Cinderella Man a Universal Movie on Blu-ray in Japan

looks like Japan got more blu-ray movies than the north america, I wonder why

hey guys i hear that HD-DVD is basically already dead in Japan.

I don't know about USA and EU, but blu-ray will win the format war in Japan.

So if Universal wants to sell their movies there they gotta release on blu-ray.

What are the specs on that?

That will surely be interesting.

Universal is the distributer of Cinderella Man only in USA

The other belongs to Disney

Japan is trending as strong towards BD as the rest of the world is to HD DVD. Saying its dead in Japan is akin to giving up on BD in the rest of the world. There is plenty of time for one to make a move anywhere in the world.

I have a question, other than US and Japan, are HD DVD players available in "the rest of the world"? I heard Xbox360 add-ons started shipping from last week or so. I also heard that in Europe, there are Samsung, Philips and Panasonic available for months. In Australia, at least Panasonic I heard.

No standalone HD-DVD players available in the UK yet, but the cheaper model is imminient. The XB360 add-on has been available for just over a week and is pretty much sold out. Not sure about the Philips, but the Samsung and Panasonic BD players have both been available for at least a few months now. Also saw a Sharp BD player in one store, but don't think its available yet.

So why does Universal decide to go exclusive for HD DVD when most others go for Blu Ray?

lfletcher, thanks for the info.
So in UK, is the trend to HD DVD, does BD camp seem giving up? How many titles available in UK for both formats?

Is the LG player for sale there yet?

This duality of distribution is common with both HD DVD and BD. The exclusive titles from Fox, Disney, LG can be imported from elsewhere in the world and played. HD DVD has no regions and likely won't get regions placed so all titles work everywhere. Many more "exclusive" BD titles are available if you don't mind paying like 35-50 bucks and waiting a 5 days. Studio Canal and Toshiba have released the most titles that are exclusive in the US. Europe seems to have the best pick so far as Studio Canal is releasing all their titles with DTS-MA.

we have down here

HD-DVD players 2nd gen (we never got the first gen)

Panny Blu Ray, Sammy & PS3 Blu Ray players (BDP-HD1/ BDP-S1 not available in australia)

We have the 360 add on and best of all....

no fricken content

Can us USA BD folks play BDs from Japan ??

How do you figure that? From what I've seen BD had something like 60k Blu-ray recorders sold in 2006 and has over 800,000 PS3s in customers hands, while HD DVD didn't seem to be selling many players at all. Even just a portion of those should account for a pretty big absolute lead for Blu-ray. Can you name anyplace in the world trending as strong toward HD DVD as Japan is toward BD? Are you counting things like 4k players to 1k players trending as strong as those much larger numbers? What do you think the HD DVD camp will do to try to turn things around in Japan. Even Amir went from understanding that Japan mattered maybe 6 months ago to brushing them off later. Not much of a sign of somebody willing to put up a fight for a spot and we already know that the Blu-ray camp will be starting their big part of the fight in Europe in a couple of days (with the PS3 launch).

I think it is quite a stretch to compare HD DVD's situation in Japan with BD's situation in the rest of the world with things barely off the ground elsewhere and the PS3 just about to come out, as if BD's situation elsewhere is even close to as dire. If you believe the two are pretty much the same, do you think HD DVD will be leading for software sales in places like the UK in a couple of months? What about BD in Japan in a couple of months?

--Darin

Yes. They are the same region.

Josh,

when you get it, in addition to checking video codec, can you please check if the PCM track is 48/24 or 48/16 as well?.

By any chance, did you get Face/Off too?

I'm interested to hear about this as well!

The player available in Singapore:

Blu-ray: Samsung P1000, PS3
HD DVD: 0

Microsoft will launch HD DVD add-on end March. Toshiba will launch HD DVD player May/June.

Miramax split the distribution with Universal on Cinderella Man. They have international rights. Same with Hollywoodland.

I hadn't seen it was pushed back this much. Untel a couple weeks ago it was scheduled to hit the market on the 21st now, aong with Cinderalla.

