Most of it is still under construction with “Coming Soon” plastered all over the place, but Universal’s new UniversalHiDef.com site promises to be a great way to learn more about their HD DVD offerings.
You can set up a free account at the site and gain access to downloads for your HD DVD player, as well as share your in-movie bookmarks. U-shop is related to a feature where you can buy products based on items highlighted in a movie. Actually, these are all things that you’ll eventually be able to do. Right now, they all fall under the “Coming Soon” category so there’s not much to report.
The parts of the site that are up and running at the moment include some minor technical support about connecting your HD DVD player to the internet, and an explanation of common error messages. There’s also a page that describes many of the “U-Control” interactive features found on Universal’s HD DVD movies.
The site is still coming together, and I’m sure it’ll be much more completed in time for showing off to Christmas shoppers. I signed up for an account, as well as to receive whatever spam they want to send my way. I usually don’t check off the “receive special offers” box when I sign up at a site, but in this case, I do want to know about whatever coolness they’ve got coming out in the months ahead.
August 31st, 2007 at 11:40 am
“New data from Home Media Research shows that Blu-ray is continuing to lead in high definition media sales. As of August 5th, the top 10 best selling high definition movies are all available on Blu-ray, and half of those exclusive to the format. Warner Brother’s ‘300′ leads the pack, followed by ‘The Departed’, ‘Casino Royale’, ‘Planet Earth’, and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’.
Noticeably absent from the list is Universal who didn’t have a title which sold enough copies break into the top 20. Paramount made it to 17th with their release of ‘Babel’, but if there wasn’t a Blu-ray version of the title, it would have fall well short making the list. All Blu-ray studios were represented in the Top 20 (including Lionsgate with their release of ‘Crank’).”
Thoughts? To me it seems as though Universal studios are having a hard time keeping up in this little war.
August 31st, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Well if Universal would start releasing there triple A titles they would be doing much better! I mean where is Jurassic Park and ET and Jaws? o ya thats right speilberg is not allowing them to release those films!!:( c’mon why does speilberg care so much… doesn’t he want all his fans to enjoy his movies? So why not let the companys that are exclusive to blu-ray with his movies release them on blu-ray and the companys exclusive to hd dvd with his movies release them also!! eather way they should release stuff like JP3 since speilberg didn’t direct that!
August 31st, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Universal’s problem falls into that bigger issue about studios having had a weak 2006 which led to lackluster sales even for regular DVDs. Universal had better box office success this summer, which means they should do better the next time these kinds of things are tallied up. As the summer ends, The Bourne Ultimatum is still in the top 5, and it’s one of those kinds of movies that’s a natural for HD. Though it’s a TV show, Heroes is also quite popular, and will no doubt boost Universal’s numbers.
A site like UniversalHiDef.com is essentially a marketing vehicle, and advertising usually only helps generate more sales.