Universal Studios Home Entertainment has released their plans for shifting their high definition focus from the defunct HD DVD format to Blu-ray. Beginning in July, Universal plans to release all new home video releases on Blu-ray day-and-date with their DVD releases. The first title receiving such treatment will be the Neil Marshall film 'Doomsday'.
On the catalog front, the first three Universal titles will be 'The Mummy', 'The Mummy Returns', and 'The Scorpion King', all which have been given a release date of July 22nd. No specs have been announced for these titles, nor any indication if they would be direct ports from the HD DVD or receive new transfers.
Great news. Yeah The Mummy movies will look great. Have them on Dtheater and HD DVD and they look and sound great. Hopefully it will look even better on Blu-Ray? Hopefully The Bourne movies will be out on Blu-Ray sometime this year also?
I hope they release Peter Jackson's KING KONG on blu!!!! The audio was terrible on my old Xbox 360 HD DVD add on (but thats HD DVD for you!!) The PQ should be amazing and hopefully the audio will be fully uncompressed
Also, you can probabally expect The Kingdom to make release this year seeing that it was one of the more recent titles that was released on blu. I hope attonement and definately, maybe makes it as well. Great list of titles though i will get just about all of them.
It's great that they are planning on putting out more release dates, but I don't want The Mummy, I don't want the Bourne movies, and I don't want the other ones they listed with the exception of U-571 which I'll be EAGERLY waiting for.....
Wow... I really need a better job. With all these new releases, I'm gonna be broke soon! Cannot wait for the following catalogs: The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, American Gangster (I put off on the DVD just for this), Knocked Up, and The 40-YO Virgin. Also can't wait for Wanted.
Pass on these. Happy for others here but I feel no need to upgrade Knocked Up or 40 YOV to BR and personally didn't think American Gangster was all that great.
Paramount is dragging their heels due to the understandable embarassment from their stupidity. Now they're on the clock with a glaring spotlight for sure.
I can finally stop holding my breath! Thanks for the great news. I'll pre-O Mummy I & II, Doomsday. Also, like the title suggests, please - please - PLEASE offer up a 7.1 lossless track for U-57.1! Also, bring on the extended Gladiator cut when you get production going smoothly! :^)
paramount looks even more stupid after the fact that the one studio exclusively supporting HD DVD from the releases it's slate before them. someone needs to be pink slipped over there.
I'm guessing the titles released by Universal on Blu-ray will come later as they will have to do some work with these to get them up to par to meet the very strict and high standards of Blu-ray.....
I was excited until I saw the catalog titles slated for release in the near future. Who the hell picks this stuff? I mean, yeah, the Apatow films are great, but they're not the kind of films I would buy an additional copy of, simply because of the hi-def aspect.
I wouldn't have posted this if all the other posts hadn't been soaked in undeserved enthusiasm.
This is great news and finally people can shut their traps about when is Universal going to release on Blu-Ray Now all we got to wait for is for a Paramount announcement and were in business. Happy Birthday Josh hope you having a rocking B-Day
Nice! This is great news. I'm guessing they haven't announced Bourne yet because they will have to do some serious prep work for that release (reencode, etc.). Woohoo!!!
I can't remember if I've seen U-571, but very interested in Mummy 1 + 2, 40 yr old virgin, knocked up, and american gangster.
I better be able to buy The Mummy 1 + 2 without the Scorpian King because that movie is dreadful. Only reason I own it now is because I bought the trilogy for like $20 (and had never seen it before buying it). I refuse to buy it again though.
Interested to see end of days as well, but I doubt I'll ever buy it.
Yaaaaaaaaaahoooooo. Mummy Trilogy will be mine this July to show my support and encourage
them to release more titles. Can't wait for Fast and Furious and Back to the Future and all the
rest. Make us proud Uni! As for Paramount my question is this, how you going to let Universal, a
studio that has never released a BD in their life, beat you to the punch when you have all the
equipment and means to RESUME BD PRODUCTION?!?!???
