I think this decision pretty well settles the format war for high-definition digital video.

Warner Bros. Entertainment said Friday it will release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format, becoming the latest studio to reject the rival HD DVD technology and further complicating the high-definition landscape for consumers.

Warner Bros., owned by Time Warner Inc., was the only remaining studio releasing high-definition DVDs in both formats.

It is the fifth studio to back Blu-ray, developed by Sony Corp. Only two support the HD DVD format, developed by Toshiba Corp.

Both formats deliver crisp, clear high-definition pictures and sound. But they are incompatible with each other, and neither plays on older DVD players, which means consumers seeking top-quality playback face a dilemma.

Warner said it decided to go with Blu-ray because consumers have shown a stronger preference for that format than HD DVD.

"The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger," Warner Bros. chairman and Chief Executive Barry Meyer said in a statement.

"We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers and, most importantly, consumers," the statement said.

Market-share seems to have settled the matter, especially Since some major retailers have indicated that they are Blu-ray only distributors. And given that a Blu-ray disc holds 20GB more data than an HD-DVD I'm not surprised that people would prefer that format. For that matter, it probably spells the end of the "Bonus Feature" disc, since that material can likely be incorporated on the same disc as the original movie.

Posted by: Greg at 02:27 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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