With the 2006 International CES technology show getting underway in Las Vegas, studios have announced their first titles for the next-generation home video format, Blu-ray Disc (BD), which provides five times larger capacity than today’s DVDs. Blu-ray Disc players will be fully backward compatible with current CD/DVD formats, delivering entertainment content in full high-definition (HD) quality, under a secure environment made possible through the most advanced copyright protection technology. Featuring 1920x1080p HD quality, the Blu-ray Disc ROM technology will also be included in Sony’s Playstation 3.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) (with MGM Home Entertainment) has announced 20 initial titles, including The Fifth Element, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Desperado, For a Few Dollars More, The Guns of Navarone, Hitch, House of Flying Daggers, A Knight’s Tale, Kung Fu Hustle, The Last Waltz, Legends of the Fall, Resident Evil Apocalypse, RoboCop, Sense and Sensibility, Stealth, Species, SWAT and XXX. Black Hawk Down and The Bridge on the River Kwai will also be available on 50 GB, dual-layer Blu-ray Discs Summer 2006.
Commencing Summer 2006, SPHE will begin adding bonus BD Java games, and other anticipated features, to new release titles including Underworld: Evolution that will street day-and-date with DVD. The studio announced it will also deliver four catalog titles per month beginning this Summer, accelerating to 10 titles per month by the fourth quarter 2006. Also being readied for Summer release is the complete television series of sci-fi favorite, Stargate Atlantis, in high-definition.
At Blu-ray Disc launch, Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment will release Four Brothers, Sahara, Aeon Flux, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Italian Job, Tomb Raider, U2: Rattle and Hum, Sleepy Hollow, We Were Soldiers and The Manchurian Candidate. Paramount will continue its roll out of Blu-ray titles throughout 2006 and beyond, including the highly anticipated release of Mission: Impossible: III alongside Mission: Impossible and Mission: Impossible 2. These titles will also be available for HD DVD, the format competing with Blu-ray, which the studio supports as well.
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment’s initial titles include Fantastic Four, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Behind Enemy Lines, Kiss of the Dragon and Ice Age along with others that will bring Fox’s total number of first wave releases to 20 titles.
Lionsgate will add to the mix 10 titles, including Lord of War, The Punisher, The Devil’s Rejects, Saw, T2: Judgment Day, Reservoir Dogs, Total Recall, Dune and Rambo: First Blood. The line-up will also include the upcoming feature film See No Evil.
Source: ComingSoon.net
