Final Cut User

HD DVD is launching several major titles that will include features not available on Blu-Ray releases of the same films. Most of these features are based around using the built in ethernet ports on HD DVD players to access and share additional web based content.
From Yahoo News

The HD DVD version of “300″ will allow users to re-edit the movie, selecting and ordering the scenes as they see fit, and upload their edit to a server hosted by the studio, Warner Bros. The edit will be accessible to other users, who can download it to their players and see the movie in its new form.

“300″ will be available on the competing Blu-ray high-definition disc as well, but will lack the re-editing feature and a few other extras like a strategy game, Collins said, because not all Blu-ray players can connect to the Internet.

Pretty cool feature but nothing groundbreaking or even new. There was a criterion release of Beastie Boys music videos that allowed you to do something similar on a SD DVD and it’s probably about 5 years old. The sharing it online is newish. Most DVD players have a custom chapter playback which you can enable to watch scenes from any film in your own order. Some people share these online, but its simply instructions telling you which chapters to play when - though I doubt that it is a very wide-spread phenomea. An old favorite is watching Pulp Fiction in order.

The news report sites that Toshiba had a 70 percent market share of high-definition players as of April, though the 30 percent share of Blu-Ray players does not relect the additional 3 million Playstation 3 units Sony has sold.

Blockbuster has recently announced that it will only carry Blu-Ray movies. This should probably beef up Sony’s market share more, though with Toshiba’s price drops I think its safe to say that there is still a long wasy to go in the new format war.