YES!!!! 40yr old virgin, knocked up, (waiting for "forgetting sarah" please be on blu!) AMERICAN GANGSTER !!!! HELLBOY!!! THE MUMMY MOVIES!!! OH YES!!!! AND I LOVE THAT UNIVERSAL ALWAYS (90%) RELEASES THE MOVIES IN FULL SCREEN HD 1:85.1
Image my surprise and elation last night when I saw this on my Google sidebar! Going to get 'The Mummy' movies for sure. Can't wait to finally see 'American Gangster'. Looking forward to an announcement for the Bourne trilogy. Hoping 'Apollo 13', 'Backdraft', 'Gladiator', 'Jurassic Park' and countless others are forthcoming.
Universal must own a secret chicken farm 'cause they've put major egg on Paramount's face!
Really great news. Although I've never been a big fan of the Mummy films, so I probably won't be getting any of those 3. American Gangster, Land of the Dead, Knocked Up and 40 Year Old Virgin sound good to me. But Dammit it would have been so sweet if Jurassic Park was their first title. That's the one I'm desperately waiting for.
I'm really hoping they release A Beautiful Mind on blu-ray. That's the one movie I really want from Universal. Casino would be nice to have in the meantime though. Get to work late bloomer!
I'm not impressed either. Their catalog titles will be huge and it's great to see them start to make progress but this is a weak start. I hope they make a splash with some real titles soon.
Wow, is it just me or is this a horrible offering announced by Universal? I haven't seen American Gangster yet, so I will reserve judgement on that...but they come out of the gate with Mummy? Pretty lame if you ask me.
And why do they have to include titles in their announcment of movies that have yet to be released in the theaters? They act like it's something special. DUH! Every movie you release in the theaters should make it to Blu-Ray from now on. There's no reason that they shouldn't and if they do, it's because your studio is behind the times.
Personally, I'm not impressed. Go back to the drawing board Universal. At the VERY least, you should give us, Evan Almighty, King Kong, Heroes Seasons 1 & 2 (I've read that you are, but why not include that in your Blu-Ray coming out announcement?), The Bourne Trilogy, Lost in Translation, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, The Game, Children of Men, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Seabiscuit, The Rundown and Cinderella Man. Then, throw in Back to the Future and the Jurrasic Park films for good measure.
Great news, and I wholeheartedly agree that these releases need to be AVC with the bitrate maxed out and PCM. Time to kick the old transfers Universal did for HD DVD to the curb!
Universal studios has made me a happy person, thanks for the look into the furture.(Hellboy II,The Incredible Hulk, Miami Vice)."NICE"!!!!! DTS-HD(MA)-(HR) OK.
Yes!! The Mummy 1&2 will be sweet on Blu Ray. What kind of birthday present will I get when mid-January rolls around? To Universal: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!! It's great to see they are finally addressing the back catalog (a little)
Will be getting Miami Vice and American Gangster, I just hope they push Blu Ray to its technological
limits and not half ass it. As for Paramount, funny how again they are left holding the bag. I hope
they fire the clowns in charge of that circus..
hey.... guess what?? all my formerly owned HD DVD titles and my wishlist for my first Universal Blu-ray titles are all in there: The Mummy and The Mummy Returns (I gave it up a few hours before warner announcement) - yes I am former HD DVD buyer also HD DVD hater at the same time, but my allegiance is still blu-ray only.
Thank you for this wonderful website that all Blu-ray fans have enjoyed and benefited from for so long, and here's hoping that the boons you brought all of us were richly redoubled in your own personal life.
Dolby True HD is no where near being inferior to LPCM or DTS-HD Master Audio. In fact they are all exactly the same in the end; they are all lossless formats, so there should be no difference in audio clarity.
It's official...Paramount better do something fast. Their chance to beat Universal to the punch has now been lost. Now Paramount is left just standing there with no titles. Universal...we welcome you with open arms...let's get to work bringing some of your great titles to Blu-Ray.
Steven Speilberg, now anyone?
