At the Movies: What Do You Get Today?

In the meantime, studios are sticking to their corners, choosing which films to release and deciding how to encode and package them on a case-by-case basis. For many new films, studios are releasing the high-def version at the same time as the DVD.

Not all titles receive the same high-def treatment. Many, in fact, come out as high-def movies, but without high-def extra features; some have the same Dolby Digital soundtrack as found on the standard DVD.

Which technologies studios choose depends upon the movie and the rest of the video content taking up space on that disc. For example, the Blu-ray Disc version of The Phantom of the Opera provides only 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound on a 25GB disc, while the HD DVD version has 5.1-channel Dolby TrueHD audio on a 30GB disc.

Some audio trends I've observed across the releases: Uncompressed Linear PCM audio is showing up exclusively, and frequently, on Blu-ray titles from multiple studios, while Dolby's lossless codec, TrueHD, has flourished on HD DVD titles, specifically those from Warner. And only Fox has been using DTS-HD Master Audio.

Just a handful of the nearly 200 titles out on each format take advantage of Blu-ray and HD DVD's interactive capabilities.

HD DVD discs are currently more interesting in their innovation--in part because, per the HD DVD format specification, all HD DVD players must meet the minimum hardware requirement to handle interactivity. Universal's The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, King Kong, and Miami Vice, and Paramount's Mission: Impossible III, are just a few of the films offering picture-in-picture commentaries that you can turn on and off at will during the movie. Tokyo Drift also has a nifty GPS overlay, so you can see where you are in Tokyo at any point in the movie, and another neat gimmick lets you change the colors on a car in the film.

For Blu-ray currently, the extras are less far-reaching--as much a function of the limitations of Blu-ray hardware and Blu-ray's Java-based disc-authoring tools as it is a function of what studios have done so far. For example, the Blu-ray version of Mission:Impossible III, released last fall, lacks the picture-in-picture commentary found on the HD DVD.

Newer Blu-ray titles are doing more interesting things, though. Crank and horror flick The Descent, both from Lionsgate, feature a static picture-in-picture commentary (choose this option, and it runs the entire length of the film, unlike the on-demand picture-in-picture options with HD DVD movies). Fox's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen has a game that lets you shoot characters on-screen as the movie plays--slightly entertaining, and vastly superior to the so-called interactive experience of the limited games on current DVDs. And Disney's upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest will have the game "Liar's Dice," which uses live-action high-def video.

Looking Ahead

The next months, and even 2008, should be interesting. The format struggle isn't resolved yet, and if any of the players in this game makes an unexpected strategic move, it could affect the balance of power.

Meanwhile, I'm still watching the war from the sidelines. And I'm torn: Viacom has announced the release of the Star Trek series later this year only on HD DVD. Yet I want my Bond (Casino Royale, Blu-ray only) and Captain Jack Sparrow (Pirates, Blu-ray only) too.

Melissa J. Perenson wants to see her movies her way. Write her at burningquestions@pcworld.com.