HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc Ending of the format war

In January 2008, a day before CES 2008, Warner Brothers, the only major studio still releasing movies in both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc format, announced they will only release in Blu-ray Disc after May 2008. This effectively included other studios which came under the Warner umbrella, such as New Line Cinema and HBO, though in Europe HBO distribution partner the BBC annouced it would, while keeping an eye on market forces, continue to release product on both formats. This led to a chain reaction in the industry, including major US retailers such as Wal-Mart dropping HD DVD in their stores. A major European retailer Woolworths dropped HD DVD from its inventory. Netflix, the major online DVD rental site said it would no longer stock new HD DVDs. Following these new developments, on 19 February 2008, Toshiba announced it would be ending production of HD DVD devices,^[35] allowing Blu-ray Disc to become the industry standard for high-density optical disks. Universal Studios, the sole major movie studio to back HD DVD since inception, shortly after Toshiba's announcement said, "while Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray Disc."^[36] Paramount Studios, which started releasing movies only in HD DVD format during late 2007, also said it would start releasing in Blu-ray Disc. With this, all major Hollywood studios supported Blu-ray

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray