In yet another blow against the HD DVD camp, Starz Home Entertainment has announced an exclusive alignment with Sony’s Blu Ray format. So who the hell is this ‘Starz’ and why does this matter? Well, as of late they were just another cable station. It’s their recent acquisition of cult horror distributors Anchor Bay that makes this little piece of news worth mentioning. For those of you who don’t know, Anchor Bay is responsible for bringing the majority of cult horror films sitting on your shelf to dvd. Here’s just a short list of some of the films they currently own the rights to: Halloween, the Evil Dead trilogy, Hellraiser, Bad Taste, The Hills Have Eyes, Phantasm, Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and so on and so on. This is a pretty huge win for the BD format. It’s been announced that their first release will be ‘Masters of Horror’ related, although it’s still unclear whether or not it will be a season box set or just another future episode. Although most of Anchor Bays releases are considered ‘cult’ hits, I think their overall popularity has grown since the introduction of DVD and the creation of the magical internets. However, this news still doesn’t convince me that both formats won’t find a way to co-exist through multi-format players. I think there’ll be a day when the consumer finds both formats existing under a single giant HD umbrella, and the decision to go Blu or HD won’t even be a factor. Either way, it’s exciting to hear that some of my favourite films will be getting the hi-density treatment. Now it’s just a matter of waiting to see which format Blue Underground chooses.

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