Universal's BD-59 Blu-ray / DVD flip discs to debut on Bourne trilogy releases
By Richard Lawler 
posted December 1st 2009 2:22PM
posted December 1st 2009 2:22PM
Once upon a time Universal was the hybrid disc king, with plans to release up to 90% of its 2007 HD DVD titles on the dual sided discs, but we know how that ended. Now the company is back to its old tricks, ready to ship the first BD-59 discs with a 50GB Blu-ray / 9GB DVD configuration promising movie and all available special features in whichever format is desired. The expensive answer to a question no one was asking or the perfect way to add future proofing and extended compatibility to new movie purchases? We'll know more once a price is announced for the Jason Bourne trilogy of movies -- seeing their first individual Blu-ray releases -- due on January 19.
epicness just got a blu-ray player on clearance for $85
Welcome to 2007, Blu-ray.
@UnnDunn Welcome to 2009, HD-DVD.....oh wait.....
This should not cost a penny more than a BluRay disc. Manufacturing costs are a tiny portion of the cost of movies; Universal should be happy to eat the small added cost of a dual-format disc in return for more customers.
... but they won't.
In a red box? Really?
@buckaroo
No. Not really.
@buckaroo
The box is red to indicate that this feature was available YEARS ago when HD-DVD first did it.
Once again, Bluray was not ready for prime time, and Sony paid studios a ton of money to support their underdeveloped platform.
No matter though. Even though Sony won the battle, they lots the war, since we'll all be streaming instead of buying discs. Bluray will NEVER attain the success of DVD.
@(Unverified) Really? Still butt-hurt?
Accept it and get over yourself. The best technology rarely ever gets accepted, it's just a fact of life.
ahha I still have my Xbox 360 HD DVD drive add on... I repackaged it and made sure it was in mint condition in the hopes of it becoming a rare artifact one day.
Have they learned nothing from the DVD-18 fiasco? People hate dual-sided discs. They'd be better off just giving us a Blu-Ray disc and a DVD.
Already got the SD DVD collection, and I'm still holding out on bluray...
Good idea, but why not do what Monsters vs Aliens did and put a regular DVD in the Blu-ray package? I paid the extra few bucks so I could have the blu-ray when I finally get a player.
Waiting for $2 Black Friday Blu-ray movies...
Prices are settling down. Walmart has Star Trek for the same price on either DVD or Blu-ray, and Transformers: RotF: Walmart-exclusive Big Screen Edition (with IMAX footage) is actually a dollar less on BD than DVD.
Walmart has Transformers (2007) on DVD for $9, BD for $18.86, and HD-DVD for $34.86...
That's silly- if I can play Blu-ray what possible need do I have for a DVD? And I hate two sided discs because it's nearly impossible to see what movie it is without squinting at the tiny label.
@(Unverified) What possible need? Do you ONLY have BD players in your home? I don't. This option is more versatile. I can use the BD side in my living room and the DVD side in the car for the kids or in their bedrooms.
@(Unverified)
As people have said above, you may have BD in your entertainment center, but you may have DVD in the bedroom/kitchen/car/hotel. Particularly for those movies you really like and want to see over and over again. Or that you pick up on vacation and want to watch again in HD when you get home. (Or that the kids want to see over and over again, like the Disney movies. And over and over and over and over and over...)
@(Unverified)
I agree this is stupid, bluray is getting established now, its not like it's something from the future in 2050! dvd is obsolete and digital versions of content are better placed to fill the dvd gap.
@hardluckstories:
"DVD is obsolete"
Tell that to everyone who buys DVDs. DVD is obsolete is exactly the same reason DVD sells more than Blu ray....
I've got a lot of the DVD double-format, double-sided discs, and I dislike them for one reason -
I can't tell which side is which.
The sides are just labeled "widescreen" and "fullscreen".
Is the label side supposed to be up, or does the label indicate the side with the specified content? Or put another way, if the label says "widescreen", do I insert the disc with that label up or so that the player reads the so-labeled side? Is the label intended for smart people (who know which side of the disc is read by the player) or stupid people (who think the label needs to be face-up)?
The problem could be resolved if the label said something like:
This side up for Widescreen
Turn disc over for Fullscreen
They could even write these on the normally-recorded surface, rather than microscopic text in the hub. It's not like they're giving us four full hours of content on each side anyway.
