Blu-ray's Dirty Little Secret

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admin

Audioholics Robot
Staff member
So, after a long Blu-ray disc (BD) release hiatus by Fox and MGM, how does one celebrate the recent press release that new titles are coming? Why, one celebrates by buying one of these studios’ BD-only titles on HD DVD! Yes, Blu-ray-Only Titles are available on HD DVD. Yes, that is correct. One might ask: How does one do this? The answer has been available all along.


Discuss "Blu-ray's Dirty Little Secret" here. Read the article.
 
stratman

stratman

Audioholic Ninja
Just another layer in the onion that's called hi-def dvd.:)
 
A

autoboy

Audioholic
Very nice article that digs deeper into the "onion" of the format war than any other I have seen. Nice work. So, what about the extra cost of producing flip discs? As you know from past discussions, I am a big fan.
 
sholling

sholling

Audioholic Ninja
A very interesting article. I'm still fence sitting but leaning HD DVD because as I've said before the first one to reach the $100-130 price point wins the war and I can't see BD getting there for at least 3-4 years. I doubt that we will see a ton of sales this year but somehow I think by Christmas 2008 we'll see somebody hit that price.

Anyway one or two more pieces of good news and I may have to put an A20 in my rack.
 
tn001d

tn001d

Senior Audioholic
Are HD-DVD's region coded? I am assuming that there would be no problem playing the european disc here in the US..

Also were movies from Sony available on HD-DVD, like spider man and so forth. That would be amazing if Blu-ray's founder is releasing movies in HD-DVD
 
jinjuku

jinjuku

Moderator
Are HD-DVD's region coded? I am assuming that there would be no problem playing the european disc here in the US..

Also were movies from Sony available on HD-DVD, like spider man and so forth. That would be amazing if Blu-ray's founder is releasing movies in HD-DVD

Toshiba and other HD-DVD partners dumped region encoding from the spec. Now if they would only deliver on the Managed Copy function, they some how keep touting, but never deliver on.
 
DavidW

DavidW

Audioholics Contributing Writer
Are HD-DVD's region coded? I am assuming that there would be no problem playing the european disc here in the US..

Also were movies from Sony available on HD-DVD, like spider man and so forth. That would be amazing if Blu-ray's founder is releasing movies in HD-DVD
HD-DVD is not region coded, they play anywhere.

Blu-ray is region coded into 3 regions that break down into:
  1. North/South America including SE Asia and Japan
  2. Europe/Africa/Australia
  3. Asia except SE Asia
Some movies from Sony are available, so far I've seen xXx and Underworld Evolution. The full list of all the titles we found is in the article.

If any readers happen across others, let us know and post the web address where they are availible. I am sure there are HD-DVD owners who would love to know where they can get more titles.
 

Attachments

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pbarach1

Audioholic
they are screwing themselves

...so as a result of this format war and all of the lying that's going on, my prediction is that neither of these new formats will win out because consumers will avoid them both in order to not get stuck with "orphaned" equipment and software. This is part of what happened to DVD-A and SACD (although SACD is limping along in the classical realm, especially outside of the US).
 
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gomo657

Audiophyte
I would like to say thank you, not many are aware of this capabilty. I've purchased several titles from Exploited and let me just say I'm well pleased Underworld Ev and The Island are two of my faves and I couldn't wait to watch on my A2. On some you have to disable the subtiles which is easy, and navigate the menus which sometimes aren't English but they are manageable. I encourage any movie lover to invest and enjoy.:)
 
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tiredofmshills

Audiophyte
Is this article a joke? There are several Universal titles out on Blu-Ray in Europe or Japan. Judging by some of your past articles on this seeker of truth site, you sure do not seem very interested in actually researching or reporting the truth.
 
J

Johnd

Audioholic Samurai
Is this article a joke? There are several Universal titles out on Blu-Ray in Europe or Japan. Judging by some of your past articles on this seeker of truth site, you sure do not seem very interested in actually researching or reporting the truth.
"Several" does not universal make. :p

Did you read the article? As I am totally unfamiliar with European HD/BD, and have no need for that information (I live in the US), and I do not yet own an HD player, I cannot speak of the facts. I read this article out of general interest.

"BD on HD DVD titles tend to be hidden away under the names of local distribution and production houses or subsidiary companies to obscure who owns the rights."

What's not to understand? How does this article make Clint or Audioholics the purveyor of untruth, misinformation and obfuscation?
 
I suppose we can do a follow-up on HD DVD doing the same thing. That might help the perception. Truth is that BD was more plentiful and was more easily caught by the writer.
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
Blades of Glory is apparently available on BD in Canada.
 
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dpz

Audiophyte
Blades of Glory is apparently available on BD in Canada.
Let's see, Kate Bekinsale in form fitting attire, or Will Ferrell in form fitting attire...based on that choice...I'd be opting for a move to HD DVD....of course, I'd need to come up with some alternative reason to close the purchase of another DVD player with the finance committee (ie da wife)....:)
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
Let's see, Kate Bekinsale in form fitting attire, or Will Ferrell in form fitting attire...based on that choice...I'd be opting for a move to HD DVD....of course, I'd need to come up with some alternative reason to close the purchase of another DVD player with the finance committee (ie da wife)....:)
I think I am failing to grasp your point? Underworld Evolution is already available on BD and the first one is coming out later this month... If you are using Kate as a decision factor....Pearl Harbor is also already available on BD too.
 
mike c

mike c

Audioholic Warlord
i wish there was a list of HD-DVD titles available as BD in other countries ... and vice versa.
 
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naisphoo

Banned
blah blah blah....of course what else can you expect from a pro-hd dvd and pro-M$ site.
 
dobyblue

dobyblue

Senior Audioholic
Region coding on Blu-ray is OPTIONAL, not mandatory

The "dirty little secret" - which is a stupid title for an editorial, runs both ways.

There are plenty HD DVD only titles available on Blu-ray in other countries, often better than the HD DVD.

For example, Buena Vista released Face/Off in the UK - it is not released in North America yet (Paramount - HD DVD only) and the UK version is region free with a high bit rate AVC encoding and PCM audio.

Paramount released 16 Blocks on both HD DVD and Blu-ray in North America both versions with lossy audio - the BVHE release on Blu-ray only in Japan features a lossless 5.1 English track.

Buena Vista released Cinderella Man (Universal) in Japan which is the same region as USA.

All Hollywood movies released in Japan feature English 5.1 tracks as that is the main recorded audio.

Paramount and 20th Century Fox did Titanic. It will be HD DVD only in North America and Blu-ray only everywhere else in the world, likely region free as it is a catalog title and in Japan it will be Region A anyway if it is coded.

You need only look at IMDB to see the disc media rights in other countries.

You will NOT see Spider-man coming out on HD DVD anywhere. It is Sony/Columbia (All media - worldwide)

Underworld Evolution was not Sony all media - in Spain it was someone else which is why it's on HD DVD.

If you want to know more about which titles on Blu-ray are region coded you can read here - http://bluray.liesinc.net/

It wouldn't take much to find this stuff out - poor thread for someone entitled "administrator"
 

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