Despite Universal sticking with the HD DVD format, they decided not to make any major title announcements at this year's CES, which disappointed early adopters of the format. Now, with the show long over, they have just announced 100 New HD DVD titles for 2007. Despite the rumours going around that Universal may take on Blu-ray, the studio confirmed that it is committed to backing the HD DVD format only and has no plans on supporting the rival or any hybrid format involving Blu-ray.
Universal will release all 100 titles exclusively on HD DVD this year, with 40 HD DVD titles to become available within the first half of 2007. They estimate that 90% of its titles will be released as HD DVD/DVD combo discs, which allow legacy standard definition playback in existing DVD players. This allows consumers to purchase and watch these combo discs once they launch before forking out on a HD DVD player.
With Universal still reluctant to support HD DVD and the same with Sony unlikely to ever support HD DVD, as long as this keeps up, the real winner in the end will likely be hybrid Blu-ray/HD DVD players, with those purchasing either single format player losing out on certain movies released exclusively on the rival format.
Further details including some of the upcoming titles can be read on High-Def Digest here.
