The specs have been released for Knocked Up and 40 Year Old Virgin on Blu-ray Disc, and as far as I am concerned the news is all good. Just like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, these two titles (which will be released in a box set along with Forgetting Sarah Marshall) will both feature the Unrated and Theatrical Versions of the films.

I was hoping this would be a trend and it looks like it just might be.

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Universal Studios, once the top backer of the HD DVD format, will soon release all its new videos on Blu-ray Disc Day and Date with standard DVDs. The studio is set to announce Thursday that the program will kick off in the summer with the recent box office flop Doomsday.

Universal’s Blu-ray strategy includes plans to release about 40 titles in the second half of the year. Among them are the studio’s big feature films of the summer including The Incredible Hulk with Edward Norton, Wanted - an action thriller starring Angelina Jolie, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Mamma Mia, and the sequel The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, with Brendan Fraser and Jet Li.

Universal will officially enter the Blu-ray market July 22 with films from its Mummy action-adventure franchise: The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, both starring Fraser, and the spinoff The Scorpion King with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Also planned for domestic Blu-ray before the year is up are the catalog titles American Gangster, Knocked Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Miami Vice, End of Days, U-571 and Land of the Dead, among others.

Looking forward to some of that Universal Blu-ness!

Update: The newswire press release is more detailed and includes Heroes Season 2 in August. Rumour has it that Gladiator will be released for non-US territories also.

We read at The Hollywood Reporter that Lionsgate is taking aim at the art house market. The studio is planning a spring launch of the Meridian Collection, a new branded label for groundbreaking films from around the world. Lionsgate plans to release two high-end DVDs every three months drawing from its own library, which includes more than 2,000 European films from Studio Canal.

“Because of our relationship with Studio Canal and looking at our own library, we thought there was an opportunity to present discerning consumers with these acclaimed and influential films,” said Anne Parducci, executive vp marketing at Lionsgate. The new label launches June 3 with the release of Diva and The Red Violin, both from France.

While there is no mention of Blu-ray in the article, I am seriously crossing my fingers and hoping. Diva is definitely one of my favourite films of all time, and I would kill for this title on Blu-ray. I hope that the success of No Country for Old Men on Blu-ray will help Lionsgate realise that many of the early adopters of HD Media have a strong interest in art house style movies.

Inecom Entertainment are set to release the latest in their Minutes of History series, Westinghouse, to Blu-ray Disc later this year. Westinghouse, a high definition documentary film about the life and times of George Westinghouse, is due on DVD April 8th - however Amazon has now added pre-order for the Blu-ray version on September 9th 2008.

George Westinghouse is considered America’s greatest industrialist and the only man who would go up against Thomas Edison, and win.

It is great to see even more niche content headed for Blu-ray Disc!

Phoenix Entertainment Group and their horror niche label Under the Bed Films are planning to release Blu-ray Disc titles.

On the Pheonix Entertainment Group website we see that they plan to release Paintball The Movie: Court Jesters on DVD and Blu-Ray on May 6, 2008.

Winner of Best Picture, Best Drama and Best Supporting Actor at the Action On Film Festival, Paintball The Movie: Court Jesters is inspired by the true story of a teenage boy from a broken home, who manages to find direction in the form of a paintball team.

Also of note, Under the Bed Films title Naked Beneath the Water is available on pre-order at Amazon, with a release date set for March 25th.

This title was theoretically already released on HD DVD on March 4th, though Amazon lists this item as ‘Currently unavailable’.

We see new information on a few releases at High Def Digest today.

Sony announced that Steep will feature 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 video and English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround audio (48kHz/24-bit). Extras include an audio commentary and Q&A with director Mark Obenhaus and skiers Ingrid Backstrom and Andrew McLean, two photo montages, and an interview with the late Doug Coombs. The street date for the Blu-ray edition is now March 25th.

From New Line we get a Day and Date with DVD release of The Orphanage. The disc features original Spanish language audio in DTS-HD Lossless Master Audio 7.1 Surround, along with English and Spanish subtitles. Extras include a suite of four featurettes (”When Laura Grew Up: Constructing The Orphanage,” “Horror in the Unknown: Make-Up,” “Rehearsal Studio,” “About the Filmmakers”), a still gallery and theatrical trailers.

