Plenty of Space to Sell on HD DVDs

Some car chases in movies are so over the top that you might find yourself mentally trying to add up the cost of all the wreckage.
Now Progressive Direct, a unit of the Progressive Corporation, the nation’s third-largest auto insurer, will do the math for you. It teamed up with Universal Studios Home Entertainment to insert a running tally of the destruction into the recent release of “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” on high-definition DVD. As cars smack into one another in Tokyo, a display in a small window keeps track: “Roof repair: $209; taillights: $451; fender: $618.”
The calculator is labeled Progressive Direct: Insurance Damage Estimates. This digital gauge is the first in what Universal and other studios hope will be a stream of branded interactive features on their new DVDs. Like those released in the rival Blu-ray format by Disney, Fox and other studios, the HD DVD discs issued by Universal, Paramount and Warner Brothers have up to six times as much data capacity as standard DVDs.
The extra space gives the studios room not only for high-definition video and enhanced audio, but also for a bevy of interactive features, including games, picture-in-picture commentaries and Web links. In their constant search for more movie revenue, studios see these interactive features as a new source of money to tap.
“Product placement is hard because it doesn’t all fit, but this gives us new opportunities,” said Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment. “In the early days, it was a movie on a disc. Now we can take it anywhere,” he said, referring to product mentions.