Buena Vista Quietly Goes VC-1 With 'Flightplan' Blu-ray

Due in stores today, Disney's latest wave of Blu-ray titles features the studio's first VC-1-encoded title, the Jodie Foster thriller 'Flightplan.'

As first announced last month, Buena Vista has three new Blu-ray titles arriving in stores today: 'Flightplan,' 'Pearl Harbor' and 'Invincible.' But while all of the studio's previous Blu-ray titles have utilized the MPEG-2 and AVC MPEG-4 codecs exclusively, they've snuck 'Flightplan' in under the radar with a 1080p/VC-1 transfer (the studio's press release for the title incorrectly stated that the disc would be released with MPEG-2) .

The 'Flightplan' experiment comes amid continued online controversy over the use by some Blu-ray-supporting studios of the more space-hungry MPEG-2 codec over VC-1, limiting the amount of high-def content that can be squeezed onto a standard BD-25 disc. While the recent introduction of the BD-50 disc has provided some much needed breathing room (the new disc packs in twice the storage space of a BD-25), some would still like to see Disney and other Blu-ray backing studios support the seemingly more efficient VC-1 codec (which was developed by HD DVD supporter, Microsoft).

Though Disney has not made any announcements of an official codec switch for its upcoming Blu-ray titles, sources say the studio has already lined up its second VC-1 release, 'Casanova,' which is due for release in early 2007.

As always, we'll keep you posted on the latest Blu-ray releases and codec information, and you can check out our full review of 'Flightplan,' which is up now -- watch for full reviews of 'Pearl Harbor' and 'Invincible' beginning later today.