Category: News (Page 47 of 53)

According to Sony president and Electronics CEO Ryoji Chubachi, Sony will offer Blu-ray Disc devices in a range of products aiming to increase the global market share of its Blu-ray Disc products from 20% to 50% by the end of 2008.

The new Blu-ray Disc devices include models integrating an LCD HDTV with Blu-ray Disc recording functionality.

Sony has relied mainly on the PlayStation 3 to gain Blu-ray popularity so launching other devices that are BD enabled should help BD gain a significant number of new users.

Via Digitimes

Disney announced today that “Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour” will feature both 2D and 3D viewing modes when it is released on Blu-ray on August 19, 2008.

Extras include “The Ultimate Personal Tour” documentary, two bonus tracks by Miley Cyrus and the ABBA classic “SOS” by the Jonas Brothers.

Jumper makes its global debut on DVD and Blu-Ray Disc on June 10th in North America and June 16th Internationally.

From Doug Liman, the director of The Bourne Identity and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and based on the best selling science-fiction novel by Steven Gould, Jumper stars Hayden Christensen as David, a young man with the ability to transport himself anywhere in the world in the blink of an eye.

Living a carefree life where anything and anywhere is possible, David’s world comes to an abrupt halt when he realizes that his gift is not as unique as he initially thought. Pursued by a secret organization sworn to kill Jumpers, David is forced to form an uneasy alliance with another young Jumper named Griffin, becoming a key player in a war that has been raging for thousands of years.

The North American Jumper Blu-ray release will be authored in BD-Java with AVC (MPEG 4 compression) on a dual-layer 50 GB disc with English 5.1 DTS HD Lossless Master Audio plus English, French and Spanish Dolby Surround and Spanish, Cantonese, Korean and Mandarin subtitles. The disc features Digital Copy plus the Blu-ray exclusive PIP Jumping Around the World.

According to Digitimes, Lite-On is developing built-in Blu-ray Disc-(BD) ROM drives for the Xbox 360. Lite-On declined to comment, citing client confidentiality.

Lite-On’s shipments of the BD ROMs will start in the second half of 2008. Lite-On is currently one of the suppliers of Xbox 360 DVD-ROM drives.

Update: Microsoft has denied this. But then again, they may not want to let the cat out of the bag just yet. So as always, should anything develop, we’ll keep you updated.

Lionsgate Home Entertainment has announced that a Blu-ray edition of Witless Protection, starring Larry the Cable Guy, will be released on June 10, day-and-date with the standard DVD release. Bonus features will include five featurettes: Making Witless: The Cast on the Cast, Larry’s Use of the Analogy, The Musicians of Witless Protection, A Cast of Critters and Die Laughing! Along with these featurettes, Witless Protection will include a blooper reel, deleted and extended scenes..

Sony announced today a Blu-ray Disc version of Broken Trail, coming out on June 10th in the USA only, as Sony doesn’t own the Canadian rights.

The disc will be presented in 1080p anamorphic widescreen, 5.1 surround sound in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Subtitles include: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, Indonesian/Bahasa, Portuguese and Spanish.

Broken Trail stars Academy Award-winner Robert Duvall and nominee Thomas Hayden Church.

Set in 1897, Print Ritter (Duvall) and his estranged nephew Tom Harte (Hayden Church) become the reluctant guardians of five abused and abandoned Chinese girls. Ritter and Harte’s attempts to care for the girls are complicated by their responsibility to deliver a herd of horses while avoiding a group of bitter rivals, intent on kidnapping the girls for their own purposes.

Madacy Entertainment and The Weather Channel will release Epic Conditions, on both DVD and Blu-ray Disc format. The Blu-ray version will be released on May 13th while the DVD version will have to wait until August 5th.

The Epic Conditions Blu-ray versions will contain 15 episodes of The Weather Channel series, running 575 minutes and presented in Widescreen. The show’s premise it to spotlight athletes testing their skills in the ideal weather conditions for their sports. As a bonus, all 10 episodes of The Weather Channel’s Weather Ventures program will be included.

Fox Home Entertainment have announced that they will release Meet the Spartans on Blu-ray Disc on Jun 3, 2008.

A spoof comedy by the team that brought you Date Movie and Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans primarily targets 300 as it follows the journey of Leonidas, the King of Sparta. When his kingdom is challenged by the powerful Xerxes, Leonidas must recruit some of his strongest soldiers; which unfortunately leaves him with 13 (not 300) of the not-so-finest.

Other characters spoofed include Ghost Rider, Transformers, Spider-Man 3 and James Bond.

The disc will be presented on a 25GB single-layer disc authored in BD-J with AVC (MPEG 4) compression with English 5.1 DTS HD Lossless Master Audio and Spanish / French Dolby Surround.

During an interview with John Latchem of Home Media Magazine,  Sofia Chang, Senior Vice President of Marketing for HBO Video confirmed that a Blu-ray version of Tom Hanks’ Band of Brothers mini-series is in the works and will be released later this year.

Band of Brothers was previously available on HD DVD so getting a Blu-ray version together shouldn’t be much work on HBO’s behalf.