HD DVD - the best deal in HD

[deacongreg]

Well, I guess on one hand, if you have an HD DVD player, you want to enjoy it. However, there is a point of no return coming with this format. Then what will you do with all those movies? Re - buy again? This is not a good scenario.

This is exactly why I mentioned in another thread, that there are consumers at there, still upset and angry about having another player and movies, that will not take them into the future.

[chipmonkmrl]

Originally Posted by rlpiii

Does anyone know if France or some other French speaking country is still keeping HD DVD alive?
I have noticed at Fry's that a good amount of the HD DVD titles are showing both English and French artwork on the cases.
I just started seeing these English/French titles in the last few weeks.
Prices are still between ~$3 and ~$12 for HD DVDs at Fry's.

By the late spring 2008, French releases came to an abrupt halt, following the 2008 CES announcements, WB and Toshiba...

Here in the UK we had some of those French releases emanating from the likes of STUDIO CANAL+, issued in the UK.... some were not just "french" films, but Hollywood titles that they had European marketing rights to, such as Terminator 2, Basic Instinct, Total Recall. French sites were offering these as well as others that never quite made it here to the UK thru their UK division, such as "Serpico" ( a great american movie) , "3 days of the condor".... These were released in france and other European countries, such as Holland (from where I have just received my copy of 3 days of the condor, Germany and thers.

French movies from France in French (sometimes without subtitles/BEWARE/CHECK!) when released in HD DVD in France are always EVIDENT of their french origins.... the title jacket insert is ALWAYS in REVERSE compared to how you would stack other US/UK releases.... upside down/inside out! Yes! This IS typically French... it is THEIR logic (also applied to books/normal dvds).

Re: your Dual Language and artwork.... there is NO WAY, having already explained about French Logic, that these emanated from France... would have been 100% written in French for french homemarket only, with the typical french expectation that YOU the purchaser speak French!
As a former private investigator (also in the A/V trade for many years previously, and since) I would give you a typical European "Sherlock Holmes" definitive answer!

They must have come from CANADA .... I do believe they speak both languages there actively, Old Boy! ... and before you quipback what about switzerland, I must tell you that Switzerland has not got a population sizeable enough to have sustained ANY HD DVD releases in that country....

Hope that gives you a little insight..... and just so that you know, many of these european versions were absolutely better than their official US releases... T2, Total Recall, and the Dutch Studio Canal/momentum release of reservoir Dogs were far superior than their Lionsgate US releases on Blu-Ray, both in terms of AUDIO and VIDEO.... How do I know? Because I currently hold some 535 HI-DEF format discs... and I had many of the early US releases as well as their Euro versions/ remasters... and, in my opinion, all the early HD DVDs looked superior to the early Bluray releases, which were typically SOFT due to lack of bitrate as well as MPEG 2 encoding... and single 25G discs being used. A great example would be Devil Wears Prada... Fox released this early in the BluRay format in the US... 25G disc MPEG2 coding, and low PRINTED bitrates shown on the display jacket info.... UK releases on BluRay happened much later... FOX UK released that title here this summer on 50G disc, AVC codec, and I promise you DOUBLE the bitrate too... RESULT? Perfect... what I had wanted the first time round with those early releases!!! This was a movie that posititvely shines in a hi-def format.... but it didn't on the current /early US release!! Anyone out there stateside should complain to FOX and try to get them to replace your current version.... I bet they are keeping quiet about many of the superior blu-ray releases they have around the world that oushine technically their OWN US release version....

Good Nite from London... see y'all at CES ....if I'm lucky to get one of my former stores to give me letter of intro/ acting on their behalf... I was a senior rep in the trade, and my knowledge legendary... second only to Jerry, the Crew here, and all the fine contributors on these here pages!!!



releases

[basumarpo1610]

This doesn't even count things like the original, unaltered version of Pixar's "Knick Knack" (which is censored on DVD and Blu-Ray).






Your attitude is puzzling, kennyt, especially in regards to HD-DVD, which isn't outdated in the slightest. It's a dead format, to be sure, but not because technology somehow left it behind