The first movies that'll be Flippers will be new releases of the Bourne trilogy next month. Truthfully, this idea isn't quite as ridiculous as I want to say it is—like the wet dream of an Akihabara store video clerk—as long as the discs don't cost any more than standard Blu-ray discs. I wouldn't exactly call it "future-proofing" your video collection, as Universal does.

This is kind of like the real HD DVD, huh?

Universal Studios Home Entertainment GIVES CONSUMERS ULTIMATE CONTROL AND FLEXIBILITY WITH Revolutionary New Blu-ray™ hi-def and DVD "Flipper" Discs BEGINNING With the ReleaseS OF

The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Ultimatum

Industry-Changing Dual-Format Technology Features Both 
Blu-ray™ and DVD Versions on One Disc

Universal City, California, December 1, 2009 – In a move that is poised to elevate the Blu-ray™ Hi-Def format and provide consumers with the ultimate in convenience and viewing flexibility, Universal Studios Home Entertainment (USHE) announced the introduction of groundbreaking dual-format discs containing both Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD versions of some of Hollywood's most iconic films. An industry first, the new "flipper" discs will launch on January 19, 2010 with the blockbuster superspy thrillers The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, starring Matt Damon, premiering as individually packaged Blu-ray™ discs.

For the first time ever, consumers will have the ability to choose between Blu-ray™ and DVD formats, simply by flipping a single disc. With complete utility in one convenient package, the revolutionary medium can be used on any DVD or Blu-ray™ compatible player, game platform or computer, making it ideal for anyone planning to upgrade to Blu-ray™ at a future date as well as current owners of both Blu-ray™ and DVD systems. Each side of Universal's flipper discs includes the entire movie as well as all available bonus features, with the Blu-ray™ side featuring exciting BD exclusives such as U-Control and BD-Live™.

"Universal's flipper discs are the perfect way for consumers to future-proof their collections while still enjoying their favorite movies on all their existing DVD players," said Craig Kornblau, President of Universal Studios Home Entertainment. "The flipper disc offers an easy way for viewers to convert to Blu-ray now or at any time in the future, confident in the fact they will be able to experience their home entertainment purchases in the highest quality picture and sound when they do."

The release will mark the first time the Bourne trilogy, one of the highest grossing action movie franchises in history, is available individually in Blu-ray's™ renowned perfect picture and purest digital sound. Each film is accompanied by an array of exciting bonus features that plunge viewers deeper in to the shadowy world of international espionage, including top-secret files, challenging strategy games, fascinating filmmakers and actor profiles, commentary, deleted scenes and Universal's renowned BD-Live™ functionality.

Riddled with deception, intrigue and high-octane thrills, each chapter of the globe-hopping search for Jason Bourne's true identity raises the stakes another lethal notch as the undercover killer settles old scores and uncovers new secrets. A commanding roster of acclaimed actors accompanies Damon on his quest, including Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles, Franka Potente, Joan Allen, David Strathairn and Albert Finney.

CONTENT OVERVIEW & SYNOPSES:

THE BOURNE IDENTITY

FILM SYNOPSIS:
After being pulled from the sea with two bullets in his back, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) awakens on a fishing boat with no memory of his involvement in a top-secret, black ops arm of the CIA called Treadstone. The only clue to his identity is the number of a Swiss bank account in which he discovers an array of passports and weapons, as well as a fortune in cash. As he struggles to regain his memory, his former employers dub him a rogue agent and target him for termination. When an equally deadly assassin codenamed "Professor" (Clive Owen) is sent to dispose of him, Bourne rediscovers his extraordinary survival skills, including hand-to-hand combat, martial arts and multiple languages and begins to understand who he really is. As he struggles to unlock the secret of his own identity, Bourne has to deal with his past in order to ensure his own future.

