masters Of Horror episodes and direct to video junk shot on HD before they do their (good) catalog titles. I hope I'm wrong though.

I don't know, the whole wording of that thing seems suspicious to me. I'm not saying it's not true, it certainly could be, but I'm far from convinced.

Right now, it looks to me like they announced their first Blu-Ray release in a pro-Blu-Ray forum, were asked about possible future releases, and pretty much said yeah, if Blu-Ray wins, of course there'd be more.

But as of now, there's certainly nothing in there precluding any HD DVD releases.

Anchor Bay has some great horror-titles in their selection, so I´m really happy if these will come out on HD. Romero in Blu-ray, bring it on.

Is the management at Anchor Bay still the same as it was before the whole Starz thing? They used to chats here at HTF, and you could tell they were as much fans as they were content providers.

Also, this doesn't sound like a total Blu commitment, as the rep ends with these comments:

“If Blu-ray wins [the format war against HD DVD], all catalogue would go [Blu-ray], we’d hope,” Clark said.

Hopefully they just pick a side and start unloading the goods.

Seems like they are just being cautious with their announcement.
Those are the risks you take. It can easily go either way. That is the nature of being an early adopter.

The HD-DVD group will HAVE to come up with something to undercut this onslaught of BD developments within the past 48 hours.

There are now RUMORS circulating that Target will drop HD-DVD. NOTE: It should be clarified, that this IS a RUMOR. However, If this is the case, the only recourse HD-DVD will have will be to either:

1) Have Universal release all NEW TITLES (at least starting off) as combos with NO SD-DVD counterpart at or around the price-point it would've been as a plain standard DVD. Early adopters have been telling studios for a year now that combo new releases were hurting the HD-DVD format with a standard SD counterpart widely available. I never saw the rationality in the marketing of combos in thsi manner, because if I were dual, I would get the cheaper BD version without hesitation. The argument "I could watch my dvd's while on the treadmill and in the car" simply held no weight with me, and obviously has done LITTLE to help HD-DVD's standing in the marketplace.

2) Abdicate

Like most posters here, I am growing tired of this war. Either the HD-DVD group will make a serious showing in the coming weeks or they should just quit. No more rhetoric Mr. Graffeo, either you guys step it up or quit. This is coming from someone who has been a staunch advocate since day 1. No more sales data about standalone Toshiba sales, we want more studio support (how about throwing money Criterion's way?) and more CE manufacturer support. Btw, what did happen to those "cheap" Chinese players? So far, the only format that has one currently coming is BD! We are halfway through the year and not a single Chinese player has appeared for HD-DVD -something heavily touted back in January at CES.

Sometimes I wonder how these executives and marketers earn their paychecks. The HD-DVD campaign (considering they lose) will go down as one of the most inept electronic marketing schemes ever.

Rant over.

P.S. - I would certainly have no qualms about buying a BD player this Fall when the final BD spec is standardized.

The Anchor Bay Starz catalog in High Def?! I'm there! The possibility of Halloween, Dawn of the Dead, Near Dark, Day of the Dead, The Wicker Man, Manhunter, Hammer Horror, Mario Bava, Dario Argento! This is great news!

As an early adopter you must remember to enjoy what you have, because even if HD-DVD goes away, at least you'll have had it and enjoyed it. Worst case is that you can get a bunch of bargain used HD-DVDs to run on your player when it goes belly-up. If that doesn't appeal, at least you have a REALLY nice upscaling DVD player.

Silver Lining everyone

It should be noted that those rumors are with respect to hardware, not software.

I don't care which way these things go any more, but I'd say their BD seems pretty solid based on these comments.