Universal Studios' First Wave of HD DVDs for September

Universal Studios Home Entertainment have announced that the following titles will be released in high-definition exclusively on HD DVD, this September 18. Each disc will be priced at $29.98 SRP. None of them will be released on the HD DVD/DVD Combo discs.

Universal Studios seem to be embracing lossless audio as a standard feature on its catalog releases with all the titles announced for release on Sept 18 containing Dolby TrueHD lossless audio. Bonus materials from the respective title's DVD release are expected to be present on these HD DVD versions.


Elizabeth (1998) HD DVD

1080p High Definition Widescreen 1.85:1
Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (English) & Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 (English & French)
English [SDH] & French subtitles
Bonus material includes
- Feature Commentary with Director Shekhar Kapur
- The Making of Elizabeth
- Theatrical Sneak Peek of Elizabeth: The Golden Age
- Still Gallery
- Theatrical and Teaser Trailers

For Love of the Game HD DVD

1080p High Definition Widescreen 2.35:1
Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (English) & Dolby Digital-Plus (5.1 English & 2.0 French)
English [SDH] & French subtitles
Bonus material includes
- Theatrical Trailer
- Spotlight on Location
- Deleted Scenes
- The Perfect Game
- On the Mound Trivia Game: Includes Video Piece for Game Winner Babe Ruth: Slide Babe Slide

The Last Starfighter HD DVD

1080p High Definition Widescreen 2.35:1
Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (English) & Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 (English)
English [SDH] & French subtitles
Bonus material includes
- Feature Commentary with Director Nick Castle and Production Designer Ron Cobb
- Crossing the Frontier: Making The Last Starfighter
- Theatrical & Teaser Trailers
Stay tuned as we'll update this blogpost when we have further updates on Universal Studios' September HD DVD releases...


http://hddvdformat.blogspot.com/

nice titles.

Universal Studios' First Wave of HD DVDs for September

Universal Studios Home Entertainment have announced that the following titles will be released in high-definition exclusively on HD DVD, this September 18. Each disc will be priced at $29.98 SRP. None of them will be released on the HD DVD/DVD Combo discs.

Universal Studios seem to be embracing lossless audio as a standard feature on its catalog releases with all the titles announced for release on Sept 18 containing Dolby TrueHD lossless audio. Bonus materials from the respective title's DVD release are expected to be present on these HD DVD versions.


Elizabeth (1998) HD DVD

1080p High Definition Widescreen 1.85:1
Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (English) & Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 (English & French)
English [SDH] & French subtitles
Bonus material includes
- Feature Commentary with Director Shekhar Kapur
- The Making of Elizabeth
- Theatrical Sneak Peek of Elizabeth: The Golden Age
- Still Gallery
- Theatrical and Teaser Trailers

For Love of the Game HD DVD

1080p High Definition Widescreen 2.35:1
Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (English) & Dolby Digital-Plus (5.1 English & 2.0 French)
English [SDH] & French subtitles
Bonus material includes
- Theatrical Trailer
- Spotlight on Location
- Deleted Scenes
- The Perfect Game
- On the Mound Trivia Game: Includes Video Piece for Game Winner Babe Ruth: Slide Babe Slide

The Last Starfighter HD DVD

1080p High Definition Widescreen 2.35:1
Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (English) & Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 (English)
English [SDH] & French subtitles
Bonus material includes
- Feature Commentary with Director Nick Castle and Production Designer Ron Cobb
- Crossing the Frontier: Making The Last Starfighter
- Theatrical & Teaser Trailers
Stay tuned as we'll update this blogpost when we have further updates on Universal Studios' September HD DVD releases...


http://hddvdformat.blogspot.com/
I am really glad they are starting to use TrueHD more often (while I don't see the need for it, but some people compare its use to PCM usage on BD which is currently more often) though I wonder with the Last Starfighter if that should have a 2.1 mix included as I don't think it was originally made for surround.

Last Starfighter? Holy crap, that's my favorite StarWars rip-off movie of all time! Seriously, I do like it.

They should release "The Neverending Story" on the same day.

while its nice to see TrueHD those tittles mean nothing to me.

wish they release Tokyo drift single hddvd with TrueHD.

All with DD True HD - yesss! They're all mine.

If I didn't already own an HD player I would have bought one just for Last Starfighter in HD. This is awesome.

Universal is getting in the TrueHD game! About time... now only if they could release the extended edition of King Kong with TrueHD

Last Starfighter for me.

