No End In Sight For The War

I thought we had been nearing an end of the HD DVD/Blue-ray war, as all the articles I had read recently had led me to believe that the Blu-ray format had all but won and it was just a matter of time before HD DVD went the way of Beta. Then I came across this article stating that Paramount has announced it will no longer support Blu-ray. That's a pretty big studio and could really swing this thing the other way.

But what I really found interesting in the article were some of the statistics they threw out regarding what influenced Paramount's decision. Apparently Blu-ray's current lead in the market is a little misleading.

More than that, the 2:1 lead is in software, but in hardware, thanks to the PS3,
Blu-ray actually has a 5:1 lead. What does that mean? It means that owners of HD
DVD players are buying more content per person than the owners of Blu-ray
players. From a studio's point of view, that's built in customer loyalty right
there

Add to that the fact that HD DVD is cheaper to produce and easier to type but still retails for the same price, and I'm not so sure that HD DVD won't end up on top. And if I had to make the decision today, I think I'd probably go with HD DVD. Primarily because the players are cheaper, but also because I dislike Sony. Luckily for any of you reading this, I don't feel like getting into my Sony rant at the moment, so I'll leave it at that.

It does appear that it is going to be a long time before this shakes out though. I'm going to have to vote with my wallet before any winner is declared, and to be honest, at this point I'm not sure that there ever will be a winner. I think it's entirely possible that both formats could coexist until the next format comes out. Super HD. Maybe I should wait for that.