HD DVD in France - Studio Canal's titles and release date
11-08-2006 18:32 | 11585 views | David Mackenzie | Show Backlinks
French DVD news site Ecranlarge.com has managed to snag some exclusive box-art pictures of the first European HD DVD releases from Studio Canal. The original French article - before it was seemingly removed - showed box art for several HD DVD movies due out in France on November 20th, 2006. Each of these titles will end up costing around €29,99 (£20 UK) including French sales tax.
It's unknown whether the UK will also see this same selection of titles on the same November 20th release date, but that will perhaps become clearer in the coming month when Toshiba announce their European market plans at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin.
As well as giving UK customers a taste of HD video discs, British releases would be especially appealing to American HD DVD owners looking to add more titles to their collection - not only to avoid language barriers, but also because the word is that these titles are being mastered in the worldwide-friendly 1080p/24 format. This is good news for both US owners and UK customers who have imported the first US players, because it means that they should playable on American hardware, as there is currently no regional lockout mechanism in place for the format.
What's also interesting is that the list of upcoming titles contains at least one film (with possibly more) that, in the USA, will end up being exclusive to the rival Blu-ray format. Terminator 2 is one such title, and it will certainly be interesting to compare the image quality from the European HD DVD to the American Blu-ray disc.
Here's the (reproduced) list of titles due on November 20:
- Basic Instinct
- Elephant Man
- Fog (John Carpenter version)
- King Kong (1976)
- La Haine (known in the USA as "Hate")
- The Pianist
- Rambo
- Rambo II
- Rambo III
- Total Recall
Ecranlarge also reports on the next batch of Studio Canal titles, due to be released in the months after:
- Ali
- Arizona Dream
- L'Armée des ombres (English title: "The Shadow Army")
- Le Cercle rouge ("The Red Circle")
- La Cité des enfants perdus ("The City of Lost Children")
- La Grande vadrouille ("Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At")
- Le Lauréat ("The Graduate")
- Million Dollar Baby
- Mulholland Drive
- Nous étions soldats ("We Were Soldiers")
- Le Pacte des loups ("Brotherhood of the Wolf")
- Ran
- Serpico
- Stargate
- Terminator 2
- Traffic
- Les Trois jours du condor ("The Three Days of the Condor")
- Voyage au bout de l'enfer ("Deer Hunter")
DVDTimes will keep you posted with any announcements regarding future UK HD DVD releases.
Comments
Member
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Studio Canal has confirmed that these titles will be mastered in the worldwide-friendly 1080p/24 format.
This is excellent news!
And there are some superb titles in that list - La Haine, L'Armée des ombres, Le Cercle rouge, La Cité des enfants perdus, Mulholland Drive, Ran, Brotherhood of the Wolf :) . Every one a winner.
Hope they'll have extensive subtitle options - it would be great if HD DVD was less "localised" than DVD. Surely that's the sensible thing to do.
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"King Kong (1976)" is a really odd choice. Was it a big hit in France?
To be able to compare Terminator 2 on HD DVD to Bluray will certainly be interesting and especially so when one is from a French studio who always take lots of pride in the product. I believe the Bluray T2 is only the SE!
This is assuming forced French subs don't make there way to HD Movies that is???
And there are some superb titles in that list - La Haine, L'Armée des ombres, Le Cercle rouge, La Cité des enfants perdus, Mulholland Drive, Ran, Brotherhood of the Wolf. Every one a winner.
Agreed some cracking titles. The sort of titles the USA studios should frankly be concentrating on!
You can see the box art for yourself at Ecranlarge.com, but for now
This now just loads the main page :confused:
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As for the box art - it's been pulled. Strange...
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Originally Posted by David Mackenzie:
I doubt there would be forced French subtitles
Why do you say that? It' still a common thing for French DVDs.
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Carlito Brigante
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On a related note, we need an Army of Shadows DVD with English subs. None exist yet.
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Originally Posted by David Mackenzie:
You could be right then, but my feeling was that Studio Canal would create one disc and sell it all across Europe. So playing it back on an English language player would theoretically give you no forced subs (on an English film, that is).
I agree, it would be sensible to start off the new format with the same disc for the whole of Europe, since there shouldn't be any problems with disc space or anything. I'm naively assuming that's what they're going to do.
But thinking about it, there may be some kind of legal requirement in France for non-French-language films to have forced French subs(?), like the Canadian requirement for all DVDs with a French dub to have French or bilingual packaging.
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there may be some kind of legal requirement in France for non-French-language films to have forced French subs(?)
No, definitely not. It's only used when the studios want to indulge in a spot of backdoor region coding.
Canal own Optimum, but it didn't stop them from adding forced subs to the Optimum release of the Canal-owned film La Haine. So I'd expect this to continue into HD DVD.
Hope I'm 100% wrong, though. :D
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Originally Posted by David Mackenzie:
You could be right then, but my feeling was that Studio Canal would create one disc and sell it all across Europe.
In theory you'd think so but many of those listed above at least on DVD have Forced subs.
Mullholland Drive definitely does. AFAIK they not into using the same disc so it's not an issue for them.
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& it's the 152min version :D
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