We are certainly a bit shocked by the huge list of new titles listed at Amazon today, most of them from small distributors, and many are budget titles from Blu-ray Only.

First up though, Married Life has been freshly listed by Columbia/Tri-Star, scheduled for a September 2nd, 2008 release. This movie features Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper and Rachel McAdams. Retail is set at $38.96, pre-order at Amazon for only $26.95.

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There were quite a number of interesting releases on Blu-ray Disc today.

The miniseries Broken Trail was released by Sony at the catalog title pricing, complete with Dolby TrueHD on a BD50 disc. Sony also released The Other Boleyn Girl, again on a BD50 with True HD audio. Lastly from Sony - The Professionals was released with a PCM soundtrack, this time on a BD25 disc.

Image Entertainment released Heart: Alive in Seattle with DTS-HD Master Audio.

Fox released Jumper with DTS Master Audio and a Bonus View Picture in Picture feature.

Warner released Natural Born Killers in the special book packaging on a BD50 Disc with Dolby TrueHD audio - sadly this one carries the premium price tag.

Warner also released The Bucket List - this one didn’t fare so well with only a BD25 disc and Dolby Digital audio - of course the premium pricing for a new release remains. This movie made almost $100M at the box office and stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman - you would think it deserves better than Dolby Digital audio. Warner needs to know that this level of support is not acceptable!

Magnolia released The Signal - not much info on this one other than it is coded for all regions.

Lions Gate released Witless Protection with 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio on a BD50 disc - sounds like a winning presentation (Warner, pay attention) though perhaps this disc has limited appeal to anyone other than Larry the Cable Guy fans - with a 1.7 at IMDb and 0% at Rotten Tomatoes, it sounds a little dire.

Mantra has released Girls Gone Wild: Hottest Moments Ever, adding to their seemingly never ending supply for this series.

Lastly, Amazon has added a special Blu-ray 12-pack , perhaps to make it easier for that instant collection if you are just starting out. It seems like a pretty decent selection of titles, though it wouldn’t take many that you don’t want to make it a false economy…

Today Oliver Stone fans can rejoice - Lions Gate Home Entertainment has The Doors coming to Blu-ray on August 12th, 2008. Retail for the Jim Morrison biopic featuring Val Kilmer and Meg Ryan has been set at $29.99, bargain hunters will find it at Amazon for only $20.95. I am personally looking forward to this one!

In the horror genre, Shutter will be released by Fox Home Entertainment on July 15th, 2008. Retail will be $39.98, the Amazon price - only $27.95.

Lastly, Image Entertainment has The Secret coming to Blu-ray on August 12th, 2008. This film featuring David Duchovny and Lili Taylor was a French production though it is in English. The retail price is $35.98, you can pre-order it at Amazon for only $24.95.

Yet more titles added today. We are certainly seeing a nice slate of titles coming. If you check the upcoming titles, you can see that there are at least 8 titles every Tuesday in May.

Bargain hunters will also note that Short Circuit is at the nice price of $10.95 right now - 45% off the retail price.

Back to the new stuff. Roy Orbison: A Black and White Night has been freshly listed by Image Entertainment, scheduled for a July 8th, 2008 release. This title was previously HD DVD exclusive from Image Entertainment, so they are slowly but surely moving their music catalogue to Blu-ray. Retail will be $24.98, the Amazon price - only $16.95.

A second catch up title is The Moody Blues: Lovely to See You: Live which will also be released by Image Entertainment on July 8th. Retail will be $24.98, only $16.95 at Amazon.

PorchLight Home Entertainment has announced Animalia: Welcome to the Kingdom for Blu-ray on September 23th, 2008. Not sure exactly what this is but the retail price will be $29.98, pre-order at Amazon for $19.95.

With the latest Nielsen VideoScan First Alert Data for the week ending April 20 we see that Blu-ray Disc has over 90% of the HD Media market share for the first time.

Blu-ray also gained a point against DVD selling 6 percent versus DVD at 94 percent when comparing the top 20 titles for each format.

With the 91:9 market share ratio against HD DVD, Blu-ray also gained a point in the Since Inception market share, reaching 68% of the overall sold share.