Universal is getting in the TrueHD game! About time... now only if they could release the extended edition of King Kong with TrueHD

theres an extended edition of already a long slow movie?? :eek:

Not really interested in any of those films, but Uni upping TrueHD support is a welcome sign.

theres an extended edition of already a long slow movie?? :eek:

haha, yeah... but I am a sucker for extended editions. I almost bought the extended edition of Gladiator on DVD... but I am holding out on the slim hope that it will be released on HD DVD.

Universal is getting in the TrueHD game! About time... now only if they could release the extended edition of King Kong with TrueHD

That would bring the average video bitrate down to ~12MBit/s - and we are not even talking about 24bit"true lossless"...

I would prefer them sticking with DD+ (with recent announced TrueHD titles like Elizabeth, Notting Hill,... video bandwidth concerns shouldn't matter much though) and get the video right in return.

The Last Starfighter!!!

I'll choose Elizabeth for Cate Blanchets great performance

I'll choose The Last Starfighter for reminiscing.

I LOVED the last starfighter and I'll def get that one...just very worried with recent releases it'll be a crappy non-hidef transfer. I hope I am wrong!

I would love to see the cover art for the Last Starfighter HD-DVD. Can't wait to get it.

I LOVE THIS WAR!!

I can only imagine what it would be like to have only 1 format. It would suck. :)


I just picked up:


The Big Lebowski
Hustle and Flow
Black Snake Moan
Riddick
Mallrats

All on HD DVD. Sadly, I see no BD titles I will Buy until Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill 1 &2.

;)

That would bring the average video bitrate down to ~12MBit/s - and we are not even talking about 24bit"true lossless"...

I would prefer them sticking with DD+ (with recent announced TrueHD titles like Elizabeth, Notting Hill,... video bandwidth concerns shouldn't matter much though) and get the video right in return.

If we talk about Dolby TrueHD 16/48 then there would be no need to lower the video bitrate since a 3 hour 8 minute 5.1 TrueHD 16/48 track uses slightly less space then the DD+ 1.5 mbps track. So it wouldn't affect the video bitrate at all to replace the DD+ track with TrueHD

That would bring the average video bitrate down to ~12MBit/s - and we are not even talking about 24bit"true lossless"...

What kind of new math are you using?

TrueHD 16/48 track uses slightly less space then the DD+ 1.5 mbps track.

Since when does uncompressed audio take up less space than compressed audio? :confused:

If we talk about Dolby TrueHD 16/48 then there would be no need to lower the video bitrate since a 3 hour 8 minute 5.1 TrueHD 16/48 track uses slightly less space then the DD+ 1.5 mbps track. So it wouldn't affect the video bitrate at all to replace the DD+ track with TrueHD
Disc space != bandwidth.

Since when does uncompressed audio take up less space than compressed audio? :confused:
DTHD is not uncompressed - it's losslessly compressed.

All on HD DVD. Sadly, I see no BD titles I will Buy until Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill 1 &2.
No need to buy Kill Bill on Blu-ray . . . I think The Whole Bloody Affair will be coming out on HD DVD! ;)

It's been a long time since I saw The Last Starfighter and I can hardly wait to get my hands on this in HD.

Disc space != bandwidth.

Bandwidth is not an issue either since The Matrix had TrueHD 2x5.1 tracks + 1x2.0 track + 4xCommentaries + IME on top of all that.

maybe they are better at VC1 compression because current hd dvd king kong is 28,111mbs. Don't really have space to put lossless sound.

Yeah, Universal is totally going neutral with an attitude like this :rolleyes:

I reeeeeeaaaaallllllllyyyyy want The Last Starfighter! Can I have it early please?

Last Starfighter for me.

+1

I LOVE THIS WAR!!

I can only imagine what it would be like to have only 1 format. It would suck. :)


I just picked up:


The Big Lebowski
Hustle and Flow
Black Snake Moan
Riddick
Mallrats

All on HD DVD. Sadly, I see no BD titles I will Buy until Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill 1 &2.

;)

I just picked up:


The Big Lebowski
The Frighteners
Cinderella Man
The Thing
Pitch Black

And don't buy Kill Bill on BD, wait for the exclusive HD DVD "The Whole Bloody Affair" version!

Bandwidth is not an issue either since The Matrix had TrueHD 2x5.1 tracks + 1x2.0 track + 4xCommentaries + IME on top of all that.
You can't compare different movies like that - it doesn't work that way. Different material encodes differently. To add a DTHD track to the existing Kong disc would require the video to be re-encoded at a lower bitrate. Whether it would result in a noticeable drop in PQ, we don't know.

Nice to see Universal jumping on the TrueHD bandwagon.