Yeah, it's great news and all....but I seriously hope they get their act together in terms of putting out quality encodes. Universal has always been one of the worst studios for video transfers, and their record on HD DVD speaks for itself.
If these are ports of the HD DVD versions, I won't be buying any of them.
Except maybe Doomsday, 'cause I missed that completely in theatres.
I'm really surprised that Uni beat Paramount to the punch. Paramount is dragging this thing out with Toshiba and it's time to get the blu-gear in High-gear. Thanks Uni!
Absentabe, don’t let the Lossless name fool you, Dolby Digitals True HD audio is heavily compressed and anytime you use audio compression that changes the sound quite dramatically. DTS uses vary little compression, mostly just to bring up the midrange so you don't have trouble hearing people talk during the quite periods so the loud parts don't rip your house down. DTS is vary nice. However, uncompressed LPCM is the vary best, extremely dynamic, with unprecedented high fidelity which surpasses your CD collection. I would like to see music start to come out on Blu-ray in 24bit, 192 kHz or higher, uncompressed audio. Swweeet!
Is there any doubt that Universal and Paramount will transfer all their HD DVD’s to Blu-ray discs? They will just be HD DVD’s Copied to Blu-ray Disc’s. Mpeg 2 and VC-1 are both antiquated relics from the old DVD format which should be discontinued. Companies still using them should stop as VC 1 is exactly the same as Mpeg2 except for 1 minor change Microsoft made to make it theirs. They both have fixed bit rates which are half of the Blu-ray AVC - Mpeg4 codec. I don’t know about you but I was in the Format fight because of all Blu-ray had to offer, and no one said anything about, if Blu-ray wins, we'll just copy our HD DVD's onto Blu-ray Disc's and sell them that. If we give up now on the quality, these guy's will sell us HD DVD copied to Blu-ray Disc's if it will save them a dime and resell us the same movie again in two or three years remastered in AVC Special Editions with DTS Master HD or LPCM audio. Let's not be complete Muppets this time around. Blu-ray should impose AVC Mpeg 4 as the Standard for Blu-ray like Mpeg 2 was for DVD. Let's see if Sony was serious about quality and not just using AVC to win the format war then do what ever they want afterwards. I notice that Sony has released several movies with Dolby True HD Sound tracks which is inferior to LPCM and DTS Master HD so I'd say if we say Nothing were up the creep with out a paddle. Be patient; don't just jump because they put some good titles in front of you. That's what these guy's do to take the suckers out first. When HD DVD brought out these same titles on HD DVD I didn't just go buy a HD DVD player and in the end the better format won. The same goes here. We should hold out for quality so we don't get sucked in again. If these guy's want to sell movies in the future they will have to make new ones and not just sell us the same movies over and over again. And for heaven sakes speak up and make yourselves heard or they’ll think you don’t care. They counting on you doing nothing, so do or say something. Get involved, and have a say. That’s what this forum is for. It’s not the shopping channel, or the everything is ok as long as it’s on a Blu-ray disc club. Buy the way I was one of the guy’s that told you not to buy HD DVD, was I right?
Titles Universal released on HD-DVD that I now want on Blu-Ray...
Hot Fuzz
The Bourne Trilogy
Shawn of the Dead
Pride and Prejudice
Bruce Almighty
Evan Almighty
The Mummy Films (Oh wait...they're already announced ;-)
Titles that Universal hasn't released on either HD format,
that I would love to see released on Blu-Ray...
Back to the Future Trilogy
Jurassic Park
E.T.
Schindler's List
The Producers
The American Tail Films
The Office Seasons 1-4
30 Rock Seasons 1-2
ClaytonMG, If you think that all video encoding is the same and audio codec are the same you don't know your ass from a hat. For what reason would I bothyer to lie about Video or Audio Codecs. You need to do your home work before you make negitive comments.
Great!!
(Jurassic Park) 
Now all we got to wait for is for a Paramount announcement and were in business. Happy Birthday Josh hope you having a rocking B-Day 