BLU-RAY™ HI-DEF BONUS FEATURES INCLUDE:
Exclusive U-Control: Universal's exclusive signature feature U-Control allows viewers to delve into the making of the film with the click of the remote without ever leaving the movie. While you watch the movie, immerse yourself in the character dossiers and location analyses, and explore the technology behind the spy gadgets through visuals and 3-D animations.
Picture in Picture
Bourne Orientation
Bourne Card Battle Strategy Game
Treadstone Files: Includes interactive Character Dossiers, Agent Status info and GPS features.
BD-Live™: Blu-ray™ and Playstation3 players with an Internet connection can access exclusive interactive applications that allow viewers to communicate with friends and family while watching the film:
My Scenes Sharing: Share your favorite clips with friends through BD-Live™ Internet discussions.
Bourne Card Battle Strategy Game.
Additional extras:
My Scenes
The Ludlum Identity: An extraordinary portrait of the best-selling author through archival interviews with friends, colleagues, family members and Ludlum himself.
The Ludlum Supremacy: Who is Jason Bourne? A revealing look at how Bourne was born.
The Ludlum Ultimatum: A fascinating examination of the Bourne character and his enduring audience appeal.
The Birth of the Bourne Identity
Deleted and Extended Scenes (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Alternate Opening and Ending: With an introduction by producer Frank Marshall, screenwriter Tony Gilroy and actor Brian Cox. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
The Bourne Mastermind: Robert Ludlum: A fascinating new look at the late Robert Ludlum, the bestselling novelist who created the "Bourne" trilogy. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Access Granted: An exclusive interview with screenwriter Tony Gilroy on the challenges of adapting Ludlum's 500-page book for the screen. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
From Identity to Supremacy – Jason & Marie: This feature includes exclusive interviews with Matt Damon and Franka Potente which explore the making of The Bourne Identity - and build a bridge to the spectacular sequel, The Bourne Supremacy. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
The Bourne Diagnosis: Insights into the causes and effects of Jason Bourne's struggle with amnesia from a UCLA psychologist. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Cloak and Dagger: In this feature, CIA liaison officer Chase Brandon delivers a detailed, real-world analysis of the making of a super-spy. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Inside a Fight Sequence: Join Matt Damon on the set as he and the film's Stunt Choreographer map out the explosive action-packed U.S. Embassy fight sequence. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Moby "Extreme Ways" Music Video (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Feature Commentary with Director Doug Liman (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY

FILM SYNOPSIS:
When his lover is murdered and he is framed for the assassination of a fellow agent, Jason Bourne finds himself on the run again. But as he closes in on his girlfriend's killers, he realizes his former handlers are back on his trail. After his fingerprints are found at the scene of a murder in Berlin, an ambitious CIA operative (Joan Allen) becomes determined to stop him once and for all. Haunted by debilitating fragmented memories as he navigates the labyrinth of international espionage, Bourne (Matt Damon) must outwit, outmaneuver and outmuscle some of the most powerful forces in the world just to survive.

BLU-RAY™ HI-DEF BONUS FEATURES INCLUDE:
Exclusive U-Control: Universal's exclusive signature feature U-Control allows viewers to delve into the making of the film with the click of the remote without ever leaving the movie. While you watch the movie, immerse yourself in the character dossiers and location analyses, and explore the technology behind the spy gadgets through visuals and 3-D animations.
Picture in Picture
Bourne Orientation
Bourne Card Battle Strategy Game
Bourne Dossier
BD-Live™: Blu-ray™ and Playstation3 players with an Internet connection can access exclusive interactive applications that allow viewers to communicate with friends and family while watching the film:
My Scenes Sharing: Share your favorite clips with friends through BD-Live™ Internet discussions.
Bourne Card Battle Strategy Game.
Additional extras:
My Scenes
Scoring with John Powell: A special look at creating the pulse-pounding score for the movie. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
The Bourne Mastermind: Robert Ludlum: A fascinating new look at the late Robert Ludlum, the bestselling novelist who created the "Bourne" trilogy.
The Bourne Diagnosis Part Two: Insights into the causes and effects of Jason Bourne's struggle with amnesia from a UCLA psychologist.
Feature Commentary with Paul Greengrass (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Explosive Deleted Scenes (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Matching Identities: Casting – See what it took to land a key role in this major action hit. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Keeping It Real – A look at the edgy and kinetic visual style the filmmakers brought to Supremacy. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Blowing Things Up – Virtual isn't always better. See how some of the film's most awesome pyrotechnical sequences were created-without digital effects. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
On the Move with Jason Bourne – Travel the globe to visit the film's exotic locations from India to Berlin to Moscow. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Bourne to Be Wild: Fight Training – Matt Damon didn't become a lethal weapon overnight. Witness the action as the star and the movie's fight trainer perfect the film's thrilling hand-to-hand combat scenes! (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Crash Cam: Racing Through the Streets of Moscow – Experience how stunt coordinators meticulously planned and executed the movie's stunning, high-speed chase sequence. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
The Go-Mobile Revs Up the Action – Feel the rush of being in the driver's seat with this revolutionary new vehicle used to capture Matt Damon's high-speed exploits in the film's jaw-dropping car chase sequences! (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Anatomy of a Scene: The Explosive Bridge Chase Scene – Step onto the set and experience the tension and intense preparation as the filmmaking team plans and shoots one of the movie's most demanding, dangerous and thrilling action scenes. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM

FILM SYNOPSIS:
All he wanted was to disappear. Instead, Jason Bourne (Damon) is now hunted by the people who made him what he is. Having lost his memory and the one person he loved, Bourne has only one objective: to go back to the beginning and find out who he was. Now, Bourne will hunt down his past in order to find a future. He must travel from Moscow, Paris and London to Tangier and New York City as he continues his quest to uncover the truth behind his mysterious past-all the while trying to outwit a new generation of highly-trained assassins as well as the relentless CIA operatives who will stop at nothing to prevent him from learning his true identity.

