Blu-ray matches HD DVD's picture-in-picture technology

Los Angeles (CA) - The line between the competing HD formats is about to get a little blurrier, as picture-in-picture video features, a previous exclusive to HD DVD, are coming to Blu-ray.

Trade publication Video Business reports that 20th Century Fox demonstrated the technology at an event in London. The demo showed the producers and directors of the UK movie Sunshine talking about it in a small video box while the movie played on the whole screen, essentially creating a video version of the "audio commentary" feature that is common on DVDs.

However, this concept is nothing new. HD DVD movies have had the same feature essentially since day one, and studios have manages to create other unique uses of the picture-in-picture ability. For example, The Fast and The Furious : Tokyo Drift has a feature that allows users to bring up an interactive map that shows where the cars are running during various chase scenes.

Video Business reports that Disney is already working on picture-in-picture for its upcoming Blu-ray release of Pixar’s Finding Nemo. However, most BD players on the market right now do not have adequate software to allow picture-in-picture playback.

According to Fox, though, firmware updates will be able to fix that for some players, including the Playstation 3. In the next few months, manufacturers will need to conform to specific hardware guidelines for all future Blu-ray devices.