Just in case you weren’t paying attention and you thought it was safe to sink thousands of your precious dollars into the future DVD format:

“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,” Thomas Lesinski, president of Paramount Pictures, said in the release.

Toshiba said in a statement on Monday that it believed Paramount continued to back HD DVD, basing that position on comments made by Paramount officials in previous press reports.

Are you confused yet? Apparently Paramount at first announced that they would support HD DVD. So are they backing out and supporting a different format or are they now endorsing two formats? Will every movie be released on both types of discs? Can they afford to do that? Why are they all going through this agonizing bullshit again?

Lesinski said the fact that Sony’s next-generation PlayStation 3 game console would come equipped with a Blu-ray DVD player was a key factor behind its support. PlayStation 3 is due to be launched next spring.

The subtext to all this is that Microsoft/Intel threw their weight behind the technically inferior HD DVD format because they want Sony’s new Playstation 3 to suffer. But if I were Microsoft I’d make my new console play both formats. It will look stupid when everyone has to throw out the Xbox 360 because it won’t play the most popular movie format.