New to Blu: December 8-14 (Movies & Music)

On the eve of this week’s worldwide Blu-ray release of Inception comes the news that it’s the month’s second most illegally downloaded movie.

It’s due Wednesday on a four-disc set that includes two Blu-ray discs (with the movie on one and most of the extras on the other), a DVD of the movie and a digital copy.

“One would expect this visual stunner to show up on Blu-ray looking no less than perfect, and that it has,” says Blu-rayDefinition.com.

Home Theater Forum graded the HD transfer 4.5/5 (“beautifully saturated … detail is excellent”) while AV Forums acclaimed it as “outstanding … I found it very hard to fault this presentation at all and it comes recommended as a demo-standard offering.”

But don’t expect the extras to provide definitive answers about the movie’s ending, Home Theater Forum warns.

“The special features package is solid in terms of going behind the scenes, but is disappointing for not exploring further the dream and psychological concepts presented in the film.”

Also new this week are the first in a raft of 3D Blu-rays, Step Up 3, a chance to see the serial killer sensation, Se7en, in HD, and four direct-to-Blu-ray releases: Jonah Hex, The Killing Machine, Triangle and Oxford Murders.

Blu-ray music releases range from DIO – Holy Diver Live, The Pixies: Live Acoustic/Electric and Rush: 2112/Moving Pictures to Phil Collins: Going Back – Live at The Roseland Ballroom NYC, The Moody Blues: Threshold of a Dream – Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970, The Bee Gees: In Our Own Time and Sting – Live in Berlin.