Damage Estimates for The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

"This is meant to be fun," said Fred Khoury, the marketing manager at Progressive Direct who worked on a project between Progressive Direct and Universal Studios Home Entertainment to insert a running tally of vehicle damage estimates into the recent HD DVD release of "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift."

The digital gauge, called the "Progressive Direct: Insurance Damage Estimates", is the first in what Universal and other studios hope is a stream of branded interactive features on their new DVDs. It displays in a small window and keeps track of things such as: "Roof repair: $209, taillights: $451, fender: $618."

This feature, which viewers must choose to turn on, is possible because the HD DVD discs issued by Universal, Paramount and Warner Brothers (as well as those released in the rival Blu-ray format by Disney, Fox and other studios), have about six times as much data capacity as standard DVDs. This extra space gives the studios room for not only high-definition video and enhanced audio, but also interactive features, including games, picture-in-picture commentaries and Web links.

These interactive features can also be a new source of movie revenue, utilizing product placement.
Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment, said, "Product placement is hard because it doesn't all fit, but this gives us new opportunities."

This post has been sponsored by CarInsurance.com - where you can get a cheap car insurance quote from many insurance companies any time online. CarInsurance.com's online insurance marketplace gives an opportunity to consumers and to insurance companies. We offer the ability to shop for car insurance online.

The preceding Post is a paid advertisement