Some more formats! Yes, a confused marketplace is a healthy marketplace

A couple of weeks after Warners unveiled the MVI disc, which is effectively a CD with some watchable stuff lobbed on top, comes Disney's Hollywood Records with their brand-new CD-VU format. Which is, effectively, a CD with some watchable stuff lobbed on top.

Some grudging respect to the label for trying to interest an audience with something extra for their money, even if it is an uninspired idea to simply add in "digital magazine extras, song lyrics, band photos and other extras to boost fan loyalty" and hope that will do it. And since the bloody labels spend so much time coming together to plan how to shake down their customers for cash with legal threats, is it really beyond their wits to get together to co-operate before launching a range of similar-but-different new formats?

Oh, and while we're on new formats: Scratch and sniff CDs. We can't begin to guess what a Smashing Pumpkins album would reek of.