From my record, Disney jp branch doesn't list sampling rate on the cover like their us one. Well maybe they have changed.

Anyway, please get back to us with your impressons when you watch it, OK?

The Prestige and First Blood 1-3 are on BlueRay here in NA but in Britain and the rest of Europe they are exclusivvely on HD DVD.Very often movies are cofinanced by two studios.When this is done and the time comes to release the flick on video/dvd/HiDef, they usually split the distribution rights down the middle.One studio may gets the North American distribution rights and the other gets the rights to the rest of the world.When one of those studios supports BlueRay and the other HD DVD, that's when you'll see the movies released in one format in NA and the other in the rest of the world.

I had my hopes up when I saw this thread, but Cinderella Man is being released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment in Japan, not Universal.

I'm sorry, but this is just plain WRONG. Most estimates put BD as holding more than 90 percent of the Japanese market and I've seen nothing in my discussions with hobbyists or visits to many (and I mean MANY) consumer electronics shops that would make me think otherwise. There are multiple models of Blu-ray recorders (no BD players are currently sold here), but only two HD-DVD models (one recorder and one player). In the Japan market, HDD/disc recorders are more popular than standalone players, and it's been this way for years. A lot of my closest friends are home theater hobbyists. Only ONE has an HD-DVD player, and even he has a PS3. And he recently told me he's considering selling the Toshiba because getting movies for it takes too much effort. Everyone else either has PS3s and/or BD recorders. And unlike some western consumers, Japanese PS3 owners have no problem with using their gaming device as a movie player.

The software situation is even more desperate for HD-DVD. You can walk into any major CE shop or video store in Japan and find Blu-ray movies for sale. But just TRY finding an HD-DVD movie. Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara is the nearest "brick and mortar" store that I can find that actually has any HD-DVD discs in stock. Anyone looking for HD-DVD software has to resort to Amazon or other online sources.

From where I stand, it would take a major screwup by the BD camp or an act of God for HD-DVD to ever catch up.

I picked this up yesterday at my local BIC Camera store. It's VC-1, with 5.1 channel linear PCM, DD and DTS. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, but I'll try to put in on tonight if I have time.

BTW, it's listed as "All Region" so it should be playable anywhere.

Ktak,

can you please check the bitrate for the PCM track when you get the chance?

Thanks,
Alex

Just wanted to mention that the eproductwars.com site now has listings for Amazon in the UK, Germany, and Japan. They can be reached by going to http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/ and then bringing up the list of things under "Product Wars" at the top. They are near the bottom. Or here are direct links (with a warning that the Japanese one may show a topless woman on one of the cases, so not necessarily work safe):

UK: http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd-uk/
Germany: http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd-de/
Japan: http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd-jp/

These are done like the US site and so include preorders. Currently the averages for the top 10 are:

UK:
Blu-ray: 994
HD DVD: 1147

Germany:
Blu-ray: 679
HD DVD: 1144

Japan:
Blu-ray: 369
HD DVD: 6408

The number of discs in the top 1000 all show Blu-ray with more right now. Those are:

UK: 5 to 3
Germany: 8 to 3
Japan: 12 to 0

It would be interesting to see France with Studio Canal there and the numbers above might be people preordering titles to use with the PS3. So, it will be interesting to see how they look in a month or two and see if they have moved up for Blu-ray more, like what happened in the US. Looks different than the US though because Blu-ray was way behind on Amazon on the day the PS3 shipped and not ahead on there. From looking at the eproductwars chart for the top 10 average it looks like HD DVD was ahead about 600 to 3000 on the day the PS3 shipped.

--Darin

Will do, as soon as I get home tonight.

Nice find Darin. These numbers are especially telling considering that most Japanese HD-DVD recorder/player owners have to rely almost entirely on online outlets like Amazon for their HD-DVD software needs. As I stated earlier, finding HD-DVD movies in brick-and-mortar stores is almost impossible in most places.