BLU-RAY™ HI-DEF BONUS FEATURES INCLUDE:
Exclusive U-Control: Universal's exclusive signature feature U-Control allows viewers to delve into the making of the film with the click of the remote without ever leaving the movie. While you watch the movie, immerse yourself in the character dossiers and location analyses, and explore the technology behind the spy gadgets through visuals and 3-D animations.
Picture in Picture
Bourne Orientation
Be Bourne Spy Training – Viewers test their skills to see if they've got what it takes to be a covert operative.
Bourne Card Battle Strategy Game
Blackbriar Files: While you watch the movie, immerse yourself in the character dossiers and location analyses, and explore the technology behind the spy gadgets through visuals and 3D animations.
BD-Live™: Blu-ray™ and Playstation3 players with an Internet connection can access exclusive interactive applications that allow viewers to communicate with friends and family while watching the film:
My Scenes Sharing: Share your favorite clips with friends through BD-Live™ Internet discussions.
Bourne Card Battle Strategy Game.
Additional extras:
My Scenes
Man on the Move: Jason Bourne – From Berlin to Tangier, see how the film's exotic locations influenced the filmmaking process. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Rooftop Pursuit – Discover how state-of-the-art technology was used to film the incredible Tangier rooftop chase scene! (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Planning the Punches – Matt Damon reveals his complex and rigorous fight training. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Driving School – Join Matt Damon behind the wheel as he trains for the New York car chase scene. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
New York Chase – An insider's view on how the film's heart-stopping chase sequences were filmed. (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Feature Commentary with Director Paul Greengrass (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)
Deleted Scenes (Available on Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD)

Microsoft obviously has a more complicated relationship with "industry" standards, because anything it decides is its standard—even proprietary ones—becomes a kind of de facto standard for everybody else, simply because of Microsoft's overwhelming marketshare. This was more true in the past than today, with Microsoft playing ball with everybody else more often.

Microsoft's AV Club
Let's start with Windows Media Audio—most commonly, it's known as Microsoft's proprietary audio codec that at one point fought the good fight against MP3, but is now much more, having grown into a sprawling family of various codecs with multiple versions. To name a few of the current ones, there's WMA 9, WMA 9 Lossless and WMA 10 Pro. Microsoft says it offers superior quality/compression over MP3, with "CD quality at data rates from 64 to 192 kilobits per second." Needless to say, while it's baked into Windows Media Player for ripping CDs and is supported by a fairly wide range of PMPs and phones, it obviously never displaced MP3, nor is it ascendant as the "new" standard like AAC (the official successor of MP3), basically since it isn't supported by the iPod, which owns over 70 percent of the MP3 player market. WMA Pro, despite being an even better codec than WMA, has more limited support still, mostly with Microsoft's own hardware, like the Xbox 360 and Zune.

WMA's more ignoble legacy, undoubtedly, is PlaysForSure, Microsoft's grand attempt to standardize the entire digital music industry (except Apple, or rather, against Apple) by getting everybody on the same page. PlaysForSure was technically a certification for players and services with a variety of requirements, but support for WMA, WMV and Windows Media DRM is what it amounted to in practice. Microsoft succeeded, for a time: Pretty much every PMP maker and services from Walmart, Rhapsody, MSN Music, Yahoo, Napster and others were all aboard PlaysForSure. Then it imploded. As every real music service went to DRM-free MP3, Microsoft re-branded it to Certified for Windows Vista. Which, incidentally, was a badge they slapped on the Zune, Microsoft's own audio player that didn't actually support PlaysForSure. When Microsoft ditched its own standard for its premiere player, everybody knew PlaysForSure was dead.

