What led them to this choice, as all four studios stated separately, is better performance for the price and copyright protection.

The other standard in competition, the Blu-ray disc, unconditionally backed by Sony Pictures Entertainment, is also counting on support from Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Twentieth Century Fox (the latter has recently joined the Blu-Ray Disc Association Board).

The Blu-ray disc has more world leading electronics companies that support it: Sony, LG Electronics, Matsushita (Panasonic), Mitsubishi, Samsung, Sharp, TDK, Philips, Pioneer, Hitachi. Also, computer giants Dell and Hewlett Packard.

The HD DVD standard is being developed by Toshiba, Sanyo and NEC, under the endorsement of the DVD Forum.

Both HD DVD and Blu-ray standards use the same wavelength blue-lasers that permit data storage on the disc at a higher density. This enhances the disc capacity and allows the recording of high definition video on DVD support.

Wining the support of the big Hollywood movie studios is most important in the DVD format battle. Up to this moment, the four studios that gave their endorsement to HD DVD technology represent 45% of the DVD pre-recorded movie market.

The launch of DVD players in the HD DVD format is being expected for the last quarter of 2005.