Studio Canal announces 20 titles

wow, arthouse in HD... can't believe it happens so quickly ....

Oh please, please, please, please let La Grande Vadrouille have English subtitles this time.

Are the US titles just copies of the upcoming US releases (same transfers, same tech specs)? Or 25 fps versions with 4%s speed up?

Le Pacte des Loups

I suppose being a French release there's no way it'll include English subs right?

c'mon, we still dont have the launch date for them, of course 4% speedup is important, but this issue is so *technical* that I am sure StudioCanal's executives are not at all aware of (at least, until Sony launches ad campagne saying smth like "HD DVDs cripple 4% of the movie")

Damn, I would think so....there should be enough room for it!!....love that movie.

Id pick up these of that list...

Le Pacte De Loups
Traffic
T2
The Graduate
Elephant Man (maybe...I love it, but I dont know how much better it would be than the upscaled dvd)

HD DVD could always import new subs online.

I would bet since this is a new format and they are trying to push it...that these titles will be available here.

Remember that these would be PAL and not playable in US players (at least the current A1). Region coding doesnt matter (at least for now), but PAL would.

Basically, this thread is useless because we cannot view those titles.

Not necessarily...I bet they will release them here too. Its good to know at least.

The A1 doesn't play pal sd-dvds. We don't know yet if it can play content at 720p50/1080i25. Or do we?

No, you're getting confused with SD dvds. These are HD discs, thus not PAL. PAL is a SD format with only 576 lines of resolution (at least where dvds are concerned). That'd be like saying the HD-DVD discs we have released over here are NTSC, which is equally false. Now, it will be interesting to see how the frame rate issues are handled, which is the only concern there should be with this discs.

If we find out they're playable on our US players, which I suspect they will be, then I'll be grabbing several of them:

Elephant Man
Mulholland Drive
La Cité des Enfants Perdus (City of Lost Children)
The Graduate
The Pianist
The Deer Hunter

Finally some titles I can get excited about! Though I'd be more excited if there was actually release dates posted with them.

Brotherhood of the Wolf would be a good one in HD!

Yeah baby! I like some of those movies. I'm interested.


True for some of us but not all of us frequenting AVS are US citizens.

Room for English subs, probably. Likely they'll be included, no. I don't know of any French DVDs that had English subs. There may be a handful, but none I'm aware of. The only French DVDs I ever saw which had any English were American movies with their original English audio, usually with nonremovable French subs.

Subtitles update : HD DVD / Blu-ray interactivity feature



"4.6.1 Alternate subtitle stream
An alternate subtitle stream which has been previously downloaded and cached on the user's home network is listed on the subtitle menu along with all of the on-disc subtitle streams. When selected the alternate subtitle stream is synchronized to the feature film.
The user can toggle between the cached subtitle stream and the disc based subtitle streams via the remote control without interrupting the video."
(Requirements Specification for HD DVD Video Application - Functional & Performance Requirements - Version 1.0 - July, 2005)

Woohoo... I was saying that hopefullly Canal would release T2 only a few days ago. I'll let you guys know about compatiblity as soon as they are available (I have US HD-XA1 in UK). Some really nice titles there, 5 of which are no brainers for me, the question is..... any dates announced?

I have over 100 French dvds with English subs. French language films. For example, Casque d'or and Pierrot Le Fou. Both are Studio Canal releases with English subtitles.

I did not know that and now I am excited about these titles also. Thanks for the info! I hope I didnt confuse anyone!

I guess this is a way around the US distribution rights for T2?? I figured it would only be on Bluray....maybe the distribution rights are different for that title overseas?? In that case, we COULD have T2 on hd-dvd!!

Canal own T2 in the UK too, so you should see a completely english version of T2 on HD-DVD in the near future.

Coincidentally, the MetaCritic website has just posted some of its highest ratings to two of the listed films: Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle) and L'Armee des Ombres (Army in the Shadows). The later received a score of 96, which is 2nd only to The Godfather on Metacritic's all-time list.

These are exciting times!

ok so there is no concept of PAL/SECAM/NTSC when it comes to HD-DVD, correct? It is only lines/frames. The concept of PAL/NTSC lost its importance a few years ago anyway, since most plasmas and front projectors are multisystem. For example I own Zenith plasma, Astar lcd, and In-focus fp, and I could care less what system is inputed, they accept PAL/NTSC/SECAM/whatever.

A couple of us burned a 1080i50 HD movie and it played back, but only at 1080i60 and with judder from having to go from 50 to 60.

--Darin

I wonder what the legal situation will be if these titles are region free and are then put up for sale in the US? As far as I know Studio Canal doesn't hold distribution rights to most of these titles in America.

I don't know much about the legal issues that may be involved.

But I believe that it is always preferable to get Hollywood films from the studios directly rather than getting an overseas release where the authoring and mastering process may differ, thus may result in a difference in image quality.

Just as its generally better to get European films on region 2 DVDs (with better DVD editions), it may not be preferable to get the Hollywood films on HD DVD meant for the overseas market.

But I guess there will be some "excitement" in getting some titles from Hollywood studios on HD DVD meant for overseas market and currently unavailable domestically.

I agree "Le Pacte des Loups"
That should be a great title to have. The standard version already has great video and audio IMHO.

I doubt anyone has seen "Arizona Dream" as it was never released in DVD in the US. I read about it on IMDB and picked it up on a recent trip to Austria. It was AWESOME. Very quirky, art-house, independent but great nonetheless. It had Jonny Depp before he was famous and Faye Dunaway. Fantastic... I'd highly recommend it.
-Matt