Frank Simonis, the Chairman of the Blu-ray disc association has revealaed expectations that the high definition format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray could be over in 18 months time. Simonis claims that publishers are jumping onto the Blu-ray bandwagon and there can be no better time to join them.

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Frank Simonis, also the senior director of communications at Philips, said that while he refuses to predict victory for Blu-ray, the consumers will decide and exciting things will happen in the next year and a half.

"Due to the fact that we have some hard competition which sometimes makes strange moves, it's very unpredictable. But I think in the next 18 months it will be very exciting to see what's going on.

"Especially with more products coming to market, the price erosion that will for sure happen because competition between the different players will automatically fuel that part of the business. And of course the broader support that we get from the software industry will excite the consumer very heavily."

"In the US you see that 70 per cent of the titles sold are Blu-ray and this is no different everywhere else. Publishers are moving to Blu-ray and now is definitely the time to join.

"The consumer should make the choice, but for me it's Blu-ray all the way."