BD Exclusives Coming To HD DVD via Europe (1 Viewer)

[AaronSCH]

Well, this is terrific news indeed! Someone over at AVS was kind enough to supply this info. There are additional Blu-ray exclusive titles coming to European markets that we can import. Please use this thread to inform other HD DVD owners of Blu-ray exclusives now available on our favorite format...

Saw
Saw II
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Point Break
Oliver twist (Polanski)
Brothers Grimm
Underworld

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Thats great news, assuimg the english language track is included and there are no forced subtitles.

 

[Sami Kallio]

Those only happened with VHS.

 

[Jace_A]

Unfortunately not. French DVDs were notorious for this practice. However, as the HD DVDs are being mastered for all of Europe, I don't expect this to be a problem. BTW, is that The Leopard being advertised in one of the flyers you posted?

 

[Shawn Perron]

Enjoy being region free while you can:

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/10...region_coding/


Assuming that you are willing to forever give up upgrading your firmware and the current players don't actually check for region coding, you might want to get 2 or 3 of the current players on the market. It'd suck to have a substantial library of imported movies and have your only region free player die on you.

 

[TonyD]

is this what the other thread was meant to be?

good idea.

is there a link or list for what is showing in those pics.
i cant tell what most of them are.

first one i noticed that i cant see is the one with a woman's stomach

what is that.

 

[Daniel_TS]

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5...bu29saweg4.jpg

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/8...erworldyh2.jpg

 

[Chris S]

Any idea what the bottom right one is in the second image? I can sort of make out the others (no, I can't figure out the stomach film either) but that one really has me puzzled.

Edit: nevermind... thanks Daniel!

 

[TonyD]

animated el Cid?

 

[john a hunter]

oh, if it was the 1961 version of El Cid !!! In any event, The Leopard and The Good The Bad and the Ugly, sound pretty good to me.

 

[AaronSCH]

For those who may not be aware of these other titles available as imports I carried these over from another thread:

 

[AaronSCH]

Do you need a region free player to play a region free disc? I owned a number of region free discs that played fine on my Pioneer DVD Player. I believe it will only be an issue when the discs themselves are regionally coded. Am I correct? Otherwise it would render all the current HD DVD and Blu-ray discs unplayable in future equipment for both formats.

 

[Shawn Perron]

Assuming the current players do not check for region coding, you should be fine buying discs after the DVD forum institutes region coding next year. As to whether the current discs are actually region free, does anyone know for certain? The current software could have been tagged with the appropriate region if the players did not check anyway. If the current discs do contain region coding, when the region coding is added to the existing players, all software on the market would already be covered. Just something to keep in mind if you care about upgrading your firmware or player in the future after region coding comes into existance.

 

[AaronSCH]

It's really not going to be an issue because it would be suicide for either format. Any move that would hurt either format's acceptance would be foolish. I am also quite confident at this point that we will hear of defections from the Blu-ray camp early next year. I wouldn't be surprised if Disney is the first major defection. They more than Fox and Lionsgate have been open to the idea of releasing on both formats. It is also rather suspicious that they did not give Blu-ray a much-needed boost by releasing "Pirates of the Caribbean" on the fledgling format this Christmas. The 4th quarter numbers will have the accountants crunching numbers. The promise of Sony's Blu-ray has not materialized and they are gonna be looking to salvage the high definition cash cow.

 

[AaronSCH]

To get back on track here is some new release news courtesy of DVDTimes and Optimum in the U.K:

Optimum Home Entertainment have announced their first two UK HD DVD releases. Set to arrive on 11th December 2006 priced at £19.99 each are Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine and Roman Polanski's The Pianist.



The following have not been announced but represent some titles that they could bring to the format that are handled by Disney, Sony, Lionsgate, Criterion and Anchor Bay domestically.

The Crying Game
Highlander
Ralph Bakshi's Fire and Ice
The Wicker Man (Original)
Little Buddha
Ran
Kind Hearts and Coronets
Ladykillers (The)
Last Emperor (Director's Cut), The
Lavender Hill Mob (The)
Man Who Fell to Earth, The
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
Moby Dick (Gregory Peck)
Naked Lunch
Nanny, The (Bette Davis)
Young Mr Lincoln

Hammer Classics:

Dracula, Prince of Darkness
Frankenstein Created Woman
Horror of Frankenstein
One Million Years B.C.
Plague of the Zombies, The
Quatermass and the Pit
Rasputin, The Mad Monk
Scars of Dracula
She

Studio Ghibli Anime Titles:

Spirited Away
Howl's Moving Castle
Appleseed
Grave of the Fireflies
Princess Monoke
Porco Rosso
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

 

[Chris S]

Who is mastering these foreign releases? I know Underworld: Evolution and Total Recall used the MPEG2 codec for the Blu-ray release so they obviously would need to be re-encoded for HD-DVD, right?

 

[dkny75]

I don't know about Underworld but I know that all the Studio Canal releases were encoded in VC1. None of them have forced subs but I heard that the Spanish release of Downfall would not have English subs on them. I think everyone will have to look on a titlt by title basis for specs.

As of right now none of the discs are coded for region and neither are the players. An engineer for Toshiba in Europe stated that they would not deploy region coding on players until it's ratified by the DVD Forum and then it would only be on players built after then.

 

[Paul_Scott]

Ran is coming in March.

the clips of T2, Total Recall and others, shown in the Studio-Canal trailer on the first discs, look fantastic. I was certain I would be able to pass on buying T2 any more, but I think I'm gonna end up caving.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

How's the sound Paul, on any releases you have or the trailers?
Thanks.

 

[Tim Glover]

yeah I was about to mention Terminator 2! I'm ALL over that one come March 07. I don't care if it will cost me $40. Well...I do care...but I'm going to get it anyway. The import of Harry Potter Goblet of Fire should arrive Friday.

Cool.