Audio Video News

In one of the most bold, stunning and unforeseen moves that's occured over the entire course of the format war, it was announced early this morning that Paramount and DreamWorks Animation will support HD DVD exclusively moving forward on a worldwide basis. Next week's HD DVD release of <I>Blades of Glory</I> will be the first Paramount HD DVD exclusive, followed by this summer's hits <I>Transformers</I> and <I>Shrek the Third</I>.

In a surprising about-face Paramount Home Entertainment announced early this week that it intends to release its films on Blu-ray Disc. As confusing as this announcement makes the current format war in general, what's perhaps more confusing is that the studio ostensibly still plans to release films in the HD DVD format as well as Blu-ray in spite of the fact that all parties involved seem to agree that two formats will simply confuse consumers, perhaps to the point that they won't buy into either format.

Trekkers, rejoice! <A HREF="http://www.paramount.com">Paramount Home Video</A>, owner of the Star Trek franchise and Indiana Jones movies, will release open-format DVDs this year, the company announced Monday, April 27. The decision comes two weeks after <A HREF="http://www.blockbuster.com/">Blockbuster Music & Video</A> announced that it would begin a big push with DVD rentals. The growing popularity of DVD was a major factor in both decisions: Consumer-electronics industry analysts predict that there will be as many as one million DVD players in American homes by the end of 1998.