SONY won a key defection in the war over the future format for high-definition DVDs yesterday as Paramount, the movie division of Viacom, said that it had would back the Japanese electronics group’s Blu-ray format.

Paramount switched from unequivocally supporting Toshiba’s rival HD-DVD standard to endorsing both formats, making it the first big Hollywood studio to end its single commitment to either Blu-ray or HD-DVD.

It is expected to be followed this week by its rival studio Warner Bros, part of the Time Warner media conglomerate, which until now has backed HD-DVD.

Thomas Lesinski, Paramount Pictures’ president of worldwide home entertainment, said: “After more detailed assessment and new data on cost, manufacturability and copy protection solutions, we have now made the decision to move ahead with the Blu-ray format”. Paramount’s move tips the balance of power in favour of Blu-ray, which now boasts support from roughly two thirds of major film studios, with exclusive backing from Sony Pictures, MGM, Disney and Twentieth Century Fox.

The addition of Paramount and Warner Bros to Blu-ray’s support base would leave only Universal exclusively backing Toshiba’s format.

The studios hope that splitting their allegiances will encourage Sony and Toshiba to seek a compromise. To date, though, desperate attempts at diplomacy have failed and the hour of battle draws near.

Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats are due to hit the high street next spring. Each boasts a tremendous amount of storage — more than ten times the amount of information held on current DVDs — meaning that eventually they will come packed not only with films and behind-the-scenes documentaries, but computer games and music. Plugged into new high-definition televisions, they will offer sharper and clearer images than anything we see today.

Critically, the two formats are incompatible, meaning that consumers will have to choose sides. Efforts to strike a compromise have failed, not least because the technologies behind the two formats are completely different.

Retailers, Hollywood studios and technology companies already are bracing themselves for a replay of the battle between VHS and Betamax video cassette formats two decades ago — a battle that Sony’s Betamax lost.

“This won’t be a repeat of that debacle, because this time we have more than 140 companies on our side,” Nicolas Babin, director of corporate communications for Sony in Europe, said. Sony’s supporters in the Blu-Ray camp include Apple Computer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Philips and Samsung.

However, their HD-DVD opponents are no pushover. Promoters of Toshiba’s format include the consumer electronics makers Sanyo and NEC and the microchip maker Intel.

Warner Bros, the studio behind the Harry Potter films, acknowledges: “HD-DVD provided us with answers to several critical questions regarding reliability, cost effectiveness and flexibility.”

Last week the HD-DVD camp secured the biggest coup of all by enlisting Microsoft, the world’s biggest software company and an emerging force in home entertainment through its XBox computer games console.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive