Amazon is having a Sale on all HD-DVDs and Blu Ray discs. This aggressive pricing might be the thing to really push the format war to the next level.
Now with titles up to 50% off, movies like Serenity are as cheap on HD-DVD as they are for standard definition.

Stock up and save a few bucks on movies, its not clear when this sale might end. Amazon normally prices movies pretty well, but this is a lot cheaper than I’ve seen them go before. See the entire selection of Blu Ray and HD DVD.

TvShowsOnDVD.com reports that the first DVD set of the 2002 Mike Young Productions’ “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” could see a February 2008 release. The series would be split over 3 sets, each containing 13 episodes in anamorphic widescreen presentation.

Early advertisements for the set have already made their way to the public. You can see one on the inside cover of Agent DVD Magazine, which I have conveniently take a screen capture of seen below.

He-man.org also mentions that there is more than likely going to be a Blu-Ray release of the set because there was a marked improvement in quality. A HD-DVD release is also in discussion at the moment.

Cinematical has the details for the DVD release on October 16.

Basically there will be a regular edition DVD, a special 2-disc DVD edition and then a special 2 disc HD-DVD edition.

Boxart for the sets has been posted here.

I have copy and pasted the press release after the jump for the full details.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Viacom has mentioned in this press release that Paramount and Dreamworks are now exclusively backing HD DVD over the competing Blu-Ray format. In recent months as many studios who had been backing HD DVD began releasing movies in both formats it’s a bit unusual to see studios taking the side that’s having less economic success.

Studios affected by this deal are Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Animation SKG, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films. The first features to be released exclusively to HD DVD will be Shrek the 3rd, Blades of Glory and Transformers.

No doubt this will mean great things for HD DVD as this format war really comes down to who gets the better exclusive titles. Naturally some biased people are getting their panties in a bunch over the whole debacle.

Coupling this with the resent increase in the number of weekly HD DVD titles released it certainly looks like the early lead Blu-Ray had in this format war may not have been the quick end it once seemed to be.

According to SuperHeroHype, Universal Studio has announced Heroes’ first season will be making its DVD debut and high definition counterpart on August 28th. Each format will be packed with extras about the series. You can see all the details after the jump.

I know I’ll be keeping an eye out for this since the rest of the staff here has been hounding me to give it a view.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

In a bold display that proves you can’t control information, social news network Digg.com has been over run with the code to decrypt HD-DVD, the high definition video format.

The code went up on digg mere hours ago, and the site was served a cease & desist order. Digg CEO Jay Adelson let it be known Digg would comply with the order to avoid the lawsuit. This level of censorship of course drove the millions of nerds who basically run Digg without much actual control or supervision all day completely crazy and the code began appearing in virtually every story submitted and gained millions of hits. In case you didn’t know, on Digg, users submit links which are then approved by other users when they “digg” them. A few hours ago, over 50,000 digs had been counted toward various HD DVD code submissions.

Now Digg Founder Kevin Rose has bowed to his users. Digg will go down fighting.

Gutsy move, sure, but the only option Digg had unless they wanted to monitor all stories and have them go through an editorial process. I hope it works out for the best.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Accoring to an article in the New York Post sales for Blu-Ray to date this year are better than HD DVD sales. More specifically we can see that “The Departed” which was available in both formats sold 3 times as many copies on Blu-Ray as on HD DVD. To show this you can see that as of today The Departed on Blu-ray has an amazon ranking of 84 while The Departed on HD DVD has a ranking of 446. Not that either of these is very impressive considering the DVD has a sales ranking of 7.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Lets start this off with some good news on a freebie: Game|Life reports that the first ever release of a high-definition episode of South Park will hit Xbox Live Marketplace. Starting Tuesday March 6, the Season 8 classic “Good Times With Weapons” will be available to Gold members for no cost for 2 weeks. Those without Xbox 360 or Live can still get the episode: On March 20 Best Buy is giving an HD-DVD for free with the purchase of any Xbox HD DVD player or a 360.

Personally, I grabbed Alien Hominid and Ms Pac-Man on Live Arcade this week. Alien Hominid is about the hardest game I’ve ever played on XBLA, and includes a boss event I cannot pass because I have no idea what to shoot. Ms Pac-Man I cleared all 200 Achievement points in under 2 hours. Go figure. Worms HD finally drops next week for another 800 points ($10), but I’ll pass until I actually finish Alien Hominid.

Tekken finally made it to the North American Playstation Network. Which is pretty good if you have a 1080p TV, don’t own the PS2 or the PSP versions. Nah, its budget priced and worth your dollar to get it in the prettiest format available. I understand you can buy Jin a new hat in this one. The much hyped Warhawk sequel from Sony has been downgraded from a full game to a Multiplayer-only download title. Well at least they won’t charge you an arm and a leg for it now.

The best game on the download circuit this week has to go to the best game ever made, The Legend Of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. Nearly a decade after release, its still got the highest rating of any game released before or since. $10 is a hefty sum on Wii‘s Virtual Console, but considering how vast the game is, its a bargain. Nintendo obviously knows how awesome this is, as its been released on the GameCube twice, but if you missed those or (god forbid) the N64 original, now is the time.