HD DVDs To Be Released Next Tuesday, July 3

Next week's HD DVD releases includes the Blood Diamond from Warner Home Video and catalog titles The Untouchables Special Collector's Edition and The Warriors Ultimate Director's Cut.

To those who have been following the news on high-definition formats, Blood Diamond has already been released in high-definition on the competing format roughly a month ago. So what makes this HD DVD release so special then?

First up, is Warner's HD DVD-exclusive In-Movie Experience (IME), which is a real-time picture-in-picture video commentary for this HD DVD title. Warner has mentioned that Director Edward Zwick would be using this video commentary to guide you along the journey of exploring the emotional and filmmaking challenges of Blood Diamond while the movie is playing on the background of your screen.

If you're new to what IME is, Warner has provided a video preview of how this feature is being used on The Matrix HD DVD. Warner Home Video has also released more than a handful of titles exclusively on HD DVD with this exclusive feature. To access the full list, you may want to check out this page (Scroll to the bottom).

The HD DVD disc can also be used to access web-enabled extras. You can use your HD DVD player's Internet connection to access the maps of conflict. This is yet another HD DVD-exclusive feature presented by Warner...


Main feature on The Untouchables HD DVD will be presented in 1080p High Definition Widescreen 2.35:1 video with Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 (English), Dolby Digital 2.0 (French & Spanish) and DTS 6.1 (not DTS-HD) Matrixed Surround. Please note that max bitrate for DTS and DTS-ES audio tracks on HD DVD is specified to be 1.509 Mbps. Extras from the DVD release are ported over so you're not missing out anything from the DVD release with only the trailer presented in high-definition.

Main feature on The Warriors Ultimate Director's Cut HD DVD will be presented in 1080p High Definition Widescreen 2.35:1 video with Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 (English) and Dolby Digital 1.0 (French & Spanish). Extras from the DVD release are ported over so you're not missing out anything from the DVD release with only the trailer presented in high-definition.