THE NEXT GENERATION NEW DVDS ROLLING OUT IN FORCE DUELING TECHNOLOGIES BEGIN POPULARITY CONTEST IN STORES.

Byline: GREG HERNANDEZ Staff Writer

The Adam Sandler comedy ``Click,'' about a man who uses a universal remote control to solve his problems, is hitting stores today with a technological bang: it's available both on regular DVD as well as on high-definition Blu-ray disc and is the first new release available in a dual-layer disc with unprecedented interactivity.

Welcome to the starting line of the next-generation DVD technology, which is shifting into high gear over the next three months.

With at least 25 million U.S. households expected to have high-definition television by the end of this year, the major studios are releasing more movies in high definition on the same day they are released in standard DVD format.

The two competing formats, Blu-ray and HD-DVD, began quietly rolling out library titles earlier this year but now several, including ``Mission Impossible III,'' ``Nacho Libre'' ``Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,'' ``Monster House'' and ``World Trade Center'' will also debut on regular DVD and high-definition DVD on the same day in the coming weeks.

``We're into the seventh month of the high-definition formats available in the marketplace but the fourth quarter is the time that really matters to both formats,'' said Warner Home Video's Steve Nickerson, senior vice president of market management. ``We as an industry need a new format to grow our business.''

With the studios releasing many of their summer blockbusters during the last three months of then year, the fourth quarter is always the DVD industry's most lucrative period.

The movie industry's challenge is to come up with appealing packaged entertainment so that people with high-definition capable plasma or LCD television sets won't start looking elsewhere -- downloading for example -- for product. The discs are designed to take full advantage of the greater picture and sound clarity on the new televisions.

``The bigger these monitors get, the more you get to see the difference between DVD and HD,'' said Matt Kennedy whose IK Studios produces such things as menus and other features included on DVSs. ``It's even bigger than the difference between VHS and DVD. That's starting to sink in and people are starting to understand the difference.''

But the industry famously continues to largely be split into two camps on the software front: Blu-ray disc and HD-DVD. Some studios, like Paramount, are putting out high-definition releases in both formats.

``The launch is progressing but there is consumer confusion out there,'' said Paramount's Chris Saito, vice president of marketing. ``The fourth quarter will be very telling in terms of which format will thrive.''

Toshiba began shipping HD-DVD players to stores in April while Samsung began its shipments at the end of June. Both are capable of playing standard DVDs so people will not have to start over in building their collections. The two formats are not compatible with each other at this point.

Hardware and software in both formats is available at such major retailers as WalMart, Best Buy, Circuit City and Amazon.com. As of last week, there were 74 movie titles available in HD-DVD and 53 titles in Blu-Ray. Both formats are expected to have more than 100 titles available by the end of the year.

Most reviews on the two formats state that the picture and sound quality is about equal with the main difference being that Blu-Ray can hold up to 60 percent more data than its rival.

``2006 has been a great year for high-definition displays and there's a new opportunity to make some comparisons between DVD and HD-DVD,'' said Don Eklund, Sony's executive vice president of advanced technologies. ``We've got a media now that can carry sound and a picture that exceeds even what people get in the movie theater. We're giving the consumer a really powerful microscope to look at film quality.''

Regardless of which format consumers choose, they showed last week that standard DVDs are still the rage despite flat sales when it comes to year-to-year comparisons. Last Tuesday marked the biggest fourth-quarter opening day in industry history with an estimated $80 million in consumer spending on 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's ``X-Men: The Last Stand'' and the Platinum Edition of ``The Little Mermaid'' released by Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment.

Sony upped the ante even more this week with its 50 GB Blu-ray format which, in addition to ``Click,'' is being used for upcoming Sony releases ``Black Hawk Down'' and ``Talladega Nights.'' Also using 50 GB will be 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on ``Kingdom of Heaven'' and Lionsgate's on the thriller ``The Descent.''

``We're going to include everything and the kitchen sink,'' said Miguel Casillas, vice president of DVD production for Lionsgate. ``We'll give the consumer the option to explore as much as they want or as little.''

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(1 -- 3 -- color) Adam Sandler stars in ``Click,'' which is being offered on high-definition DVD, as are ``Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby'' and ``Mission Impossible III.'' The discs are designed to take full advantage of the greater picture and sound clarity on high-definition capable plasma or LCD television sets.