You can't compare different movies like that - it doesn't work that way. Different material encodes differently. To add a DTHD track to the existing Kong disc would require the video to be re-encoded at a lower bitrate. Whether it would result in a noticeable drop in PQ, we don't know.

They could wait until we get the 17GB per layer (34GB for dual layer) HD DVD's then do the extended version.

They could wait until we get the 17GB per layer (34GB for dual layer) HD DVD's then do the extended version.

Or 51 GB Triple Layer so they can say "Sony, your low capacity discs suck"

They could wait until we get the 17GB per layer (34GB for dual layer) HD DVD's then do the extended version.
That won't solve the problem, unless the bandwidth gets increased as well. Plus, we don't even know if our players will support those discs (should they ever actually appear.)

I'm in for Elizabeth. I hope The Golden Age is just as good.

Also, why do some people insist on using the word, "lossless," when they mean "uncompressed?" Lossless (and lossy) apply to forms of compression.

That won't solve the problem, unless the bandwidth gets increased as well. Plus, we don't even know if our players will support those discs (should they ever actually appear.)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10863296&&#post10863296 :D

Wow - Just saw Elizabeth for the umpteenth time last week...Brilliant film and Cate Blanchett is perfect in it - had no idea it was coming to HD-DVD but it will be my most anticipated release after waiting for the Matrix.

That won't solve the problem, unless the bandwidth gets increased as well. Plus, we don't even know if our players will support those discs (should they ever actually appear.)

Well they could always put it on 2 discs...I have no problem with that.

I'm in for Elizabeth. I hope The Golden Age is just as good.

Also, why do some people insist on using the word, "lossless," when they mean "uncompressed?" Lossless (and lossy) apply to forms of compression.

Because we're not talking LPCM here, we're talking compressed formats. The type of compression is either lossy or lossless. Dolby TrueHD is lossless compression, every bit as good as LPCM but requiring less space and bandwidth - good for HD DVD :)

My wife and I were just talking about buying For Love of the game a couple weeks ago.

So I am definitely in for The Last Starfighter and Love of the Game.

The Last Starfighter!


"I've always wanted to fight a desperate battle against incredible odds!"

I'm all over Elizabeth.

Last Starfighter? Holy crap, that's my favorite StarWars rip-off movie of all time! Seriously, I do like it.

They should release "The Neverending Story" on the same day.

The Neverending Story is a Universal, I'd buy that.

just because something is truehd its going to sound better, just like because movie is hd isn't going to look great. Its all on how its remastered, i've been blown away by 1.5mb DD/DTS tracks that sounded better to me then some truehd tracks. All depends on the sound design and remastering, last star fighter has the potential to sound great but this movie was originally made using stereo mix. Unless they remastered the sound in 5.1 with all new effects i don't think you'll hear much difference from dd to true. I highly doubt universal went though the trouble and spending the money to get a whole new mix done just for a low volume hd dvd.

^ I agree... but I've a few points to make.

Like you've said just because something is truehd it doesn't mean to going to be better. Seriously, the audio on the DVD was just a nice (not a great one in today's world of surround sound) 5.1 upgrade, according to reviews.

Overall, I would think that it is more important to preserve the way it sound at theatres (even if the original audio elements were used to do a new 5.1 remix for the DVD release) and have it presented in as original a form as it was intended in 1984 or have been heard in the theatres. Dolby TrueHD just gurantees that during the transfer from the audio masters there was no loss of data, which works in line with the preservation of original theatrical mix. It just tells the consumer that this audio track is much more likely to be as good as it had been at the theatres than a DD track on the same DVD.

The Neverending Story is a Universal, I'd buy that.

The Neverending Story is a Warner film, which is good news (given that they're format-neutral).

Well they could always put it on 2 discs...I have no problem with that.Two discs don't make bandwidth issues go away. Disc size is like the size of a swimming pool in the back yard and bandwidth is like the amount of water that can be pushed through the hose at one time. Using 2 pools doesn't mean the hose can output more for a small instant, even though it does generally mean the average put through it can be higher.

--Darin

Bandwidth is not an issue either since The Matrix had TrueHD 2x5.1 tracks + 1x2.0 track + 4xCommentaries + IME on top of all that.Would you tell one of your professors that you had proven that things always get smaller when they freeze, since you checked some substances and that is what you found? I assume not. So, why would you keep making the same kind of logical error with video compression? Different movies and different segments within even the same movie have different levels of difficulty when it comes to compressing them without degradation.

