Blades of Glory's BD favoring; Optimum Home Entertainment news in the UK

[Avalanche™]

One more for the good guys

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=360
On August 28th, Paramount will ship its first high definition title to include a lossless or uncompressed soundtrack - 'Blades of Glory'. This title will feature a PCM 5.1 soundtrack for the Blu-ray release, but will feature no equivalent on the HD DVD, presumably because of the smaller disc capacity. Two weeks later, Paramount will ship 'Face/Off' with extras features available in high definition, but only on the Blu-ray version, again due to space constraints.

This is a drastic change from the Paramount we once knew. For the past year, Blu-ray owners have cringed as they saw release after release issued with low bit rate MPEG-2 video encodes and Dolby Digital soundtracks, while the HD DVD versions received VC-1 encodes and higher bit rate Dolby Digital Plus audio. It was disappointing to say the least.

The shift began with 'Flags of Our Fathers', which was released with a high bit rate AVC encode for the Blu-ray release. The audio was still lacking, but it was clear they were finally recognizing the Blu-ray consumer as a valuable asset. Now, with the addition of PCM audio, Paramount completes the high definition package and Blu-ray owners can now enjoy their favorite Paramount movies the way they were meant to be seen.

and now for the Pans Labyrinth News
https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=358
Optimum Home Entertainment has announced that they will be releasing 'Wolf Creek', 'Pan's Labyrinth', and 'The Host' for Blu-ray on November 12th in the UK. Previously, Optimum only supported HD DVD, but with their recent Blu-ray announcements, it's clear that they recognize the markets are turning in Blu-ray's favor. No specs were announced at this time.

An interesting side note: Optimum is owned by StudioCanal, who releases on HD DVD in Europe. Could they be next to turn?



Pans Better come out in the US!!!

[pro-bassoonist]

Not to cool off your enthusiasm but Studio Canal has a much stronger influence in Europe where together with Canal + (the real bear) the two have numerous distro offshoots (Optimum being one of them). In the US many of Studio Canal's films are sold...per title (similar is the situation with Germany's Concord Video who own Universal product and have now gone neutral...12 Monkeys and The Jackal coming soon on BR).

With other words, the fact that Optimum are now BLU as well is a tremendous win, a spectacular change of events in fact, but almost if not entirely of no significance to the much more complex US market.

Pro-B

[Eclipse6211]

That would be great to get Pans Labyrinth on Blu-ray before HD DVD as it is already on HD overseas.

That would rub a little salt in the wound.