Windows Media has been more successful on the video front, with WMV. Like WMA, it's gone through multiple versions: At one point (WMV 7) merely Microsoft's take on the MPEG-2 standard, Microsoft actually succeeded in making it a genuine industry standard, with WMV 9 becoming the basis for the VC-1 codec that's backed by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. VC-1 is part of the spec for both HD DVD and Blu-ray, though at this point it's really just an alternative to H.264, which is becoming the dominant modern video codec. WMV saw some success as the codec of choice for some services during the heyday or PlaysForSure (since WMV support was part of the certification), but now it sees a lot of action as the video codec for Silverlight, Microsoft's Adobe Flash competitor.

Internet Exploder
Silverlight itself actually isn't doing so bad, considering it's fighting Flash, which is installed on the vast majority of internet-connected computers, powering Netflix's streaming service and last summer, NBC's streaming Olympics coverage. But like Flash, it's proprietary, which is obviously a bit disconcerting for people who want an open web. Which brings us to Internet Explorer. The early history of IE and Netscape is grossly complicated, but suffice it to say, being included with Windows eventually gave IE over 90 percent of browser marketshare. In other words, Microsoft defined how an overwhelming majority of people looked at the internet for years—meaning it essentially defined what the internet look like. Microsoft essentially stopped moving forward with IE6, sitting on its ass for years, which is a problem since it's totally non-compliant with what most people would call modern web standards. (Short version: Web developers hate IE6.) With IE8, which entered a new world with Firefox having devoured a huge chunk of its marketshare, Microsoft supports actual real web standards (mostly—it still fails the Acid3 test miserably). And, they're actually serious about HTML5, even though they're not planning to implement the controversial video aspect at all.

Do You Trust Me?
Obviously, Microsoft's in an odd spot in part because the constant specter of antitrust allegations hang over its head—it's had to de-couple Internet Explorer from Windows in Europe, and it's moved to separate other stuff from the core OS, like even its mail, video and photo applications, making it harder to achieve the kind of de facto standards through sheer force of market like before.

Which might be part of the reason it's moving to make tech legit industry standards—besides VC-1 above, for instance, its HD Photo has become the basis for the successor to JPEG, now dubbed JPEG XR. Also, it's simply that standards matter more now than ever as people do more and more of their computing on the web, on multiple platforms from Windows desktops to Android phones, so industry-wide standards are way preferable to proprietary formats, even if most people still are on Windows.

Increasingly, if Microsoft wants people to use their tech, they're going to have to open it up in the same quasi-way Apple has (it'll also go a long way with the whole trust/control issues people have with Microsoft). So don't surprised if you see Microsoft continue to "open up" and "standardize." Just don't be surprised if the standards they embrace have Microsoft tech at the core.

Still something you wanna know? Send questions about standards, things that are open other than your mom's legs or Steve Ballmer's deodorant to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

A bit ashamed, he tenuously explained the situation to friends and family, detailing the player's typical 1080p/24fps output while urging his former inlaws that AVCHD support and SD card reading had made the whole decision a lot easier. They didn't understand, but they accepted his decision. They'd loved him once, like a son.

Of course, Toshiba's most judgmental friends noticed that the BDX2000 was a skinnier model than the the HD-XA1 (bless her heart). Plus, she was prone to flaunting around town with a smoked glass finish like she owns the place.

Besides, for $250 this November, most of us would have picked the PS3. [prnewswire and Image]

This is potentially great for competition, and I'm looking forward to seeing what sort of innovation Toshiba might bring to the space. Toshiba's release as follows:

10 Aug, 2009.
Tokyo-Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) announced today that the company has applied for membership of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) and plans to introduce products that support the Blu-ray format.

As a market leader in digital technologies, Toshiba provides a wide range of advanced digital products, such as DVD recorders and players, HDTVs and notebook PCs that support a wide range of storage devices, including hard disk drives (HDD), DVD, and SD Cards. In light of recent growth in digital devices supporting the Blu-ray format, combined with market demand from consumers and retailers alike, Toshiba has decided to join the BDA.

Toshiba aims to introduce digital products that support the Blu-ray format, including BD players and notebook PCs integrating BD drives, in the course of this year. Details of the products, including the timing of regional launches, are now under consideration. We will make announcements in due course. [Toshiba Japan]

The company's first Blu-Ray/DVD deck should arrive (in Japan first, probably) before Christmas this year, and "sources" say it'll be called the BD-18 (we think. The Google translation is sort of sketchy). We don't know anything else about the alleged player, but we imagine some Toshiba exec is sitting in a bathroom stall, crying quietly and cursing Sony. [Yomiuri via Engadget]

The Red2Blu trade-in program is designed to get people burned by HD-DVD into the Blu-ray fold. Simply mail in your HD-DVD cover art (you get to keep the discs!), pay $4.95 per movie and $6.95 for shipping and get brand new copies of the same movies on Blu-ray in about a month.

