On the occasion of the first anniversary of HD DVD's official death, I am curios to find out what the last HD DVD ever produced was. By "produced" I mean the creation of the disc image, not the release date (which, as e.g. in the case of the German Deathproof, sometimes happened long after production) nor the manufacturing date (I'm not aware of a good way to determine this).

The production date can be determined approximately by looking at the file modification dates on the disc using a PC with HD DVD drive (note that the last modified file is not necessarily in the root directory!). The "youngest" HD DVDs I have found in my collection so far are:

1) Terminator 2 (German): 2/15/2008
2) I am Legend (US): 2/14/2008
3) Die Vorahnung/Premonition (German): 2/12/2008

Does anybody know of a later disc? I know we have some completists/crazy collectors here. :) One possible candidate could be "P2" ...

I would be happy to oblige, as I'm very interested myself on when these were created (not just the latest, but all of them). But Windows won't recognize HD DVD on my PC (I use the add-on). I have AnyDVD but it doesn't give that info. What would I need to do?

Are you using Windows XP? In that case you need to install a UDF 2.5 driver to be able to look at the files on the discs, since XP doesn't support the file system used on HD-DVD. You can find a link to a driver by Toshiba in this post by Davinleeds:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15856016#post15856016

I have one computer in XP and the other in Vista, but the XP computer is corrupted and it won't let me install. The Vista computer doesn't recognize HD DVD either, is there a drive file for that I can download?

Hm, strange, Vista should recognize the disc without any additional drivers. Normally I use my LG GGC-H20L drive, but I just tried plugging my spare Xbox addon into my PC (which has a fresh Vista x64 installation) and inserted an HD-DVD. It was recognized without problems or further driver installation. Have you tried another disc or a regular DVD? Can you play back HD-DVD movies using PowerDVD or the like?

Hm, strange, Vista should recognize the disc without any additional drivers. Normally I use my LG GGC-H20L drive, but I just tried plugging my spare Xbox addon into my PC (which has a fresh Vista x64 installation) and inserted an HD-DVD. It was recognized without problems or further driver installation. Have you tried another disc or a regular DVD? Can you play back HD-DVD movies using PowerDVD or the like?

I'll have to check out why Vista won't recognize it, but anyway I'm fed up with the corruption on the other PC and I'm wiping the hard drive right now. So hopefully it'll be ready to go again in a few hours....

One more small thing: When you plug in the drive for the first time, Windows should ask for drivers. This refers to the flash memory devices in the addon, not the drive itself, so you don't really need them. If you want to install them anyway, go to Windows Update while the addon is connected; it will offer the drivers as an optional update.

I just unplugged the add-on cable, plugged it back in, and that seems to work. Now I can read the drives on my Vista PC. Let me see what discs I can find that would have recent creation dates...

Here's a few

Freedom 6 5/5/08 (released 6/24/08)
Torchwood discs 5-6 (UK) 5/2/08 (released 6/30/08)
Torchwood disc 4 5/1/08
Torchwood disc 3 4/30/08
Torchwood disc 2 4/29/08
Torchwood disc 1 4/24/08
5 Centimeters per Second (Japan) 3/5/08 (released 4/18/08)
Freedom 5 2/19/08 (released 4/22/08)
Winx Club (Italy) 2/7/08 (released 3/5/08)
P2 1/15/08 (released July 2008)
For a Few Dollars More (Italy) 12/29/07 (released 4/23/08)
East is East (UK) 11/29/07 (released 3/31/08)
Death Proof (Germany) 11/27/07 (released 12/16/08)
Twister 10/17/07 (released 5/22/08)
PS I love You 2/27/08 (released 5/22/08)
Taking Lives 11/13/06 (never released)
Birthrite 1/22/08 (released 2/4/08)
Peter and the Wolf 10/30/07 (never released)
Goodfellas 4/13/06 (released 5/2/06)
Serenity 4/3/06 (released 4/18/06)
Yozakura (Japan) 3/31/06 (released 4/7/06)
Phantom of the Opera 4/4/05 (released 4/18/06)
Million Dollar Baby 4/12/05 (released 4/18/06)
The Last Samurai 4/3/05 (released 4/18/06)

It seem the date is a year off on the first 3 WB releases.

