Blu-ray has won the format war – what next? Keith Hennessey, editor of HD Review magazine, talks us through what the movie studios have in store…

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Blu-ray has won the format war over HD-DVD, according to the BBC.

In today’s news broadcast the BBC reporter says: “It looks as if Toshiba has lost this format war. It’s rapidly losing the support of retailers and movie studios, and the end appears nigh.”

Thanks to Andronix at www.PlayThree.net for the video.

It’s been a while since Warner announced their Blu-ray exclusivity, and the war still goes on, with Paramount and Universal clinging onto HD DVD. This week delivers yet more crushing blows to the HD DVD camp, with US mail rental firm Netflix phasing out support for the format, and retailer Best Buy planning to give Blu-ray more shelf space and recommend it to customers over HD DVD. This, along with various European distributors going Blu-ray exclusive since the Warner move, pushes the camp closer to victory – although, the final nail in HD DVD’s coffin is bound to be the loss of Paramount and long standing supporter, Universal Studios.

To mark the release on February the 18th of Resident Evil: Extinction on Blu-ray, Sony Pictures have kindly given us 15 copies of the film to give away here on Three Speech.

Resident Evil: Extinction is the third installment in the series of film adaptations, based on the Capcom franchise and starring Milla Jovovich. Borrowing elements from the Resident Evil Code: Veronica video game, the film follows the sleepless heroine Alice, and a group of survivors from Raccoon City, as they attempt to escape a zombie apocalypse. Erk.

To be in with a chance of winning a copy of Resident Evil:Extinction, simply answer the following drop-dead easy question: who directed Resident Evil: Extinction?

Email your answer to blog@threespeech.com and if you are one out the first 15 out of the hat when we do the draw at midday on Friday, a copy of REE will be yours. Be sure to put Resident Evil in the subject of your email. This competition is open to UK residents only.

© 2007 Constantin Film International GmbH. All Rights Reserved. © 2008 Layout and Design Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

There’s news of another retailer ditching HD DVD in favour of Blu-ray – this time, UK high street retailer Woolworths. The announcement cites poor Christmas HD DVD sales as the reason for the move, while praising the PlayStation 3 and its in built Blu-ray player.

Here’s what Woolworths DVD buyer Steven McGunigel had to say on the move…

“Sales figures clearly show that the market is moving towards one format of high definition DVD. The main reason is the success of Sony’s PlayStation 3 machine. Because it plays Blu-ray discs, there are over three quarters of a million homes in the UK that can view the new high definition format. There is nowhere near that number of HD DVD players around. Switching to Blu-ray only will provide one clear offer to customers in the format they want to watch high definition movies in.”

[Tech.co.uk]

A quick random but interesting bit of info for you: according to Develop Mag, out of the Heavenly Sword Blu-ray disc, a whopping 10GB is taken up by the sound effects and music alone. That includes three and a half hours of music, and four and a half thousand lines of dialogue. Looks like when ‘Chief Design Ninja’ Tameem Antoniades said that Heavenly Sword couldn’t be done with DVD, he wasn’t joking!

[Develop Mag]

Speaking at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, Mark Rein (vice president of Epic Games) praised the inclusion of Blu-ray in the PS3, saying that the PS3 version of Unreal Tournament 3 may get more maps due to the extra storage space. He also gives us an insight of what the future holds. Here’s what he had to say…

“We’ll compress some things. But you know, we may have fewer maps on the 360 version… Blu-Ray has definitely given us a lot of legroom.”

“If you think down the road, well, maybe the next UT beyond this one, on Blu-Ray disc, we might fill the whole damn disc with all the cool stuff the mod makers make.”