Of course, it only works for Warner Bros. HD-DVDs/Blu-rays, but if you've got a few kicking around this ain't a bad deal. [Red2Blu via Engadget]

Once upon time, video codecs and formats were really only the concern of AV nerds, anime freaks and hardcore not-so-legal movie downloaders. Now, even the most part-time of geeks has to deal with them, whether they're trying to stream a flick across their house with an Apple TV, dump some video onto their phone or just trying to grab last night's episode of Dexter because they, uh, forgot to renew their Showtime subscription. It's messy and annoying, but we're here to clean it up. Take a deep breath.

You might recall our discussion about video bitrates earlier, or how much data is packed into a file. As a general rule, more bits per second translates into more betterer quality audio and video. The variable in that—the other part of the equation—is how the content is compressed and de-compressed. Better compression techniques—the zen of knowing what bits of data to pull out to make big data chunks smaller—make for better quality video while taking up less space on your hard drive. Basically, the part you need to know is that codecs are the software that make that magic happen.

Standard Standards
• H.261 is not a term you have to worry about, but it's the technology that most video standards and codecs were originally based on. Originating in 1990, it's the first major digital video compression standard, and like other "H" standards, it was developed by the International Telecommunication Union. This one was primarily for teleconferencing over ISDN lines, and as such, it looks like ass.

• MPEG-1 Part 2 is another oldie, developed by the Movie Picture Experts Group and approved in 1991. (BTW, the whole "part" thing is because video is just one "part" of each MPEG standard.) Based quite a bit on H.261, MPEG-1 was designed to take VHS quality video and squeeze it down to a bit rate of about 1.5Mbps, optimized for CD transfers. No surprise, it's the standard used for all VCDs (which can play in most DVD players), but not a standard you would see hanging around today.

• With MPEG-2 Part 2, approved in 1994, we're finally talking decent vid. Also known as H.262, since it was developed jointly by the ITU-T and ISO, MPEG-2 is an extension of MPEG-1 that delivers better resolution and higher bit rates (3-15Mbps for standard def and 15-30Mbps for HD, though the spec allows for up to 100Mbps). It's the video codec used by DVD and digital television, though now it's slowly being replaced by the more efficient MPEG-4, except on DVDs, where it'll ride out that disc format's lifetime.

• H.263 is designed for sending video over crappy connections. So it's used to encode most Flash video and to send video over mobile networks.

• MPEG-4 is where we really stand right now. It has a much broader scope than past MPEG standards, aiming to tackle both the low end (crappy cellphones on a crappy network) and the high end (Blu-ray). It's still developing, so it's not-so-coincidentally where this whole story gets messier. There are two relevant parts of the MPEG-4 standard for our myopic video purposes: There's Part 2. And there's Part 10—which is also known as H.264 or Advanced Video Coding (AVC). To be clear though, even though they're both part of the MPEG-4 standard, they're totally different formats. Nevertheless, both are more efficient at compression than past MPEG codecs, delivering better quality using less space.

• Okay, so if you've ever frequented a Torrent site, you've actually watched tons of videos that use MPEG-4 Part 2, though it's not like they would've had a flashing sign telling you so. MPEG-4 Part 2 actually has different "profiles"—the two that matter being Simple Profile, for low bitrate, low-res stuff, and Advanced Simple Profile. The latter profile is what's used by movies you would download in formats like DivX or XviD or 3ivx—which are all codecs that are essentially just differing implementations of the MPEG-4 Part 2 standard.

• MPEG-4 Part 10, the other part, was actually co-devopled by MPEG and the ITU-T, so it's also known—in fact, more commonly known—as H.264. It's more efficient than MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 Part 2, delivering the same quality video in as little as half the space, making it suitable for the low and high-end. Because of this, it's quickly becoming the standardest standard. It's part of the HD DVD and Blu-ray spec, replacing MPEG-2 in digital TV (like with satellite services and AT&T's U-Verse IPTV) and supported by pretty much every portable video player on the planet from the iPod to the PSP. Apple has a decent, if Kool-Aid flavored, FAQ about H.264.

• VC-1 is essentially a Microsoft developed alternative video codec to H.264 released as a standard by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, though it descends from the same H.26X/MPEG family. (It essentially started life as WMV9, but then Microsoft shopped it to the SMPTE to make it an industry standard, and now it is.) It too, is part of the mandatory Blu-ray and HD DVD spec, and is the official video codec of the Xbox 360. It's pitch is the same as H.264's—trying to deliver better quality using less space, like HD video in 6-8Mbps.

