James Delahunty
17 Aug 2005 22:31
Lions Gate Entertainment has announced plans to release movies and other content using the Blu-Ray disc format when it becomes available next year. Blu-Ray disc is a competing format for post DVD supremacy developed by Sony Corp. Also in the competition is HD-DVD developed by Toshiba. Both formats offer much more capacity than normal DVDs which is needed to store High Definition movies on discs. Both sides have also got strong competition.
Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox and The Walt Disney Co. are studios that also support the Blu-Ray format. Studios backing HD-DVD include Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios. Studios are looking for the best format to allow the storing of much higher quality copies of movies and of course, good protection against piracy, which so far the traditional DVD failed to give.
Due to the amount of support building on each side and each camp claiming their technology is the best; it looks like the world is headed towards another format war which will rival the fuss BetaMax vs. VHS caused. With equipment expected soon for both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, consumers will be confused and not sure which technology to go with. A much better scenario would be a unified standard, but there has been no luck with that.
Source:
MercuryNews.com