Studios back Toshiba's HD DVD

It looks like the DVD collection and the Onkyo might be obsolete in the not too distant future!

4 studios back Toshiba's HD DVD
REUTERS[ MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2004 02:48:25 PM]
TOKYO: Toshiba said on Monday it had won support for the HD DVD optical disc standard from Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Studios and New Line Cinema, advancing its cause in the battle for the next-generation DVD. Toshiba, with NEC, is promoting a next-generation DVD technology called HD DVD, while Sony and several other giants of the electronics, computer and movie industries are backing a competing standard dubbed Blu-ray. Both technologies use blue lasers, which have shorter wave length than the red lasers used in current DVD equipment, allowing discs to store data at the higher densities needed for high-definition movies and television. Support from US film studios is seen as vital in this format battle, just as it was when the VHS standard prevailed over Sony's Betamax two decades ago. Warner Bros. is a unit of Time Warner, Universal Pictures is a division of General Electric and Paramount Pictures is a unit of Viacom. Blu-ray has the support of Sony Pictures and the tacit backing of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, recently acquired by a Sony-led consortium. It is also counting on Twentieth Century Fox, which recently joined the Blu-ray Disc Association board.