Universal Music Group and Lions Gate Home Entertainment

Aug 17, 2005 10:16 GMT  ·  By

The battlefield is still echoing with the sounds of battle that has just been waged. HD-DVD is sitting on a hill and is licking its wounds after receiving a heavy blow: Universal Music Group (UMG) has joined BDA (Blu-ray Disc Association), and implicitly, it has announced its support for this organization.

This decision comes almost two weeks after BDA enlisted another valuable ally: Twentieth Century Fox and the announcement of the content protection system for Blu-ray discs.

When it comes to movie studios and record companies HD-DVD is backed by: Universal Pictures, Warner Home Video and Paramount Home Entertainment, while Blu-ray has: Walt Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group.

Two weeks ago, had an equal number of supporters among the music and film companies, but once Universal Music Group has announced its support for Blu-ray, BDA has gained an edged over HD-DVD. It's interesting to notice that while Universal Pictures is among the supporters of Toshiba's format, HD-DVD, Universal Music Group has announced its support for Blu-ray.

If over the next months, a record company or movie studio will announce their support for Blu-ray, Sony's format will become unbeatable. And it seems that it will happen sooner than we had anticipated, Lions Gate Home Entertainment being expected to announce today its support for Blu-ray.