Oops, I own Torchwood myself. :o Interesting that Taking Lives was apparently produced in 2006 already. Wonder why it was never released. Do you own P2 as well?

Oops, I own Torchwood myself. :o Interesting that Taking Lives was apparently produced in 2006 already. Wonder why it was never released. Do you own P2 as well?

I put P2 in the list already. Taking Lives was never even announced for release in the US (it was for Japan however, but was later canceled), so who knows why they never went ahead with it.

It seem the date is a year off on the first 3 WB releases.Hm, I don't think so. Six days between creation of the disc image and release (in the case of Million Dollar Baby) seems almost impossible. Perhaps these titles were used as prototypes for early testing?

Hm, I don't think so. Six days between creation of the disc image and release (in the case of Million Dollar Baby) seems almost impossible. Perhaps these titles were used as prototypes for early testing?

Yeah, it's possible. 6 days wouldn't be enough, given that the retailers get their copies several days in advance to boot.

Shocking how long they sat on Death Proof. I finally ordered a copy for myself - more a souvenir for me rather than interested in the contents ;)

Here's a few
Phantom of the Opera 4/4/05 (released 4/18/06)
Million Dollar Baby 4/12/05 (released 4/18/06)
The Last Samurai 4/3/05 (released 4/18/06)

It seem the date is a year off on the first 3 WB releases.

Bruce,

It wouldn't surprise me if those discs were done a year in advance as test products for the launch. BTW, how have you been? I haven't seen you around lately (don't spend much time around the boards anymore since my departure from The Spot). How's life?

Bruce,

It wouldn't surprise me if those discs were done a year in advance as test products for the launch. BTW, how have you been? I haven't seen you around lately (don't spend much time around the boards anymore since my departure from The Spot). How's life?

Hey Dave, I still spend more time at the HD DVD boards (here, HDF and HDD mostly), since I decided to become a collector and buy up the rest of the format. I have a few BD players and some movies though. Nice to see you check in here. :)

Bruce,

It wouldn't surprise me if those discs were done a year in advance as test products for the launch. BTW, how have you been? I haven't seen you around lately (don't spend much time around the boards anymore since my departure from The Spot). How's life?

Didn't Amir say that Serenity was the first title to use VC1, and that it used an early non finalized version of the encoding tools? How would have Warner had VC1 encoding a full year in advance? From my understanding, all the early Japanese releases used MPEG4 AVC because it existed, and was ready to use. VC1 wasn't ready. I hope someone who knows could set the record straight. :o

How about these award winners??

http://www.mmdnewswire.com/classic-alaska-charters-4560.html

Hm, I don't think so. Six days between creation of the disc image and release (in the case of Million Dollar Baby) seems almost impossible. Perhaps these titles were used as prototypes for early testing?

I thought Million Dollar Baby was not available on release day. I recall it took a few more days to 2 weeks to be available at most retailers.

I thought Million Dollar Baby was not available on release day. I recall it took a few more days to 2 weeks to be available at most retailers.

If that was that case, then those file creation dates would make sense if you assume the date was off by one year. Million Dollar Baby has a 4/12 date, and the other two 4/3 and 4/4.

There could be another indication of the year in addition to the timestamps. Is there a file MNGCPY_MANIFEST.XML in the AACS directories on these discs? If you open it in a text editor, you should see a line like:

<mcManifest xmlns="http://www.aacsla.com/2006/02/hdmcManifest" ...>

This would seem to indicate that the XML namespace it's referring to was defined in February 2006 ...

I have one computer in XP and the other in Vista, but the XP computer is corrupted and it won't let me install. The Vista computer doesn't recognize HD DVD either, is there a drive file for that I can download?

yes for xp computer u need udf2.5 driver
i kind of hd-dvd/or bluray rom u have

How about these award winners??

http://www.mmdnewswire.com/classic-alaska-charters-4560.html


Award winners they are, but not for HD DVD. You started the thread and the info has been corrected.;)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1118438

Here's a few

Twister 10/17/07 (released 5/22/08)

It figures, they dropped Twister from the launch title list, finally created it, and then still sat on it for another 6 months.

Thanks for the interesting list, Bruce.