Has Paramount Already Abandoned HD DVD?

I’ve stayed pretty much out of this whole format war thing. So have most of you, in fact a good portion of you probably have no freaking idea what I’m even talking about, at least judging from the sales figures on next generation DVDs and players. HD DVD and Blu Ray have been floating around out there as a format for awhile now, but HD and Blu Ray products still occupy a relatively small spot on the shelves of retailers.

The reasons for that, till now, have been twofold: First, nobody’s really all that eager for a new format. DVD’s still pretty good, and if you’ve got an up-converted DVD player connected properly to a high definition television, then the difference in quality between that and these new fangled, wildly expensive formats has been… well… wildly exaggerated. Sorry, I know there are a lot of people out there saying differently, waving around screenshots which make normal DVD look like it’s VHS, but that’s a bunch of bullshit. Sure, these new high-def formats are prettier than normal DVD, but they ain’t that much prettier.

But the big reason nobody has been paying two fucks worth of attention to the new high-def stuff is that most consumers simply haven’t wanted to get stuck on the losing end of a format war. Whenever anyone asks me if they should invest in a high-def player, my answer is always “Hell no. When was the last time you saw a BetaMAX player?” I have refused to buy into either format, and have so far been pretty content with my Sony HDMI Upscale, regular DVD player. Now though, I think I may go pick up a Blu Ray player. The format war is over folks, it’s all but official, and Blu Ray is the winner.

HD DVD is the new BetaMAX. Over the weekend Warner Brothers announced that they will be making their high-def titles available exclusively on Blu Ray. That leaves really only Universal and Paramount still putting out their DVDs in HD DVD… except whoops… today rumor has it that Paramount has switched to Blu Ray as well. So far, Paramount’s people are denying it, but the rumors persist. Warner Brothers selling out to Sony’s Blu Ray format was already the nail in the coffin, Paramount joining them would simply be a way to avoid a slow, and painful HD DVD death.

If the rumor is false, and Paramount hasn’t switched yet, then let me take just a moment to make this plea: Give it up folks. With the addition of Warner Brothers on the side of Blu Ray, it’s over. The longer this drags out, the worse it is for the format, and the worse it is for consumers, many of whom may still be sucked into buying useless HD DVD players. If Paramount hasn’t called it quits yet, they should, before consumers skip the whole mess and simply wait for the next format.

For now, we’re still waiting for all the rumors around Paramount’s possible abandoning of the HD DVD ship to sort themselves out. Hold on to your wallets, and we’ll give you the latest over the next few days, as this all starts to make a little more sense.