We all know the news that Warner has plumped for Blu-Ray, meaning that a seemingly decisive and substantial majority of Studios support only Blu-Ray. Media analysts agree that Blu-Ray has won:
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/toshiba-disappointed-hd-dvd-to-die-a-quick-death/18986/?biz=1
New Line and HBO have also moved to support Blu-Ray (as subsidiaries of Warner it is hardly surprising):
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/index.cfm?sec_id=2&newsid=11853
Universal and Paramount still back HD DVD, but for how much longer? There are already reports of retailers pressuring them to go Blu-Ray:
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/report-paramount-universal-pressured-by-retail-to-go-blu/19031/?biz=1
Universal and Paramount deny that they will switch teams:
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/index.cfm?sec_id=2&newsid=11870
But the very next day Universal announces that it will in fact support Blu-Ray as well:
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/report-universal-no-longer-backing-hd-dvd-exclusively/19054/?biz=1
This leaves Paramount as the only major studio to exclusively support HD DVD. Why does it continue its stance? No doubt it would support Blu-Ray if it could, but perhaps it wont be so easy for it to get out of its contract with Toshiba. You may recall that Paramount took a $150 million pay off from Toshiba to exclusively support HD DVD. This may prove to be a rather expensive $150 million if an escape clause cannot be found, which would suggest pretty poor management at Paramount.
Digital Delivery Escape Clause by the end of the year?
Indeed Paramount may be looking for a complete escape clause from Blu-Ray or HD DVD, as they plan to put their library online:
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/index.cfm?sec_id=2&newsid=11869
Similarly Comcast is very bullish on their ability to deliver HD movies online, with new breakthroughs in technology that allow HD movies to be delivered over the Internet in 4 minutes:
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/index.cfm?sec_id=2&newsid=11848
Frankly this sounds a little too good to be already true, but they anticipate rolling this out by the end of the year.
Toshiba's New Strategy?
Toshiba's has yet to surrender on HD DVD. At first defeat looked like it would be announced any day. Even Microsoft said it would consider putting Blu-Ray on the Xbox 360:
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/microsoft-would-consider-bluray-for-xbox/19022/?biz=1
Then Microsoft vehemently denied this:
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/now-microsoft-is-inoti-considering-bluray/19045/?biz=1
And now Toshiba has changed its HD DVD sales strategy. Rather than continue to compete with Blu-Ray head to head, it has lowered the price of HD DVD players in order to compete with upconverting DVD players. Thus you can get an HD DVD player that upconverts regular DVDs as well as has the ability to play an HD DVD for little more than a regular upconverting DVD player costs:
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/index.cfm?sec_id=2&newsid=11877
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