If you follow the tech wars then perhaps you’ve heard of the big clash between Blu-Ray and High Definition DVD. Certain movie producers have refused to release their movies on one or the other, I’m sure due to excessive amounts of cash under the table. I’ve always been a fan of Blu-Ray so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I am happy with the latest development in the race for the new format.

Blockbuster Inc has announced that they will exclusively rent Blu-Ray over HD-DVD. This means that in order to rent a high definition movie from Blockbuster, you will have to be a Blu-Ray user. HD-DVD users will be stuck buying the movies, or going to an alternate source for rentals. This shouldn’t be a big problem, however, because according to Blockbuster, over 70% of their customers have been choosing Blu-Ray over HD-DVD when they carried both formats.

Personally I refuse to buy either until the battle is over. I don’t feel like being a guenea pig in this high tech battle. Besides, whichever loses out will surely drop off the map, so I would hate to be the proud owner of (lets say for example) a HD-DVD player when suddenly HD-DVD’s are no longer being produced.

I would view this as a positive decision for Blockbuster, and I think we will see that represented in their stock prices come Monday morning. Right now they are sitting at $4.58 after a 5.29% spike on Friday. We’ll see if that continues into the next week.

Source: Yahoo

Symbol: BBI