In early September, Sonic Solutions released the first set of authoring tools that support the HD DVD 1.0 format. New titles built with these tools can include such features as movie-synchronized bonus features, pop-up interactive menus (even during playback) and Internet access. Several studios, including New Line Entertainment, have already been developing titles with the new tools (such as this HD DVD version of Elf). Sonic, which says it "emphatically supports both emerging optical formats," this fall also publicly demonstrated the new interactive features of the BD-J, or Blu-ray Disc (BD) specification. Sonic is giving its customers early access to the encoding, authoring, advanced interactivity and workflow tools that it is adding to next-generation versions of its authoring systems. Price N/A.
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