14 DAY TRIAL // The battle between the rival DVD technologies is fought by Sony's Blu-Ray and Toshiba's HD DVD. Both formats try to attract big market players and media companies on their side. Last month, Warner Bros. moved into the Blu-Ray camp, although the company supported HD DVD for a while in Hollywood. This format war is similar to the home video competition between VHS and Betamax that took place back in the 80s.
Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) joined the Blu-Ray camp as well, announcing that it will support this format. Sony grabbed a share of the James Bond movie franchise in April, and as the studio behind this movie is MGM, this move is not considered surprisingly.
MGM stated that it has plans of releasing multiple movies and television series from its portfolio after the Blu-Ray enabled devices will be available in Europe, North America and Japan.
As for the winner of this war, research companies think that Blu-Ray has the most chances to win the battle, but definitive answer will be available probably only in the spring of 2006, because the talks between Sony and Toshiba on unifying the formats haven't reached any agreement.