Audio Video News

Buried in yesterday's avalanche of HD DVD coverage was this nugget: Universal, until now an HD DVD stalwart, will waste no time in switching to Blu-ray.

Home Media Magazine scooped the rest of the blogosphere with the following quote:

"While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray," said Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

"The path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear. Universal will continue its aggressive efforts to broaden awareness for high-def's unparalleled offerings in interactivity and connectivity, at an increasingly affordable price. The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate."

Well, almost the entire entertainment industry.

In the unsubstantiated rumor department, a report attributed to the German magazine Praxis has Paramount following suit. When we get confirmation, you'll be the first to know. It is likely that the remaining HD DVD-committed studios have out clauses that will enable them to go Blu this year.

In the anticlimax department, Amazon announced it would support Blu-ray, which probably means intensifying its existing support. The item on the Blu-ray site did not mention that Amazon will also continue carrying products for HD DVD customers.

In the contrarian department, LG says it will continue to support HD DVD, and the folks who invested in it, with a combi player. The British site PocketLint has the details.

And finally, in the unintended consequences department, the rise of Blu-ray might doom another Sony-originated format if the several classical labels still supporting SACD switch to Blu-ray. The attraction is the next-gen format's support for lossless codecs like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. Our sister publication Stereophile reports that Naxos has already dumped both SACD and DVD-Audio in favor of the high-def video formats and the focus of future releases is shifting to Blu-ray.