I’ve been running an HD-DVD player through its paces the past few weeks and I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised at the picture overall even at a measly 720p, but perhaps not so much so the hardware itself. If you don’t mind the largest remote I’ve ever seen and a long boot time, it’s a great solution and certain to get better with time.
Today comes news of the first interactive HD titles: Constantine, Firewall, and The Perfect Storm.
Apparently Windows Vista will also ship drivers, the file system, and other components required to support HD-DVD playback as well. More here: http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/05/25/first_interactive_hddvd_released/
The interactive features portend the future of interactive programming. When it’s eating at your wife that she knows that actor but she can’t remember what movie, forget having to pull out your lappy to look up an actor in IMDB, look it up on-screen. I can imagine a world in the not too distant future where you can browse other titles starring the actor, and even start downloading an High Def movie to be stored on the home network for later playback. Flights of fancy? Windows Media Center does most of this today.
One response to “First interactive HD-DVD launched”
It may be the same concept, but it’s worth noting that I can pull out my Treo and look it up in VideoHound for Palm. And I’ll bet I can do that in less time and effort than the set-top box or Media Center PC takes to download a trailer. 🙂