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Sony Corp. struck the latest and biggest blow in the war over high-definition DVD formats when it announced yesterday that Warner Bros. studio, Hollywood's biggest seller of DVD movies, has agreed to produce discs solely in Sony's Blu-Ray format.

The decision by Warner Bros., which is owned by Time Warner Inc., to back Blu-Ray is a major coup for Sony as the Japanese electronics company attempts to break a stalemate with Toshiba Corp.'s HD DVD format.

Sony and Toshiba's competing technologies have split the market and frustrated consumers, leading to slow adoption of both technologies. Blu-Ray and HD DVD discs can't be played on equipment designed for the competing format. As a result, only about a million players in each format have been sold so far, even though the potential consumer market is in the billions of dollars as demand for high-definition televisions grows.

"A two-format landscape has led to consumer confusion and indifference toward high definition, which has kept the technology from reaching mass adoption and becoming the important revenue stream that it can be for the industry," said Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Bros. home entertainment group.

Warner was the only major Hollywood studio producing DVDs in both the Blu-Ray and HD DVD formats. It even floated the possibility last January of a "Total HD" disc designed to support both formats, but it went nowhere. Warner is Hollywood's biggest seller of DVDs, accounting for about 18 to 20 per cent of sales in the U.S.

Warner joins Walt Disney Co., News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate and Sony Pictures as Blu-Ray-exclusive studios. Viacom Inc.'s Paramount studios and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal are the only two major studios to sign on with Toshiba's HD DVD format.

Signing Warner pushes Blu-Ray ahead of HD DVD and builds on the momentum Sony's format garnered in the pre-Christmas shopping rush, Info-Tech Research Group analyst Michelle Warren said.

"It's still neck and neck, but it looks like Blu-Ray might be inching forward," she said. "This is a huge win for Blu-Ray and a pretty big loss for HD DVD."

Although more HD DVD players have been sold than their Blu-Ray counterparts, Blu-Ray software sales are outpacing those of HD DVD, in part because Sony's Playstation 3 video game console includes a Blu-Ray drive.

Warner said it will continue to produce HD DVDs until May, 2008, although standard DVD and Blu-Ray versions of those movies will hit stores first.

Total DVD sales fell 4.5 per cent in 2007, the first major year-over-year decline since the format debuted in 1997, according to Adams Media Research. DVDs have been the most popular format for movies since overtaking VHS videotapes in 2003.

The only commercially available player that supports both Blu-Ray and HD DVD is manufactured by LG Electronics Inc. and costs around $1,000 (U.S.).

Sony lost the last video format war when its Betamax technology was soundly trounced by the VHS format, developed by Victor Co. of Japan Ltd. (JVC).

With a report from Reuters