The first Blu-ray players appeared in the U.S. in 2006. After fighting for supremacy in the Hi-Definition market with competing technology, Blu-ray players and discs were here to stay by 2008.

One of the most anticipated early releases in the new format was David Lean’s Oscar winning 1962 masterpiece, Lawrence of Arabia, which was announced by Sony but then dropped as there appeared to be too much restoration necessary to bring the disc up to Blu-ray standards. Finally, however, Sony has made the investment and released a magnificent looking presentation of the film on Blu-ray. The entire film looks astonishing, but the film’s most iconic scenes – Omar Sharif coming out of the mirage and Peter O’Toole blowing out the match – are absolutely breathtaking.

The Blu-ray is available in two versions, a two disc set with extras including O’Toole’s remembrances and a four disc collector’s set with a coffee table book.

While Sony was backtracking on Lawrence four years ago, Fox was busy unveiling one of its own crown jewels, the Oscar winning 1970 film, Patton. The pallid look of the film on Blu-ray, however, was a major disappointment which has only been remedied now with a pristine new Blu-ray rendering of the film that is one of the year’s sharpest looking discs. The upgrade is definitely worth the effort put into it.

Screen versions of Broadway musicals were supposed to make a big comeback after the success of Chicago ten years ago, but except for Dreamgirls, most have been critical and box-office disappointments. Except for the forthcoming Les Miserables, musicals have slipped so far under the radar that few people realize one of Broadway’s best, Stephen Sondheim’s Company, was filmed and given limited release last year.

The film, which has just been released on Blu-ray and standard DVD, is actually a filmed version of a concert version that was staged a mere four times at New York’s Philharmonic Hall in April, 2011. The show, however, has been filmed in such a manner that it doesn’t seem like a concer at allt. Dances, as well as songs, are performed full out and the close-ups and medium shots of the actors as well as full shots against the minimal settings keep it moving along. You hardly know you’re watching a concert instead of a full-out production.

The actor-singers, led by Neil Patrick Harris, Patti LuPone, Jim Walton, Craig Bierko, Martha Plimpton, Stephen Colbert, Christina Hendricks, Anika Noni Rose, Katie Finneran and Aaron Lazar are all first rate. The magnificent Philharmonic doesn’t intrude on their performances, but rather enriches them. The stand-outs are LuPone’s eleventh hour powerhouse rendition of “The Ladies Who Lunch”, the best since Elaine Stritch’s original version, and Harris’ rendition of the show’s signature song, “Being Alive”. There’s also a very effective new ending to the show which is more emotionally powerful than the reprise to the title song which traditionally ends it.

Pixar’s animation is at its best in Brave. Set against the Scottish highlands, it’s the tale of a strong-willed, if unruly princess, a wild child at the center of a story about a girl who must fight a witch and endure other obstacles in order to remove the witch’s curse set upon her mother at the girl’s request. The story seems geared to little kids, but stylistically it’s brilliant, with strong voiceover acting from Kelly Macdonald, Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly and Julie Walters.

Brave is available in Blue-ray; Blu-ray 3D, standard DVD and standard DVD in Spanish.

So much for newly released in-store Blu-rays and DVDs, much of the excitement around DVD releases these days surrounds “ not-in-store” releases.

As sales have fallen in recent years, studios have come up with innovative ways to maximize their profits while delivering their product to the marketplace. None has been more successful than Warner Home Video which pioneered the movies on demand (MOD) program whereby studios or their licensees only produce enough discs that they know will actually sell through on-line orders from their websites and/or those of selected other dealers such as Amazon, Critics Choice, TCM and Movies Unlimited. Now Warner has come up with a new marketing strategy. Rather than mass produce Blu-ray discs that won’t sell, it has just begun a program whereby it will press Blu-rays in small batches based on demand. The first two releases in the program, announced just last week and set to go into effect today, are 1962’s Gypsy with Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood and 1982’s Deathtrap with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve. This is also the first widescreen release of the latter film. Next up in December will be 1993’s Fearless with Jeff Bridges and 1994’s The Hudsucker Proxy with Tim Robbins and Paul Newman.

Twilight Time, through its only sales point, Screen Archives, continues to press a limited 3,000 Blu-ray discs per release. To date, as far as I know, only 1985’s Fright Night has completely sold out. Other titles such as 1997’s As Good As It Gets and 1989’s Steel Magnolias are still available. Screen Archives is now taking pre-orders for 1973’s Lost Horizon and 1959’s Beloved Infidel.

Fox, through its Fox Connects website, has flown very much under the radar with its Kazan on Fox – Volumes One and Two sets of Blu-ray releases of films contained in its Elia Kazan Collection of just two years ago. That set, which gave us most of Kazan’s output, has already seen A Streetcar Named Desire released on Blu-ray by Warner Bros., with pending Blu-rays of On the Waterfront from Criterion and East of Eden from Warner Bros. on the horizon.

Released without fanfare, one might assume the Fox Blu-ray sets are low rent transfers that the studio wants to hide. Nothing could be further from the truth. These are excellent presentations of classic films, most of them in black-and-white. The detail on the oldest of them, 1945’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is remarkable. You can see images and hear sounds that you hardly noticed before in Kazan’s remarkable first film as director. The same quality can be seen throughout all eight films in this two set collection of four films each.

Note: several of the “not in stores” DVDs and Blu-rays such as Deathtrap; Fearless; Gypsy and Beloved Infidel are offered by Amazon as streaming rentals. New and used copies of others can often be found at Amazon, however some carry steep price tags. 1985’s Fright Night, for example, can be found there for between $200.00 and $350.00.

New DVD releases this week include Criterion’s restored Heaven’s Gate, one of the screen’s most notorious flops, and the much requested release of the 1975 French version of Zorro with Alain Delon.