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The beginning of this December, the major film company Walt Disney announced its intention to start releasing movies and other content on Blu-ray discs in North America, as soon as the new-format players become available there.

Walt Disney has a market share of 17.2 of Hollywood's prepackaged DVD sales.

Sony, one of the most active developers of the Blu-ray format, owns Columbia Pictures. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gives its tacit support to Blu-ray disc, as only recently it has been purchased by a group led by Sony.

With these going on, Blu-ray currently bets on 47% of the Hollywood's pre-recorded DVD market. That's slightly more than what the other competing format, HD DVD can count on, up to this moment: 45% coming with the support from Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, New Line Cinema and Warner Bros Studios.

Walt Disney was the last big player to make a decision and its announcement the beginning of this month, definitely split the new-format DVD market in two.

However, Sony still has to hold its breath. Disney said it will join Blu-ray Disc Association, and become part of the board of directors. But the Disney officials too, as the ones from the other film studios, agreed to nonexclusive deals.

This means they are free to work with other DVD format developers too, if they prove more competitive.

Bob Chapek, president of Disney' Buena Vista Home Entertainment, also stated that they prefer avoiding a format battle that would only puzzle the consumer. Ultimately, he said our hope is the format developers themselves can find a way to unify so the next generation product is not complicated by multiple format launches