Blue-Ray Makes First Score in High-Definition DVD War ; BUSINESS

Jun 19, 01:57 AM

Current Headlines: By Stephen Foley

Sony has scored a victory in the battle for supremacy among high- definition DVD formats with a decision by the Blockbuster chain to stock only the Japanese company's Blu-ray disks at 1,450 of its stores.

The decision is a setback for the rival format, HD-DVD, created by Toshiba, which criticised Blockbuster's move as premature. Sales and rentals of Bluray disks are running ahead of HD-DVD by a ratio of two to one, although both have proved disappointing.

The rivalry has confused consumers, who fear buying into a "modern-day Betamax" - the video recorder that lost out to VHS in a similarly vicious technological battle 30 years ago.

Further complicating the picture for potential buyers, Hollywood studios and TV producers have lined up behind one format or the other, meaning that most films are available on only one type of disc. Sony's film studio is releasing high-definition titles only on Blu-ray, as are 20th Century Fox and Disney, while Universal Studios is issuing titles only in HD-DVD.

Blockbuster has been renting Blu-ray and HD-DVD titles in 250 stores since late last year and found that consumers were choosing Bluray titles more than 70 per cent of the time, according to Matthew Smith, the senior vice-president of merchandising. "I can't ignore what I'm seeing," he said.

Blockbuster will continue to stock HD-DVD at its original 250 stores and promised to keep the situation under review, but its decision confirms that Blu-ray is inching ahead.

There are already significantly more homes with Blu-ray players than have HD-DVD devices, largely because Sony has designed a Blu- ray player into its Play-Station 3 games console.

The consortium backing HD-DVD said Blockbuster would rue making such a significant decision on just a few weeks' sales, particularly since the release of several big films that are available only in Blu-ray, such as Casino Royale.

Richard Cooper, an analyst at the market research group Screen Digest, also said Blockbuster's move could prove premature. "The PS3 has only been on the market for six months and there are not as yet any defining, heavyweight games titles available for it ... We think that spending will switch from Blu-Ray DVDs over to games."

High-definition DVDs, designed to use with high-definition television screens, offer crisper pictures. Bluray has the higher storage capacity of the two competing formats, but Toshiba claims its discs and machines are cheaper to make.

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