Free-Floating Codecs
Okay, so all that stuff up there are industry-wide standard video codecs. On top of all of those, various entities love putting out their own spin on those standards. As we mentioned before, DivX (proprietary) and XviD (open source), for instance, use MPEG-4 Part 2 (more specifically, MPEG-4 ASP) compression, meaning stuff that'll natively play back MPEG-4 ASP will also play back DivX. Like the Xbox 360, for instance. There are a ton of MPEG-4 ASP-based codecs, actually, like FFmpeg, 3ivx and others, but DivX and XviD are the most common. Same deal with H.264: Some well known codecs that use it are Apple's Quicktime H.264, x264 and Nero Digital. You've also got Windows Media Video (WMV) codecs, which are Microsoft's proprietary twists on industry standards.

Containers aka Wrappers
Alright, well you've probably noticed that none of your video files have the extension .h264 or .vc1 or the like. That's because videos are packaged in containers or wrappers that stuff things like the audio, navigational info, etc. along with the video in a single pretty file. Naturally, there are about as many of them as there are codecs. To be clear, you would take a video encoded with, say, H.264, and wrap it up as a .mp4 or .avi file.

The majors ones are:
• AVI (Audio Video Interleave) is Windows' standard multimedia container
• MPEG-4 Part 14 (known to you as .mp4) is the standardized container for MPEG-4
• FLV (Flash Video) is the format used to deliver MPEG video through Flash Player
• MOV is Apple's QuickTime container format
• OGG, OGM and OGV are open-standard containers
• MKV (Mastroska) is another open-specification container that you've seen if you've ever downloaded anime
• VOB means DVD Video Object. Guess what? It's DVD's standard container, and what you get when you rip a DVD.
• ASF is a Microsoft format designed for WMV and WMA—files can end in .wmv or .asf

So, in order to play a video file, your setup has to be able to handle both the actual video codec and the container. It's why you can try to play an AVI file and Windows Media Player laughs at you, even though it totally played one a minute ago— the container was no problem, but it didn't have the right codec. Or conversely, even though an iPod could play back an H.264 encoded video, if it was wrapped up in MKV, it won't be able to read it.

Okay, my brain hurts. Hopefully this will make yours hurt less when it comes to dealing with pesky videos. If you'd like to do even more homework, Wikipedia, as always, has a more in-depth discussion. And Doom9 is always an amazing resource for all things digital video.

Something you still wanna know? Send any questions about codecs, kitties or pad thai (but not RealMedia) to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

[Image: ME@Flickr]

We're assuming you know some of the basics—like that 5.1 audio is five channels of audio positioned at center, front right, front left, back right and back left, and then one subwoofer channel. And that a higher bit rate means more audio data is coming through, which, generally, means it's higher quality and gonna sound better, since you're losing less of the original studio sound.

The building block of digital audio is "pulse code modulation"—an old technology used for CDs and everything since. It can be rendered in several resolutions, from 16-bit stuff on CD to 24-bit on newer DVD and higher-res formats. It can also have varying frequency ranges, typically from 44.1KHz to 96KHz. Without going into more detail, you just need to know that PCM is bulky, and it is this PCM data that both DTS and Dolby work to encode into more manageable files. When audio tracks are decoded in a disc player, they are either sent out analog via multichannel RCA outputs, or they become PCM tracks that any digital receiver can easily interpret.

We're taking you through the major branded audio formats that you'll run into if you're dealing with a home theater, or hell, a Blu-ray player.

First up: Dolby. There are basically three tiers of audio: Dolby TrueHD at the top, then Dolby Digital Plus, then good old Dolby Digital.

Dolby TrueHD is a lossless compression format that is bit-for-bit identical to the studio masters. It can handle a bit rate of up to 18 megabits per second, and support as many as 14 channels of audio, though you're more likely to see it at 7.1. It's actually optional in the Blu-ray spec, but it's supported by the PS3 and most other new Blu-ray players. Some players decode the TrueHD internally, then stream out uncompressed PCM audio through HDMI, while others can send the TrueHD file itself out over HDMI in bitstream for the receiver to decode.

Dolby Digital Plus is the next step down. It still delivers 7.1 audio, but at a max bit rate of 3Mbps. It's a more efficient codec than the original Dolby Digital, and is a mandatory minimum in the Blu-ray 1.1 spec. Dolby Digital Plus can be used for Bonus View picture-in-picture audio tracks on a Blu-ray disc, with the main audio track encoded as TrueHD.