Tai Seng canceled the HD DVD release of Dragon Tiger Gate, and announced that it will instead issue the title on Blu-ray May 27th with a retail of $29.95. The BD-50 dual-layer release will feature a Cantonese 7.1 Surround track, additional English and Mandarin 5.1 mixes, and 1080p video. Supplements include an audio commentary with the filmmakers, a “making of” documentary, eight additional featurettes, deleted scenes, a still gallery, and domestic and international theatrical trailers.

Blue Underground have announced on their website that a number of high definition Blu-ray ^TM releases are in the works.

Blue Underground have quite a range of cult and foreign movies in their library - it is great to see another small distributor joining the Blu-ray camp.

Sony has announced new details for the Dogma release on Blu-ray Disc. Kevin Smith’s (Clerks, Chasing Amy) edgy comic fantasy about two fallen angels seeking re-entry to Heaven is brought back to life in this high-definition Blu-ray Disc™ edition with bonus features including 100 minutes of deleted scenes, cast and crew commentaries, and much more. Dogma is scheduled for March 11, 2008 with an SRP of $28.95.

Blu-ray Disc™ Special Features:

• Cast and Crew Commentary - Commentary by Director Kevin Smith, Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, Jason Mewes, Producer Scott Mosier and Vincent Pereira
• Technical Commentary - Commentary by Director Kevin Smith, Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, Jason Mewes, Producer Scott Mosier and Vincent Pereira
• 100 minutes of Deleted Scenes
• Blooper Reel
• Jay and Bob’s Secret Stash Commercial - Commercial for Jay and Bob’s online website and store called “Secret Stash” on www.viewaskew.com
• Story Boards - Complete set of storyboards from 3 major scenes: Mooby Sequence, Triplet Attack Sequence, and No Man Attack Sequence.

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Apparently removing any doubt of compensation paid from Toshiba to DreamWorks Animation (and we might assume Paramount also), Jeffrey Katzenberg said that DreamWorks is waiting for word from Toshiba before moving forward with Blu-ray

“We have a partnership with Toshiba and have an obligation to see this through,” DreamWorks Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg said on Tuesday.

“As you know, we have been well-compensated for our support. It really is in their court at this point to really declare what the next step will be. We’re poised either way to jump into the marketplace when the conditions are right to do so,” he said

DreamWorks plans to release the DVD version of “Bee Movie” next month and is waiting to hear back from Toshiba on how to proceed. “We said, we have a release coming up on ‘Bee Movie.’ What would you like us to do?,” Katzenberg told Reuters in an interview.

JP Morgan analyst Barton Crockett said he expected DreamWorks would like to have the issue settled by the 2008 holiday season.

Via Format War Central

Today we made a large Region Code update to the main database. Now we have Region code information for almost 90% of the US domestic releases. With any luck we will manage to keep it somewhat maintained at this level.

Interestingly enough we get a better indication of the percentages for Region Coding. We see that roughly 2/3 of the titles are coded for all regions, though the different studios have different approaches to Region Codes.

Warner as well as Paramount / Dreamworks are all region free. Sony has 2/3 of their titles coded for all regions, Lionsgate is closer to 60% unrestricted releases. Disney only has 1/3 of titles region free and Fox is the Region Coding king with no discs coded for all regions in the USA. It should be noted however that some Fox titles in other regions are not restricted. The general policy for Sony, Disney and Lionsgate appears to be that day and date releases are region coded where catalog releases are not.

While New Line falls under the Warner umbrella, only one of their titles is coded all regions, which coincidentally is the one title that was released on HD DVD before New Line ceased HD DVD support. With their DTS Master Audio usage, you have to wonder if New Line is in fact Fox in disguise!

It will be interesting to see what Universal does when they release Blu-ray titles. We will be sure to report any apparent change in Region Code policy we see it moving forward.

Please feel free to provide region code information for titles in this thread on the forum.