In a further boot to the soft parts of the HD DVD format, The Financial Times is today reporting that Paramount is preparing to withdraw their support for HD DVD and go with Blu-ray instead. That would leave the beleagured hi-definition DVD format with only Universal exclusively on its side and hand almost certain victory to Blu-ray.
It was thought that Paramount was locked into an exclusivity contract with HD DVD until the end of 2008, but FT reports that there is a clause in that contract that says Paramount can change sides if Warner Bros withdraw their support for the format.
This is obviously bad news for anyone who's bought a HD DVD player, but should be good news for consumers as a whole. Once the format war is over, then it can be considered 'safe' to invest in the hi-def future and prices should start to come down.
The Blu-ray users in the Empire office will obviously not be taking this as an opportunity to point at our HD DVD adopting colleagues (Chris Hewitt and Nick De Semlyen) and say "HA-HAA". That would be unprofessional and cruel.