After the press conference, I had the chance to speak with Cameron directly for a few minutes. Asked about his take on the looming format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc, Cameron said that he'd seen demonstrations of both formats, and has looked at each critically with an eye toward spotting artifacts and other quality related issues. He's impressed with both HD-DVD and Blu-ray, and feels that it's a bit of a wash in terms of which format has the technical edge. Although Cameron is looking forward to a future high-definition release of Titanic (and the new transfer of the film was done in HD), he's not planning an HD release anytime soon. This new SCE will be standard DVD only. When asked if he has a preference for either HD-DVD or Blu-ray, he wisely noted that he's letting the industry and the market decide which format will prevail, although he does hope that a single, unified format will be adopted by the industry sooner rather than later.


Interestingly, Cameron also said that there were two main reasons why it took so long for a special edition DVD of Titanic to happen. The first is that the previous movie-only version is still selling quite well (meaning there was no urgent economic pressure to get a more elaborate version done before this). The other is that the process of making the film was such a grueling experience that most involved needed to leave the project behind for a few years in order to feel the desire to revisit it again for a worthy special edition. That said, Cameron and Landau have been planning this new edition for nearly two years, and have put a great deal of thought into what they want to include for the film's many fans.


On an interesting side note, Cameron also spoke about his passion for 3-D filmmaking. He and fellow director George Lucas are spearheading an effort to get movie theaters around the world to upgrade not only to digital projection, but also to add the capability to exhibit films in 3-D format. In fact, Cameron and Lucas are hosting a demonstration of the 3-D process for theater owners at the ShoWest convention in Las Vegas this week (in addition to CG-animated 3-D films, Lucas's people have reportedly developed a way to render 3-D versions of existing 2-D films). Cameron says that this is the main reason he's waited so long to begin production on his next major theatrical film - a live action version of the Japanese anime Battle Angel Alita. Cameron plans to shoot the film digitally in 3-D format. What's more, he says that Lucas and other filmmakers (like Robert Zemeckis and possibly Peter Jackson too) are also planning to shoot 3-D films in the future. They expect that the availability of good 3-D feature film content will drive interest in the 3-D experience theatrically, and that in turn could fuel demand for bringing the 3-D process into the home as well. Cameron noted that both HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc (and current DVD as well) could be adapted to deliver 3-D footage, but that the main obstacle to high-quality 3-D at home is the low refresh rate of current TV monitors. Displays offering much higher rates (96Hz) will be needed in the future to show flicker-free 3-D images in your living rooms.

So there you have it. All the available details regarding the forthcoming Titanic: Special Collector's Edition and some other interesting stuff too, all straight from The Man himself. I have to tell you, I really enjoyed the opportunity to speak with Cameron in person. He's clearly very thoughtful and savvy in terms of the latest developments in film and video technology, and I found him to be both genuine and personable. I look forward to having the chance to speak with him at greater length in the future. I also chatted with Ed Marsh for a few minutes about his currently on-going work on the DVDs. You can expect to hear more from him here at The Bits in the months ahead as well.

Just so you know, there's no cover art available yet for these DVDs, and all of the specific disc specs are still being worked out. You can be sure that we'll get them to you as soon as they're finalized by the studio. I hope you've all enjoyed the report.

Until tomorrow... stay tuned, DVD faithful!