bda
Latest
BDA wants you to "Experience Blu" with new ad campaign
Now that the PlayStation 3 has launched in North America several members of the Blu-ray Disc Association (Twentieth Century Fox, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Sony and Warner Bros.) are pushing the "Experience Blu" ad campaign via print, online and television. The TV ads will be in high-def and only on Discovery HD, INHD and HDNet. HD DVD has been pushing "The Look and Sound of Perfect" with a bus tour, but according to Adweek the $150 million campaign is holding off on TV ads until next year when more players and titles are on the market. The HD DVD group recently announced it has shipped more than 1.5 million discs to market, but Blu-ray hopes to take the lead in installed base this holiday season and never look back. The creative director of the Blu-ray campaign thinks right-brain / left-brain attacks will sell the format but we see it as far more simple. While a roving HD DVD mobile experience is great, more HD ads on our TV compell us to watch any and everything (since its HD) without ever leaving the couch. Take a look at the various iterations of the marketing campaign below.Read - TV advertisement (warning: sound)Read - Print adRead - Online advertisementRead - AdweekRead - Blu-ray Disc Gets in Front of Target Market with Launch of High-Definition TV Advertising
MGM announces 4th-quarter Blu-ray releases
MGM, now under the arm of Fox and not Sony -- although they are following Sony and releasing these discs with MPEG-2 instead of MPEG-4 AVC -- has announced their next two waves of Blu-ray releases, also targeted towards early adopters and Playstation 3 owners. Usual Supects (day-and-date with the special edition DVD) and Windtalkers are slated for November 28, followed by Rocky (day-and-date with the special edition DVD) and Bulletproof Monk. What they do share with Fox's 8 movie releases is a $39.98 MSRP, which we should remind you is higher than we expect the discs to actually retail for but in this case, more than we expect due to their being catalog releases without exclusive features to speak of. They are all HDMV mastered with DTS HD Master Lossless soundtracks and "pop-up" menus. The BDA wasn't joking when they said they would have big announcements today, they are keying their strategy this fall around the Playstation 3 but we'll be happy if they can provide the quality movies we've been waiting for from Blu-ray.
Blu-ray camp pumps up release list in Japan
In advance of their press conference tomorrow at the IFA in Berlin, the Blu-ray Disc Association was showing off their wares in Japan. They're promising 75 Blu-ray titles by year end, a few dual layer 50GB discs, the debut of h.264, you know the drill. Interestingly, the Japanese will be getting Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl this year while Disney's Buena Vista leaves the US with Paul Walker. They had a real Playstation 3 in attendance playing back high bit-rate encoded Blu-ray discs, although all we've seen is pics of the very PS2-reminiscent menu. Also on hand were other companies releasing Blu-ray products soon, mostly showing the same preview units we've seen since CES. Basically the theme was all is well, Blu-ray is on track, PS3, dual-layer and BD-J are coming, stay the course.Read - PS3 BD-ROM Playback Demonstration - ImpressRead - Blu-ray camp to offer 75 software titles in Japan - ReutersRead - Blu-ray disc simultaneous announcement - Impress
Blu-ray Disc Association press conference on August 31 at IFA
The Blu-ray Disc Association just dropped us a note concerning their August 31 press event at the IFA Conference. While we don't have any exact details, we do know what is going to be talked about and the part the interests us the most is the key partner announcement. Fox is planning to announce its release titles, but that is to be expected as this is the first major BDA event in a while and Fox has been tight-lipped up until now. PS3 and Blu-ray format update news should be interesting too but we just wonder what "key partner announcement" means? Your thoughts.
