Warner Bros backs Sony DVD technology

This combo picture shows large booths for the promotion of the next generation DVDs, Blu-ray Disk Association, left, headed by Sony, and Toshiba's HD DVD promotion group, right, during Asia's largest electronics trade show Ceatec in Tokyo on Oct. 5. PHOTO: AFP

Sony Corp won a crucial boost yesterday in a war over new DVD formats as Warner Brothers became the latest Hollywood studio to announce its support for the struggling electronics icon's Blu-ray technology.

Warner Brothers is already a member of a rival format group led by Toshiba Corp, which said yesterday that the Time Warner unit continued to collaborate closely with the group towards a commercial launch of its HD DVD technology.

Warner Brothers said it would now also release its films in the Blu-ray format, joining US movie giant Paramount Home Entertainment which is also hedging its bets by making films for both formats.

"Consumers will soon be able to enjoy a large selection of catalogue favorites and contemporary hits from Warner's vast library on the Blu-ray format," said Warner Home Video president Jim Cardwell.

Sony has much riding on the success of Blu-ray. It described the decision by Warner Brothers to join the Blu-ray board of directors as "a significant step in the consumer adoption of the format.

"With the addition of Warner Brothers, five of the six major studios now support the Blu-ray disc format, together representing approximately 80 percent of the Hollywood studio content," Sony said.

The studios had pushed the Sony and Toshiba camps to settle their differences and develop a single format in an effort to avoid a replay of the VHS-Betamax war between two types of video cassette tapes in the late 1970s.

But the two sides failed to reach a deal and currently plan to push ahead with their separate technologies.

Toshiba issued a statement saying it "strongly believes the HD DVD format will eventually win broad support as the more superior format," adding that it is committed to launching the new product early next year in the US.

Among other studios, Walt Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox are members of the Blu-ray association while Universal Pictures has given its support to HD DVD.