Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is quietly testing new features in iTunes-available versions of its films “with an eye on a future in which digital distribution offers a more compelling product than physical discs,” reports “paidContent.org” (http://macte.ch/0xpAC).
Buy the Will Ferrell comedy “The Other Guys” and you’ll notice three extras that can’t be found on DVD or any other digital platform, the article says. A search button allows you to input a word, and any mention of it in the script will be retrieved along with a link to the exact moment in the movie in which the line was uttered. A “clip & share” function lets the viewer take select scenes and post them to social networks.
There’s also a playlist with songs from the film, which are linked to to places on iTunes where those songs can be purchased. The same features are also found on Sony’s “Salt” and “Resident Evil: Afterlife.”
That “these features are available only to those who buy Guys, not rent, should come as no surprise,” notes “paidContent.org.” “Studios like Sony want to make the case that ownership of digital copies of movies and TV programming is worth consumers’ dollars.”
