Dave Horvath
3 Aug 2007 10:26
The blockbuster action flick "300" looks to be on the cusp of putting to rest which format is superior in the HD-DVD/Blu-ray battle. Warner Home Video which holds the rights to the movie and offers its backing to both the HD-DVD and Blu-ray camps, has offered the movie in each format, only HD-DVD comes more feature laden than Blu-ray.
One of these features found only on the HD-DVD version is the inclusion of a bluescreen picture-in-picture version of the movie. Many may know that "300" was shot almost entirely in front of a bluescreen studio in Canada. This inclusion gives the user access to the RAW footage which appears to differ greatly from the finished product. Along with being able to visually compare the two shots at the same time, the viewer can also listen to an audio commentary by director Zack Snyder specifically designed for this feature.
The bluescreen feature can not be found on the Blu-ray version of the film not because Warner favors HD-DVD over Blu-ray. Its because the current manditory specifications on Blu-ray players do not include the ability for picture-in-picture video. As reported earlier, The Blu-ray Disc Association has mandated that all players manufacturered after October 31st of this year must support BD Java, which will then support picture-in-picture capabilities. The HD-DVD equivalent to this standard is HDi and has been enabled on all HD-DVD players for some time.
Another feature pointing out the differences in the two formats is the fact that recent revisions of HD-DVD hardware allow it to be Internet ready to receive online content for specific movie titles. "300" on HD-DVD will take advantage of this online content and let viewers browse and purchase movie related items such as ringtones and wallpapers.
Its not all sad news for the Blu-ray version of the movie as it does have one thing the HD-DVD does not. That is an additional uncompressed audio Track encoded to Linear PCM 5.1. This is a Blu-ray exclusive encoding and takes advantage of the 20Gb difference in storage that Blu-ray has over HD-DVD.
Source:
Daily Tech