Universal Next-Gen Player? How About A Universal Disc?

Reports have circulated the web that engineers from Warner have filed for a patent application for a triple format disc that would have DVD on one side of the disc and both Blu-ray and HD DVD layers on the other side. Whatever player you put it into, it just plays. Goodbye, triple inventory releases!

As a result of the format war of the next-generation High-Def disc formats this fall will see simultaneous triple format releases to retailers from both Warner and Paramount, including Warner's September release of the Keanu Reeves/Sandra Bullock romance, The Lake House and October's release of Mission: Impossible 3.

Retailers tend to dislike stocking triple inventory, and the unsuspecting public is likely to become more confused than they already are. Obviously taking a technology like this from patent to a practical reality won't be easy, and that's saying nothing of getting Sony to sign up for releasing its content in such discs. So, by the time this technology gets ironed out we'll all be watching our movies from the iTunes library anyway!

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