HD DVD Goes Interactive

[Paulo Teixeira]

http://www.tvpredictions.com/hddvd063007.htm
You know what would make this even better is to have scenes that were never used in the final film so you can basically edit them in to see how it would have looked.

[Harrison Murchison]

Nice..I love any kind of creative use of interactivity. Those who want to "just view the movie" can do so but the more curious can jump in.

Here's some interesting news

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm..._amazon02.html

Amazon.com will begin selling high-definition independent films in the HD DVD format through its on-demand DVD printing service, the company said late Sunday.

The Seattle online retailer said it will waive processing fees for the first 1,000 films it accepts for production by its CustomFlix Labs subsidiary.

Microsoft will supply the VC1 high-def video-encoding software and the HDi program used to package the film and extra features on the disk.

Amir Majidimehr, Microsoft corporate vice president for the consumer media technology group, said 90 percent of high-definition DVDs use Microsoft's encoding and interactive programs, and that Amazon's support could help extend the format's reach.

With CustomFlix, when a customer buys a movie, an automated process copies the film onto a disk and assembles the packaging on the spot.

Amazon gave no number of customers who have used CustomFlix to buy on-demand DVDs, or said how much such a DVD might cost.

Amazon said it will offer Sundance Channel's "Big Ideas for a Small Planet" series via the on-demand service.

The Web retailer currently has more than 300 HD DVD titles for sale, and more than 400 that use the rival Blu-ray DVD format championed by Sony.

The two formats have been duking it out since last year. Blu-ray and HD DVD formats are incompatible, and neither type of disk can play on a regular DVD player.

Sweet deal. I'm looking at enjoying A LOT more indie films.