March 8, 2007 -- 'THE Departed" recently premiered on two new - and utterly incompatible - video for mats in addition to standard DVD.
Now the war between those formats, which has been almost as brutal as the clashes in Martin Scorsese's movie, seems to be coming to a head.
For the first time, in the first two months of 2007 total sales of Blu-ray discs passed those of HD DVD, according to the most recent figures from Nielsen VideoScan.
And propelled by the introduction of Sony's PlayStation 3 - which can play Blu-ray technology - sales of Blu-ray discs have exploded to nearly three times those of HD DVD discs since Christmas.
It's the first clear sign that consumers are choosing sides in the nastiest video format war since VHS emerged victorious over Sony's Betamax machines in the 1980s.
"The format war is in its final phase," crows Steve Feldstein of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, which, like Sony and Disney, is releasing titles exclusively on Blu-ray. "It's never been a question of if Blu-ray will pass HD DVD, but a matter of when."
Not so fast, says Ken Graffeo of Universal Studios Home Entertainment, the only major studio exclusively supporting the embattled HD DVD format, which was developed by Toshiba. (Warner Home Video and Paramount Home Video are producing titles in both formats for now.)
Graffeo blames the recent surge for Blu-ray on the paucity of new titles on HD DVD - about half the number of titles released by Blu-ray since the beginning of the year - and argues Blu-ray sales are actually much lower than you would expect, given the huge number of PS3s out there.
"You can't determine a trend over a couple of months," says Graffeo, who notes that total sales for both formats are roughly equal since their introductions last year.
But some experts are ready to play taps for the HD DVD format - and are saying it's safe to buy Blu-ray players without fear they'll end up being sold as relics on eBay.
Alison Casey, who analyzes consumer trends for London-based Understanding & Solutions, predicts that retailers will pull the plug on HD DVD sometime next year.
"They never wanted two formats. It confuses consumers and creates problems with them with returns," Casey told The Post. "They're looking to go to a single format as soon as possible."
In Casey's view, the many studios providing movies on Blu-ray, along with its inclusion in the PS3 (listing for $500, about the same as the cheapest HD DVD player) gives it an insurmountable advantage over HD DVD. (An attachment to play HD DVD discs is available as a $200 add-on for Xbox.)
And she says Sony's advantage will increase if the electronics giant makes good on its promise to drop prices for Blu-ray players - currently about $800 - to $600 this summer and below $300 by the end of the year.
Casey thinks Warner Home Video's recently announced plans to sell combo discs containing both formats will only confuse consumers.
LG Electronics will begin selling machines that can play both formats by the end of the year, but the whopping $1,200 price tag may put off customers. Bigger hardware manufacturers don't seem interested at this point in making combo machines.
But in the end, software may be HD DVD's Achilles' heel.
"If you look at the top 25 selling DVDs last year, 23 were released on Blu-ray," Fox's Feldstein says. "Just two were exclusive to HD DVD."
The biggest booster of HD DVD format, albeit reluctantly, has been the porn industry. Sony has reportedly refused to replicate porn on Blu-ray discs, and Disney, which does business with several Blu-ray replicators, is said to have contractually prohibited them from handling porn.
But HD DVD may be losing even that advantage - Vivid Entertainment, the leader in the porn field, will soon debut "Debbie Does Dallas" on Blu-ray.
Blu-ray may triumph over HD DVD in the near future, but analyst Casey says it will take five years or more to overtake the hugely popular standard DVD format. DVD discs are currently cheaper (Blu-ray discs retail between $30 and $40) and represent nearly 99 percent of all video sales, while DVD machines are available for well under $100.
"In four or five years, broadband speeds will have increased to the point where downloading movies and burning them to a disc becomes much more easy and appealing than going out and buying a disc for many consumers," analyst Casey says.
