Smallville - will it be on BD?

My understanding was that Warner had planned on catching up the BD counterparts of their current HD DVD exclusives by this summer. Haven't read anything new about it since.

Doesn't the first episode in the set include IME? That would likely be the reason there's no BD yet.

i wish i downloaded the dam set since they would not realse it. it was about 110 gigs on 5 discs. if i could i would have bought it on bd but stupid ass wb

If the IME is the issue... you should be directing your blame elsewhere.

My question is if they'll ever release the previous seasons on either format.

I believe they have the first season on HDDVD. I saw it at frys electroncis when I went to go pick up Casion Royal

Only season 5 of Smallville is on HD DVD.

Nope, it's Warner's fault for insisting on holding back releases for special features that few people actually care about. They could easily release this set without IME and most people would be perfectly happy with that. This season was released on standard DVD without IME and I haven't heard anyone complaining about the lack of it.

If that's the case, why is every studio touting the interactive capabilities of these high-def formats? If no one really cares about the extras, then why do they exist on every dvd?

That's the wrong question (as there are other special features besides IME), though there is an answer to the one you asked. The correct question is do most people care whether a disc has 5 special features or 6. As I pointed out the standard DVD edition of Smallville S5 was released without IME and no one seemed to mind. As a matter of fact here are the "special features" that come with the standard DVD edition:


As for your question, which is completely unrelated to IME, special features exist as bullet points to make it look like the title has more value. In reality the majority of people will never watch the special features (even if they happen to be good), but they're happy to have them so that they "get more for their money".

To me, superior pq and aq, along with seamless branching for multiple versions where applicable, are about all the special features I could ever want. Anything else they want to put on there is fine as long as it doesn't interfere with the pq and aq. Most standard DVD buyers could care less about these features as well, otherwise they would already be clamoring for HD content despite the format war.

There's a lot of assumptions about other people's behavior and interests here... what's this based on? Your own personal, individual preference?

Believe it or not, there are lots of people who actually watch and enjoy well-produced extras (that aren't just studio fluff). I just finished watching the IME on Children of Men and it does a great job of allowing you to take a closer look at all of the background set design (newspaper clippings, posters, billboards, TV commercials) as well as providing lots of behind-the-scenes PiP info.


If no one cared about this stuff (as people here seem to be assuming), why does IME/U-Control exist? Why all the work to get BD-J up and running? If no one watches this stuff or cares, why wouldn't all of the studios just throw in the towel rather than working to develop and utilize these features?

You may not care. But don't make the mistake of assuming that everyone else agrees with you.

If no one cared about it they wouldn't spend the time putting it on the disc. You can bet that the studios have paid money for surveys of what people want on discs. And I'll bet those surveys showed that people are more likely to buy the discs that has the extras on it. This is a multibillion dollar business. They wouldn't waste the time and money putting those features on the discs if they didn't help to increase sales.

Since when have corporate executives always known exactly what consumers want?

What's this based on? Your own personal, individual preference?

Of course there is no research that can be cited to back up whether or not people watch extras, it's all anecdotal. Just as your opinion is. This is exactly why I said the question was wrong, because the point is that one less bullet point is not going to hurt sales when there are plenty of other extras on a disc.


Please see my previous post.


Again, thank you for echoing my previous post, but there is a difference between extras causing more sales and people actually watching those extras. It's like a super-sized value meal, people buy them because they think they're getting more value.


The one last thing that I find very interesting is that everyone who thinks that IME is a big deal seems to either be an HD-DVD supporter or "format neutral". Oh, there I go making assumptions again (mostly from people's sigs, a phenomenon I've been noticing since the Matrix announcement), I guess I have to go and do some research to backup my views before I can post