Dolby Digital is the lowest rung, at 5.1 audio channels, running at 448Kbps on DVD (though a richer 640Kbps on Blu-ray, used, again for special features or supplement language tracks).

DTS's offerings follow a similar tiered setup.

DTS-HD Master Audio is at the top. It's a lossless format that is also bit-for-bit identical to the studio master. It supports a bitrate up to 24Mbps (though the average Blu-ray flick's audio is only about 2-3Mbps, with 4-5Mbps spikes) and up to eight channels (like 7.1). (It too, is supported by the PS3.)

DTS High Resolution Audio is below that. It also supports eight channels at a constant bit rate of up to 6Mbps. It's for situations where a studio doesn't want to eat up disc space with a full lossless track (like bonus features or tracks), though DTS told us 95 percent of studios who use DTS use the full HD Master Audio.

DTS Digital Surround is down at the DVD end, with support for 5.1 channels and bandwidth up to 1.5Mbps, though post-2000 DVDs typically keep the track at 768Kbps to save disc space.

You may have heard a few things about Dolby ProLogic II or IIx, or maybe DTS Neo:6. These aren't digital codecs, so much as they are "matrix" programs that take stereo tracks and route it to to the different speakers in a surround system. A vestige from pre-digital days, people used to master stereo tracks deliberately for ProLogic—try watching The Simpsons opening credits through your receiver with ProLogic turned on.

Dolby and DTS also have virtual surround technologies that do the opposite of matrixing: They take 5.1 tracks and perform hocus pocus on them so that they sound surround-y, but play through stereo speakers or headphones. It's more subjective, and has a whole different science to it, so maybe we'll save it for another time.

That, in a nutshell, is what all of those Dolby and DTS logos on the back your Blu-ray player, A/V receiver or movie box means. If you want to know how "golden-eared" audiophiles feel about the highest qualities, and how well they fare against uncompressed PCM, check out this informative piece from Home Entertainment Magazine. As a rule, DTS HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD will kick ass, but unless you have a $50,000 sound system, you may not be able to tell the difference between the middle and top tiers anyway.

Something we missed, or you still wanna know? Send any questions about Dolby, DTS, Dubbly, Dobby or anything else to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

Today, as new boxes and services are announced, there has yet to appear one that can give you every movie, let alone a single format you can use on your various everyday devices. Thankfully, what we're hearing now is that while this infinite format war may not go on forever, the state of video will suck for the next five years until every service has the same baseline catalog. If you believe the studios. In the meantime, you'll be looking for the set-top box with the best catalog, and the one that can deliver you your films in the best way possible.

If you thought the HD DVD/Blu-ray split was bad, at least there was an easy order to it, an alignment by studios. Warner, Universal and Paramount were on HD DVD, everyone else (plus Warner) put their movies on Blu-ray. Sure, no Big Lebowski on Blu-ray, but at least you knew why. There is nothing even approaching logic when it comes to the movie options from VOD set-top box to the next, at least not from the user perspective. Warner Bros. put out Ocean's Thirteen. You can watch it on Vudu and Amazon Unbox, but not iTunes. Warner also put out I Am Legend, which is on all three, and Xbox Live Marketplace. Paramount's Shooter is on all three, but only for purchase, not rental (and totally MIA from Xbox). And you could rent Disney/Pixar's Ratatouille a few months ago, but now it's only for purchase. "WTF?" is a natural response. (On a side note, it's a bitch to really search or go through any of the catalogs, so it's even harder to tell if it's an accidental or intentional roadblock.)

To explain our current clusterfuck, you need a quick trip back to 1999. Remember the state of digital music back then? It was messy and ugly. The music industry had no idea what to do with this whole internet thing, and they were involved in assorted, competing ventures. Then along came iTunes, which basically organized the music universe and, to the chagrin of the RIAA, set up a sane pricing structure, too. It's not a complete catalog of all music ever (Beatles, hello?), but it's the closest thing there is, and it's pretty damn good. It brought order to the chaos, and now claims 85 percent of the legal download market. So it has the music industry by the balls, enough to speed their efforts to fortify a worthy number 2—Amazon, which was the first store to boast a catalog exclusively made up of DRM-free music from all four majors as a result, a perk deliberately withheld from iTunes to curb its power.

We're basically at that same, nebulous 1999 point with video, though Hollywood has learned from the music industry's mistakes—and iTunes is not the guaranteed champion in the case of online movie sales. The industry is eagerly putting stuff out there, and on as many services as it can—we're at the point now that most of the major studios release movies on online services on the same day they release them on disc.

