HD-DVD News from CES

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I watched the Bill Gates keynote at CES tonight (via the web, I'm not in Vegas or anything) and it included a demo and hot news about HD-DVD, the next generation hi-def DVD format.

The hot news was that HD-DVD drives will be available as an add-on for the Xbox 360 - very cool.

The demo was exciting as my team had been working hard on that, and it went well. In case you missed it, it showed:

  • High definition movie content (obviously!), it was "The Bourne Identity"
  • iHD interactivity, which included the menu and other interactive features showing up while the movie was still running (is this the end of the boring-menu-at-the-start-of-the-disc? I hope so)
  • Directors Commentary showing you the executive producer (Frank Marshall) talking overlaid in the corner of the movie, not just another audio track like DVDs. iHD supports Picture in Picture (PIP) to make this easy
  • Pop-ups showing recently featured actors, letting you check their bios while the movie is still running (to instantly solve those "oooh what movie was she in?" quandries)
  • Managed Copy which lets you make a legal copy of the HD movie onto your PC hard drive

In separate CES news, Toshiba has announced that their first HD-DVD players will be shipping in March for less than $500. I want one!