Untill now only Universal has been releasing their movies on HD DVD, all others have either been releasing their movies exclusively on Blue-ray (FOX and Disney) or on both formats. That led to Blue-ray outselling HD DVD. Many already thought the winner of the format war was Blue-ray. With right reason, Blu-ray title sales were outpacing HD-DVD sales by nearly a 2 to 1 margin. But out of the blue, Paramount and (sister studio) Dreamworks Animation announced (press release) that they will be releasing new movies exclusively on HD DVD, which is a major set back for Blu-ray.

I already have chosen my format, and for once it seems that I have done the right choice. I chose HD DVD, and can now look forward to also see Paramount and all of its subsidiaries (including DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films) publishing movies for this format, including ‘Shrek the Third’. Excluded are all movies directed by Steven Spielberg. The article is not mentioning Aardman, which have been working closely with Dreamworks Animation on productions like the Wallace & Gromit movie and Flushed Away. Will they also be releasing their movies (for instance Chicken Run) exclusively for HD DVD? The news is top-news on all the web sites that I daily read, for instance Betanews, Engadget, Golem and High-Def Digest.

There are technical reasons to choose HD DVD instead of Blue-ray, such as  for instance picture-in-picture and network capabilities. Both the HD DVD and Blu-ray version of “300” include a “blue screen” extra that allows the viewer to see how the complex battle scenes were actually filmed. But only the HD DVD version lets you watch the blue screen version alongside the actual movie, and the comparison is what makes the extra actually interesting to watch. HD DVD’s networking (Blu-ray is network capable, but it’s not required) opens the door to quite a few possibilities. On 300, one of the first films with such capability, viewers can set bookmarks and upload their favorite scenes to a central location, where other 300 owners can watch them. Ringtone and wallpaper downloads are available as well, which get sent to a cell phone automatically. Well, I don’t care about favourite scenes uploads, ringtones and wallpapers, but about HD DVD owners eventually being able to download new subtitle languages, trailers, and other extended content for films. I mostly buy U.K. imports of my HD DVD movies, being able to later get Norwegian subtitles for my movies is not a sales gimmic. These downloads are kept on the player’s built-in storage, another requirement of HD DVD.