As many know, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is going on at this very moment. Well, one very big announcement was just made that rocked the high definition community. Warner Studios (which includes New Line and others), after straddling the fence for at least a year now by releasing their movies on both HD DVD and Blu-Ray, officially decided to go Blu-Ray exclusive starting in May of this year. The Blu-Ray format now has well over 70% of the Hollywood studios exclusively putting out movies! This is music to my ears since I threw my hat into the Blu-Ray camp years ago after seeing the superiority of the medium and its potential, including buying a Playstation 3 which doubles as a Blu-Ray DVD player. Also, Apple is behind the medium and is quite possibly set to include its first Blu-Ray drive in its Mac Pro line at the upcoming MacWorld in a couple of weeks. In the end, Warner made the best financial decision for the company and for the DVD industry itself, which had been slightly decreasing in sales. Further, in head-to-head matchups between Warner movies released on both formats, including 300 and Harry Potter, Blu-Ray had been winning convincingly. Not only domestically, but worldwide, in Europe and Japan, there has effectively been no format war, with Blu-Ray winning the contest hands-down. Unlike the BetaMax fiasco of years ago, this time the better format won.
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