HD-DVD Blu-Ray Hi Definition Format War Over?

On January 4^th Warner Brothers announced that will discontinue producing films on for the HD-DVD player. This could be a fatal blow to the HD-DVD format, thus ending the Hi-Def format battle that's raged for almost 2 years with no clear winner in site.

Warner Brothers has one of the largest film libraries in the movie industry making an exclusive Blu-Ray deal a decisive and critical victory. Warner states that they will end production on all HD-DVD titles in late May.

In a press release dated January 4^th, Warner Brothers stated the reasoning for the change was to bolster the HD format opportunity.

"The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. 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."

"Warner Bros. has produced in both high-definition formats in an effort to provide consumer choice, foster mainstream adoption and drive down hardware prices,".....

...."Today's decision by Warner Bros. to distribute in a single format comes at the right time and is the best decision both for consumers and Time Warner"

There's little argument that a format war has hurt the adoption of the HD format in DVD. With only about 1 million players sold of either format a more prolonged battle serves only to hurt DVD sales. With a clear winner in the format battle, HD format adoption, and sales of movie titles in the HD format, should go up substantially as they did when DVD first came in to wide adoption in the early 90's as people replace their standard format DVD with an HD version. This is backed in part by the increased adoption in high definition LCD and Plasma televisions over the last year.

The key thing to look for over the next few months will be if Paramount, Dreamworks and Universal Studios have a change of heart on their backing of the DH-DVD format. Although many analysts think this is the final word in the war, and I tend to agree, HD-DVD is not likely to give up without a fight. Universal and Dreamworks are said to have received a "substantial" amounts of money to back the HD-DVD format as the exclusive format for both studios, which could curtail them from jumping ship.