Aliens and Predators dominated the top 10 titles, with Aliens vs Predator - Requiem taking the top spot, the new catalog release Predator at number 4 and the twin pack of Alien vs. Predator/Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem at number 5. A good week for Fox, who also had Juno at number 2, selling almost 82% of AVPR’s numbers.

Image Entertainment also did well with Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead at number 8 and also notable is the continued appearance of Over America In High Definition holding the number 7 position.

The top 10 was rounded out by recent releases I Am Legend, No Country for Old Men, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and the hot selling catalog title 300.

With the recent release of an internal DTS Master Audio decoder included in the latest Playstation 3 firmware release, you might be wondering what titles are around that feature this lossless codec.

Look no further! After some tweaking of the Audio field filtering on the Blu-ray Statistics page, you can now easily get a list of some 85 DTS Master Audio titles - just by clicking this link. Studios such as Fox, MGM, New Line, Lionsgate and Magnolia have released DTS Master Audio discs - and even Sony with the release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind - no doubt at Steven Speilberg’s request… or insistence? Distributors Image Entertainment, Tartan and Koch have also used the codec.

Image Entertainment is playing catch up today with a couple of concert releases. The first is Chicago & Earth, Wind & Fire- Live at the Greek, which is to be released Jun 10th, 2008. This title was released on HD DVD back in late 2006, and it is good to see Image bringing their Blu-ray catalog up to date. The retail price is set at $24.98, while Amazon lists it for pre-order at $16.95

Image Entertainment is also releasing Heart: Alive in Seattle [Blu-ray] on Jun 10th. Again this title was released on HD DVD December 2006. The retail price is $24.98 and at Amazon for $16.95

Platinum Disc has a couple of new budget releases coming. Firstly an underground colony of alien-insect-like creatures are harvesting human bodies in San Francisco in the movie Final Days of Planet Earth starring Daryl Hannah. Secondly there is the TV version of the Poseidon Adventure featuring Rutger Hauer and Steve Guttenberg. Both will released June 3rd, 2008, with list set at $13.98 and only $8.95 at Amazon.

Warner Home Video will release the Horror title One Missed Call on Apr 22nd, 2008. Retail is $35.99, at Amazon for $24.95

Discovery Channel is releasing Fearless Planet on Jun 3rd, 2008 through Image Entertainment. The two disc set will include Grand Canyon, Earth Story, Great Barrier Reef, Sahara Desert, Hawaii, Alaska. The retail is $34.98, or at Amazon for $23.95.

Also from Warner Home Video, P.S. I Love You will be released on May 6th, 2008 with MSRP set at $35.99. This romantic comedy stars Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby) and Gerard Butler (300) and will feature Deleted Scenes, 2 Featurettes and a Music Video by James Blunt. Pre-order at Amazon for $24.95

I am currently in Japan so I apologize for the summary posts this week. Assuming I get a chance to look around I hope to post some first hand impressions of the Blu-ray retail scene here later in the week.

It appears that Dirty Harry will be one of the ‘book-like’ Blu-ray releases from Warner, based on the artwork presented on the Amazon page. Personally I am very excited about the Dirty Harry releases, though I will most likely go for the Box Set.

In new release news we see Sony announcing Anger Management (already up for pre-order at Amazon) and Image Entertainment announced the Discovery Channel series Fearless Planet and Mariah Carey’s The Adventures of Mimi which has been available for pre-order for a while now.

We read a number of new release reports at High Def Digest today.

For Father’s Day, Fox is presenting a trio of war-themed releases - Patton, The Sand Pebbles and The Longest Day are expected with AVC encoded 1080p image and DTS Master Audio soundtracks.

Image Entertainment is releasing cult favourite Short Circuit in May, which also sports 1080p video and DTS Master Audio 5.1 Surround soundtrack.

Lastly there are details for the Sony release The 6th Day, scheduled for April. Supplements include a 9-part documentary “On the 6th Day…”, the Showtime special “The Future is Coming,” a set of storyboard comparisons and animatics, and a “RePet” mock infomercial and TV spot.