HD DVD wins a battle but is still losing the war

Paramount and DreamWorks announced that they would exclusively release their high-definition movies on the HD DVD format. This change in strategy comes with $150 million in financial incentives for committing to HD DVD.

Although this is a major win for HD DVD, they remain far behind the superior Blu-Ray media in the battle for a single high-definition format.

Blu-Ray, which holds 10 more gigs of storage per layer, has been out selling HD DVD movie titles 2-to-1 in 2007, and has gained favor of major retailers including Blockbuster and Target in recent months.

Until this week, Blu-Ray seemed to have all but won the format war. In my opinion, this deal with Paramount and DreamWorks only delays the inevitable... Blu-Ray coming out on top.

Ultimately, it's up to the consumers to decide who wins. However many consumers, myself included, won't make a decision until the format war is over. It's this paradox that will fuel the format war for much too long.