As mentioned in the last post, the new design for The Look And Sound Of Perfect site has an area where you can get more information about recent and upcoming movies.

One of the highlighted movies is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which is due on December 11, both by itself as well as in a box set that includes the previous movies. This is the latest of the Harry Potter movies, and there hasn’t been a ton of information out yet about this HD DVD disc. In fact, you couldn’t even pre-order it at Amazon until very recently.

The information for this movie at TheLookAndSoundOfPerfect.com mentioned a “Live Community Screening” feature which is described as follows:

Gather your own army of fellow wizards for a live community screening party. Invite other owners of the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix HD DVD to simultaneously watch from their own internet-accessed players and text with your remote, PC or cell phone. When you host an invitation-only viewing, you control the film by pausing and playing the feature on everyone’s machine. You can chat live with your friends as you watch.

That last sentence is really important.

Prior to this, HDi (HD DVD’s interactivity, including the web-enabled component) was implemented in a simple way where you’d go online via your player and download bonus material, or buy something like ringtones. This is pretty much what the old internet and web were about. The new web is about sharing, and it’s really great that we finally have a use for HDi that gets it all caught up with the present, and takes home movie enjoyment into the future by combining it with communication.

Watching a movie with your friends is neat, but maybe they can’t be there with you. So the “Live Community Screening” feature allows all of you to watch from your own homes, instead. You can message each other right on screen as you can on multiplayer video games. I think this is a far more compelling selling point for HDi than the “log in and buy more stuff” idea. It’s not about the studio, but more about you.

I really think this is the “killer app” for HDi, and I can’t wait to start seeing it available on more movies. (A killer app refers to the particular application for a technology that makes that technology or its inclusion a must-have product or feature, and eventually propels those products into mega-success)

The fact that you can text from a phone demonstrates that the developers thought this out pretty well. Texting and messaging is insanely popular with the age group that’s most likely to be into Harry Potter, so kudos to Warner for implementing it on this disc. And kudos to Microsoft for pushing HDi, and to the HD DVD group for insisting on the mandatory inclusion of such interactive features on all HD DVD players ever made — not just the most recent or future models.

• HD DVD’s Interactivity Makes Bonus Materials Even More Special — Microsoft’s Kevin Collins demonstrates HDi
• HD DVD Interactivity Work Leads to New Advanced Interactivity Consortium — prior post about the interactivity consortium
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at Amazon.com