While they would rather not, due to fear of lost sales, I prefer separate discs. Want both SD and HD, so you can play whichever is best in the situation? If you're keeping them in the cases, you already have them together. If you're using a separate case, binder or whatever, two discs will generally fit in a single sleeve. I do TV shows (for my church), and if I have to make two different versions, I just stick them together in the same binder sleeve; it works fine as long as the one on the other side of the page doesn't also have two discs.
@Michael Pollard
There's no rocket science involved. Label faces up, just like any other disc.
i hate double sided disks. i always manage to mess up the side that faces up. i would rather just have a blu-ray than a blu-ray with a dvd. i think if someone pays to get the blu-ray they don't really need a dvd copy
@shryx86
agreed, dvd is so 2008
@shryx86 I couldn't agree more, they could easily release multiple DVD moves on blue ray.
Crappy idea IMO. Just include a copy of the DVD and done... or not.
I do like getting a DVD copy, but mainly for kids movies that I can play the DVD in another room, or in the car. For non-kid movies, I am plenty happy with just the BD.
Yay - 59 Gigabytes of shaky-cam (tm).
I own Bourne Identity on VHS, DVD, HD-DVD, and soon Blue Ray.
Funny that I like the rest of the series but only own the first in the series....
This is as pointless as it was when HD DVD did it. If you're after the DVD edition, why would you want to pay a premium for a BD copy? And if you have BD player, why do you care about a DVD copy? I suppose there might be edge cases where someone wants to play a disc on a BD and a DVD player, or who owns DVD but is considering moving to BD, but they are edge cases. For everyone else it offers no value proposition.
This is fine for the people who want it...
But what about the people who just want a high quality blu-ray disc without any extra crap, digital garbage, or dvd bullshit? Just give me a high quality movie on blu-ray and don't charge me 2 arms and a leg for it.
@ack154
totally agree with that sentiment
Noooooooooooooooooooooo... not the flip discs. Ugh. Do they really need to do this to save a few pennies? Seriously it's more irritating to have to flip it than include another one. What if I want to watch the blu-ray inside and the dvd in the vehicle? Now I gotta take it back and forth.
Think of the shelf space they could save if ALL DVDs came with Blu-Ray on the flip side.
I hated the dual-sided discs on HD-DVD and was glad to see them go. I can't believe they are going to bring them back on Blu-Ray.
It'll just give them another excuse to keep the prices high on the discs.
I see it as a way to kill off cheap DVD sales rather than bring down the price of blu-ray discs (not that I am for killing them off).
That's all well and good, but can Netflix stop charging me $4 for Blu-Ray access now.
@MAAD0320
If you're getting charged $4, you're getting ripped. I'm paying $2... but that's for a 2 at a time, unlimited plan - so maybe it varies by plan?
@ack154 Yea it does. I've got the 3 at a time plan. Still.. with this.. eventually it should be a non issue seeing as they might end up not having movies until a month after its release on disc
Just what everyone wants! More damn flipper discs!
Oh geeeeeez, not this again. Nothing but trouble with it on Hd-dvd, and why don't they just include a separate DVD in the set? I want my movie label on the disc not a dvd version thanks.
This is silly and unnecessary. And for people who keep their movies in binders instead of in the original cases, this will be annoying as hell (say goodbye to disc art that helps you identify what's on each disc, say hello to squinting at the inner ring of each disc to see not only what's on the disc, but whether you're putting the right side in to enjoy the HD goodness).
Universal, if anything, needs to adopt the hybrid format that was proposed a few years ago (where they had a single layer DVD and a dual layer BD on the same side of a disc). That would at least be less intrusive and annoying (even if it is still unnecessary)..
I'm a huge fan of the Bourne trilogy. This is cool.
If it wasn't for copy protection one could legally burn there own copy from the DVD by simply compressing and burning just the movie from the BD disc to whatever size DVD they want. If this were the case the industry could just stop making DVD's all together and move the masses on to the next best technology which apparently is BD.
The reason I don't have a blu-ray player: movies are too expensive. This is not going to make movies cheaper, and therefore this will not make me buy blu-ray movies. I will still keep buying DVDs.