--Darin

Trailer for Elizabeth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk1sgJfOcFY

Also, The Golden Age:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vITxj7Tq4f4

The Man Room (http://dvd.themanroom.com/dvd-covers.php)

Covers
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/7214/elizabethjq6.jpg
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/2157/thelaststarfighterrp0.jpg
http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/5241/forloveofthegamesd1.jpg

It's been a long time since I saw The Last Starfighter and I can hardly wait to get my hands on this in HD.

I'm going to put my flame suit on for this one but, yeah, The Last Starfighter is totally overrated. Might want to rent the DVD and make sure before you spend the dough on the HD DVD. I predict a lot of people are going to say that it wasn't as good as they remembered it.

FYI, 6.3/10 on IMDB. That is mediocre at best.

The Last Starfighter??? I can't beleive people think this is a good realease!!! Esp. when catalogue titles like Scarface are out there.

Scarface is not out on HD DVD unless I missed something big.

Not really interested in any of those films, but Uni upping TrueHD support is a welcome sign.

same here. very good to see that they are doing that, but not a fan of those.

LSF in particular i always thought was one of the worst movies ever made though. although it seems i am almost alone in this forum though with that opinion, haha. i recall my friends and i bursting out laughing when it ended it was so bad, because it seemed like it had only just finally started and it was over?! oh well, i guess we were the only ones though since everyone on the net apparently loved it.

No you are not alone, it is a bad movie.

rather have the "wraith" much better B sci fi flick.

Looking forward to "For Love of the Game". I really enjoyed the scenes of the actual baseball game. The score by Basil Poledouris is excellent and will be a treat in TrueHD.

Since I have misplaced my SD copy of this, I will definitely be picking this one up.

Would you tell one of your professors that you had proven that things always get smaller when they freeze, since you checked some substances and that is what you found? I assume not. So, why would you keep making the same kind of logical error with video compression? Different movies and different segments within even the same movie have different levels of difficulty when it comes to compressing them without degradation.

--Darin

I don't quite understand your obsession with my posts, but it isn't flattering it is actually very annoying.

They should release "The Neverending Story" on the same day.

Man I would love to have that in an HD format!

The Last Starfighter??? I can't beleive people think this is a good realease!!! Esp. when catalogue titles like Scarface are out there.

Like a lot of other catalog titles, I'm sure the nostaliga factor for many people trumps a lot of objective criticisms.

I didn't wanna be the first one to say, but yeah, Last Starfighter, um, not so good. Historically speaking, though, it is interesting, and I will be renting it for the commentaries (Ron Cobb) and extras if for no other reason. Also, I wonder how the CGI holds up (they used Crays, right?).

I didn't wanna be the first one to say, but yeah, Last Starfighter, um, not so good. Historically speaking, though, it is interesting, and I will be renting it for the commentaries (Ron Cobb) and extras if for no other reason. Also, I wonder how the CGI holds up (they used Crays, right?).


I too am interested in how the CGI would hold up but I'm thinking not very well given the huge resolution difference. It really didn't look that good on DVD last time I checked it out. The Last Starfighter is one of those movies that really begs for an all out Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition-type restoration and remodeling but it won't happen. I remember this film fondly from my childhood so I will certainly buy it on HD-DVD as long as it isn't hideously priced when I get to the HD-DVD section at the store.

I don't quite understand your obsession with my posts, but it isn't flattering it is actually very annoying.It would be nice if you would actually comprehend the logical errors you make and quit making them. Please, stop claiming that such-and-such proves xxx when it is faulty logic just like I pointed out claiming that testing some materials and finding that they get smaller when freezing proves that all materials do. Do you understand that? And please stop trying to make people think that the video encode with King Kong would have worked with a TrueHD track on the disc. You claim to know about VBR vs CBR, so should understand why a claim that they would have worked together is faulty and why only looking at the space and not the bandwidth is just being deceptive (if you understand VBR and CBR).

If you are going to post things you should understand that others can point out the flaws in them (as I understand), especially when what you posted wasn't true (that one where you know what you posted wasn't true, but are mad because I pointed it out). If my responding is annoying you, then please don't post things that aren't true or are misleading at best and I will respond to your posts less.

--Darin

I was thinking about this the other day while watching TLS. While I don't mind the classic CGI used, it would be cool to see some remade effects and it would be even cooler if they allowed you to switch between the old CGI and new CGI on the fly during the movie. Would that even be possible?

theres an extended edition of already a long slow movie?? :eek:

yup. i have the SD DVD copy.

[...]
They should release "The Neverending Story" on the same day.Man I would love to have that in an HD format!
+1

I think Warner has the rights for the "Neverending Story" movies. The first came out in 1984 so they probably need a new transfer or cleaning. Anyway: all 3 parts would be a definite buy for me.