Blu-ray beaten by a dead format (for one week)

(Credit: Crave UK)

Imagine (pun intended) there's a race. In one lane is the late, great John Lennon. In the other, James Blunt. The starting gun fires, and somehow Lennon, who has been dead for 27 years now, beats Blunt to the finish line. Well, that's exactly what's happened with HD DVD. The dead format has managed to rise from the grave and muster enough energy to raise a pair of rotting fingers to Blu-ray.

No one is going to claim that HD DVD is anything other than finished. But it still warmed the cockles of our hearts when we saw the Nielsen VideoScan results for the week of Feb. 24. For that week, the HD DVD release of American Gangster was the No. 1-selling high-definition release. Of course, it would be negligent of us not to point out that all the other discs in the top 10 were Blu-ray. So it's not exactly a massive victory, and we can't somehow see all the studios switching to HD DVD now.

This comes when all of the studios have now admitted they will be releasing on Blu-ray. There have been sketchy reports that Paramount is already gearing up for some releases on Blu-ray--the question on most people's lips is will we see the immediate return of discs that Paramount previously produced on the format? After all, it should be a reasonably simple matter for these to continue production. The only studio we don't expect to move quickly is Universal, which has never supported Blu-ray and, as such, will probably have to re-think all its releases.

It seems odd that the remaining studios aren't rushing to start releasing on Blu-ray. Perhaps there is something else going on -- perhaps Hollywood is about to ditch disc formats and distribute only online. And maybe if you look out of your nearest window, you'll see a levitating Sus scrofa domestica too.

(Source: Crave UK)