A problem gumming up our dream of the one box is that each service requires a different format—one studio told us that a big issue is digitizing and formatting a film to meet each service's specs. It just takes time, though they're going as fast as they can. And new releases are gonna take priority, obviously. We are at least a little skeptical of this claim—we don't think it takes that long to digitize a flick

From what we were told, there's surprisingly little worry of a single company dominating digital distribution. A studio we talked to said that it's all so new, the fear of a monopoly (by Apple or otherwise) is at worst simply a thought skulking around in the back of their mind, not an actual concern. So no service is getting any favors to promote one over the other, or keep another in check. (At least not yet, though Blu-ray-happy Sony may well have the most incentive to keep the online space anemic.) Again, here, we're a little suspicious—obviously they wouldn't come right out and tell us they're afraid of iTunes, but when you look at the measly catalog and consider the studios' close study of how the music industry complete botched online music, the idea of Apple becoming the single biggest distributor of most digital media and holding serious sway over the entire entertainment industry has to weigh on their minds.

I mean, if you were in their shoes, and could prevent making iTunes into the all-powerful Walmart of the digital video generation, wouldn't you?

The one bit of protectionism going on that was copped to is the push to purchase, rather than rent. It makes sense that a studio gets more money when you buy a movie than rent it, since it's the same set of bits headed to your hard drive, and both are guaranteed you'll watch the movie at least once, but one costs three to four times as much as the other. So you are going to see a lot of them not open a flick up to online rentals until a month after it's available for purchase, and even see rental options disappear, as recently happened across the board with Pixar movies.

Ultimately, and somewhat shockingly, Hollywood does have the same vision we do—a single god box that'll deliver the entire catalogs of all the studios. Only, unlike in the iTunes hegemony, every home could have a different god box, be it Xbox, TiVo, Vudu or Roku.

Forgive the buried service journalism. Enough of this theoretical talk. So, what does it take to get a decent download collection? Until the god box, you will need several, two at least. Right now, Vudu is good for latest and greatest plus some older favorites; Netflix Roku has better TV options and some interesting deep cuts (plus a $99 box price and unlimited streaming for 10,000 so-so titles for any plan over $9 with discs by mail as a backup); Xbox 360 has a surprisingly large amount of HD movies, and a nice catalog geared towards the gaming demographic; Apple TV has its own legion of fans for its ability to move movies to iPods and computers, though it still has a lot to prove in the catalog section. That's not even counting the TiVo with Amazon Unbox or the cable box you likely already have, each with their own assorted VOD options. Even if you owned all of 'em, you still might not find what you want, even if it's something that should be slapping you in the face. Take Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, for instance. We could not legally find it on any service, even though the sequel hit theaters just a few weeks ago—and got a surprisingly good buzz from usually snooty critics. Did Warner miss the perfect opportunity? They wouldn't say.

The other major issue is the state of broadband and the guys controlling the pipes. For the online video revolution to fully take off in HD, we need bigger pipes. For most people, that's years away. This is deeply threatening to the cable companies, and they're pretty clear that they're not happy about content moving online—you can see the fear in the recent moves to limit all kinds of data consumption (most of which is already video), not just the supposed protocol of pirates. What if limits or overage charges were put in place for people who were simply doing their best to buy copyrighted video? Why would someone give up DVD and Blu-ray rentals from Netflix in order to pay twice—for both the bandwidth and the content—and have to wait somewhat impatiently for the download, too?

So friends, while all of this gets ironed out, the infinite format war rages on: Lots of boxes, lots of online services, none of them complete, none of them that'll fully satisfy your wife's desire to rid the shelves of DVDs. Hollywood just can't move fast enough for this revolution, as arguably eager as it is, and the ISPs may not clear the way when the show does get on the road. From what we can tell, the stuff will all get sorted out in time. How much time? Give it five more years. If you believe the studios. [Insert groan of impatience here.]

However, if you're looking at this from a pure monetary view, the amount of DVDs installed and the fact that the Blu-ray library is really tiny compared to the DVD library, Toshiba's decision might make them some decent cash. The end result is that consumers shouldn't expect a Toshiba Blu-ray player for a little while. [TGDaily]

While it is unfortunate that HD DVD was discontinued, there is still enjoyment to be had from your Xbox 360 HD DVD Player. You can take this as an opportunity to build out your movie collection! There are around 500 HD DVD movies to choose from and many at great deals, so there is a fair amount of content for HD DVD on the market. It also is a terrific DVD player and it allows you to have game discs and movie discs, whether HD DVD or DVD, within the console at one time.