November 29, 2004 - After months of momentum for Blu-ray, HD-DVD has shot back with a big gain - studio support. Toshiba Corp., which has been developing the HD-DVD format, announced it has lined up Warner Bros. Studios and its subsidiary New Line Cinema, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures as providers of HD-DVD movies.

Toshiba is developing HD-DVD, the would-be successor to DVD, with NEC and Sanyo. The HD-DVD format is the official, endorsed format from the DVD Forum, the consortium that originally shepherded the DVD format to completion. Sony is developing the competing format. Blu-ray with partners like Dell Computer and Matsushita.

These studios combined represent about 45 percent of Hollywood's prepackaged DVD sales in the United States, Toshiba said. The studios are expected to release movie titles on HD-DVD when the format is launched in the fourth quarter of 2005.

Blu-ray also expects to launch in Q4 '05. Thus far only Sony Pictures is committed to Blu-ray, although it can be assumed that MGM, which Sony acquired earlier this year, will also support Blu-ray. Twentieth Century Fox recently joined the Blu-ray Disc Association board but has not committed to a format.

This leaves Walt Disney Company and its numerous imprints (Buena Vista, Touchstone, Miramax) as the only major studio not to take or favor either side, and it's not saying where it stands, either. DreamWorks is another player, but given its close relationship with Universal, it will likely support HD-DVD as well.

Toshiba also announced it will use AACS for content protection, settling an issue that has been up in the air for a while, HD-DVD's content protection method. AACS is basically the Content Scrambling System (CSS) that's already in use (and broken) on DVD, with better crypto but no ability to recover from security failures, something Blu-ray can do.