Warner Brothers is releasing Rumor Has it with Jennifer Aniston as their first hybrid title. What’s a hybrid title? Glad you asked. It’s a disc that holds the HD DVD version of the movie on one side, and the normal, standard definition, DVD version on the other. I think this is a great idea. You can buy a disc and play it on your DVD player today. But when you’ve finally saved up the clams and shell out for an HD DVD player, you just play the other side of the disc and get it in glorious HD!

I just see two problems.

One: the case looks like an HD DVD case, so the movie will probably end up in the HD DVD section. So it would be the coincidence of the century if someone bought this movie for use on a DVD player unless they knew exactly what they were doing. And this being such a new format, that’s unlikely as of yet.

Two: this disc is expensive! The MSRP is $39.99. That’s more than HD DVD pricing! The regular DVD will sell for $28.98. Come on folks! This is just getting crazy. Gouge. Gouge gouge. And then gouge some more. If you want people to actually buy your stuff, how about actually making it affordable, instead of pricing it in the stratosphere and then claiming that the experiment failed?

Well, hopefully some other studios will get the concept right.

Warner makes Rumor first hybrid