Big Hollywood studios to let indies decide Hi-Def disc winner

snakesmovie.jpg
One snake is Blu-ray, the other is HD DVD

The big movie studios would love nothing more than to have the Blu-ray HD DVD war over and done with already. But to my untrained eye, we seem to be in a bit of a holding pattern as far as declaring a winner is concerned.

So let the dirty, dirty indies do it.

A short piece on Variety explains how indie movie studios, strapped for cash, are only able to put their resources behind one format. Hence, they may be the kingmaker in the format war. (The big studios, on the other hand, can release movies on any and all formats, what with their wads of cash.) And then you’ve got retailers telling the studios to wait till a clear winner emerges.

I’ve got your winner: x264-encoded rips. No worrying about “will this play in my player” or any of that rubbish.

Indie distribs influence format war [Variety]