To paraphrase Daniel Simpson Day (Farber College alum), "War's over, men. Warners dropped the big one."

Warner Bros., which encompasses not only that studio but New Line Cinema (the 'Lord of the Rings' flicks) and HBO as well, has announced it will be supporting only Blu-ray after May. Up until now, it had been supporting both BR and the competing HD DVD.

With this announcement, Blu-ray now has the exclusive support of approximately 70 percent of studio output, which breaks down like this:

Blu-ray

• Sony/Columbia/new MGM
• Fox/MGM back-catalog
• Warner Bros.
• Disney/Miramax
• Lionsgate

HD DVD

• Universal
• Paramount/Dreamworks

There are some minor studios to be accounted for, such as The Weinstein Company, which is supposedly HD DVD-exclusive but has done diddley in the way of support.

While I feel for those who were "HD DVD or bust" -- I own the Xbox 360 HD DVD player myself -- this is actually a good thing. While the competition led to prices being cut at a near historic rate, the confusion caused by two competing formats was causing Joe Consumer to avoid both.