By Yinka Adegoke Wed Jul 18, 2:14 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co. music label Hollywood Records is offering a new CD format with extra features to encourage compact-disc purchases in a bid to reverse declining CD sales.

Hollywood Records on Wednesday unveiled its new CDVU+ (CD View Plus) format with digital magazine extras, song lyrics, band photos and other extras to boost fan loyalty.

The new format also replaces the traditional CD booklet and plastic jewel case with recyclable packaging.

Teen punk band Jonas Brothers will be the first act to use the technology when they release their self-titled album on August 7.

Music companies have been seeking new ways to give buyers more value from recorded music sales in hopes of turning around declining sales trends of regular CDs.

U.S. CD sales were down nearly 20 percent in the first half of 2007 as more young buyers digitally download music and piracy runs rampant.

Disney executives hope to hold the interest of fans by offering content similar to the extras on movie DVDs and convince them that pure music products still offer good value.

Recorded music is also competing with video games and other forms of entertainment for a share of consumers' disposable income.

The content on a CDVU+ can be downloaded and accessed online and off. The label said the extra content had been produced for the new format rather than using the band's outtakes or widely available material, such as existing music videos.

"We really believe if you're going to give consumers what they want, we should do it in a way they're used to," said Ken Bunt, Hollywood Records' senior vice president of marketing.

Hollywood Records is a label within Disney Music Group, which last year had the two biggest selling CDs in the U.S., the High School Musical soundtrack and country singer Rascal Flatts' "Me And My Gang."

Other acts include Hilary Duff and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus. Bunt said the company is already making plans to release albums from Duff and two other big selling acts -- The Cheetah Girls and Atreyu -- on CDVU+.

How does this differ from the ECD (enhanced CD)?

Personally, I'd rather see the record companies provide good music at a good price instead of adding multimedia content (which will most assuredly be used as a justification for maintaining a high price tag.) Then again, at 46-year-old, I'm not the RIAA's target audience.

My impression is that this has a lot more to do with encouraging people to buy the CD (or official download) instead of "illegally downloading" the songs than it has to do with justifying a price. You're right though...we need better music at a better price...PERIOD!

Walter... Yeah, I'm sure that's their motivation. (Then again, it's not like someone won't find a way to extract and share the multimedia content.)

My point about the similarity between this "new" concept and the ECD is that the ECD was also supposed to be giving consumers some sort of bonus with its multimedia content. Where are ECD's now? Obviously, it wasn't an idea that was successful with consumers back then and I doubt it will revive the recording industry now. As always, the RIAA seems to be on the wrong path to solving its problems.

As for the recyclable packaging... I despise digi-packs as much as (if not more than) the next person. However, I see merit to packaging which is environmentally friendly also. But, are the companies which are using the environmentlly friendly packaging doing so because they care about the earth, or because it's simply cheaper to do so?

Has anyone here ever seen one of the hemp plastic jewel cases? They seem to be the best of both worlds, even though they are currently too costly to be practical. One of these days, I'll order a couple sample cases, just to see how durable they are.

I saw 2 major problems with ECD's:

1. The low quality (ie low bitrate) Video CD (VCD Mpeg 1) content

2. At the time ECD's were launched many pc's were so slow that they had problems showing the VCD content....