Tartan
Go High Definition in August
18
July 2007 | updated 25 July 2007
As
the nation goes on a spending spree on televisions
that are 'high definition ready' (many of which
aren't fully, of course), the wait to see what the
independent distributors might do with the format
continues. The VHS/Betamax style rivalry between
HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is not set for a winner yet,
and the major studios are either divided between
them or have opted to support both. In the US Anchor
Bay, sorry Starz Enbtertainment as they are now
mysteriously and unegmatically called, have opted
for Blue-Ray, and have promised releases of the
Masters of Horror series and the
likes of Halloween and Romero's
Living Dead films.
Giving
the Blu-Ray camp a further boost is Tartan's announcement
that they too will begin releasing titles on Blue
Ray High Definition format in August. Paul Verhoeven's
epic war story Black Book and the
50th Anniversary edition of Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece
The Seventh Seal are both set for
a 27th August release, and will be followed on 24th
September by Park Chan-wook's cult favourite Oldboy.
All three films will be making their world Blu-Ray
debuts. Tartan will also be releasing Oldboy
in the US on 23rd October 2007, their
first US Blu-Ray release.
In
an unusual though not unique move, Tartan have decided
to release all three films as 2-disc sets containing
both the Blue-Ray high definition disc and the regular
DVD, the idea being that those who have yet to upgrade
to high definition can enjoy the regular DVD but
have the Blu-Ray one to hand. I have to say I find
this logic a little fragile. If you have a regular
DVD player then the feature-packed 2-disk DVD of
Oldboy, for example, for a knock-down
price, and no extras have so far been announced
for these new releases. And if you're upgrading
later then that would be the time to buy the Blu-Ray
version of any film, hopefully when it's dropped
in price a bit. The final gripe is the price - packing
the regular and Blu-Ray discs together has pushed
the price of each up to £29.99.
We'll
be posting an article soon on the whole high definition
issue and how we intend to cover title in the future.
