Warner Brothers' decision to side with Blu-Ray has caused early HD-DVD adopters to feel like losers while Blu-Ray supporters are gleefully congratulating themselves for their great foresight. On the assumption that the format wars are actually over -- not everybody agrees -- you might think this would be the final nail in the coffin for Bill Gates. He's already halfway out the door at HD-DVD backer Microsoft, but multi-billionaire Bill has always been a positive thinker.

When USA Today asked for his reaction, he replied in part: "HD DVD did well over the holidays. The other trend we're seeing is that direct download over broadband - I think the greatest example of that is XBox Live - (is) becoming an important choice. Over time, that will be the dominant way that people get their movies."

Is he trying to say everybody loses? I think he's just acknowledging that high-def DVD is only a stopgap measure. The format wars may or may not have fostered innovation and lower hardware prices, but the elephant in the room has been downloading over broadband, an idea whose time has finally (apparently) come. In addition to XBox Live, Netflix recently announced a deal with LG for a new download box, Apple is talking about renting movies through iTunes, Sony is hinting they'll roll out something similar to XBox Live for the Playstation 3 this year, and so on and so on.

Why does this matter for movie fans? Beyond the obvious, if you have an interest in non-blockbusters and don't live in one of a handful of big cities, movie downloading holds the prospect of opening up the playing field to smaller distributors and independent filmmakers. Right now we tend to look down on films that go straight to DVD (or iTunes), but if Radiohead can make a success of a completely independent release structure, why can't filmmakers?

Harvey Weinstein has decided that his new studio, The Weinstein Company, will exclusively support Toshiba's High Def DVD format, HD-DVD. The announcement wraps up a big week for the DVD format wars. Since most of what actually happens in the pointless tug of war between Sony's Blu-Ray and Toshiba's HD-DVD is boring as hell, I've thus far spared you, but now that the big fat stars are picking sides, I thought it was probably time to get up to speed.

• Toshiba scored another point in the battle when they announced they'll be able to roll out their players about three months ahead of Sony's Blu-Ray machines.
• Sony, Lionsgate, and Fox, exclusive Blu-Ray supporters, announced their upcoming rollout plans for the format, with Fantastic Four, Hitch, Saw and House of Flying Daggers all set to come out in early 2006. Paramount, who have backed both Sony and Toshiba, plan to High Define Aeon Flux, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and Sahara (which, having just watched it recently, I can safely say was the Best Looking Bad Film of 2005).
• At CES (where, according our friends at Engadget, High Def DVD players are "growing on trees"), Microsoft announced that it'll ship an external HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360 sometime this year. Peter Moore said: "The new drive will offer millions of Xbox 360 owners the ability to easily enjoy HD DVD movies and will provide consumers with even more choices for experiencing high-definition content, in either physical or digital form."

What other morsels did I miss in this totally exciting and revolutionary battle on the order of VHS or Beta?

Cable network Starz! has just announced that they'll partner with Microsoft and Sony to form Vongo, a legal, pay-for-play movie download service. For a $9.99 service fee per month, Vongo users will obtain unlimited access to a rotating 1,000 film library, likely culled from Starz! current catalog. They'll be able to watch those downloads at any time on a PC or portable media device (presumably that means iPods, PSPs, etc), and will be able to download "new releases" (theatrical features will be available for download after a six month window) for $3.99 apiece. Though the service will obviously draw instant comparisons to the iTunes Music Store, which just started selling television shows for $1.99 an episode with a one day window, to VOD services like GreenCine and Movielink, and to traditional models of television-based pay-per-view, Vongo would seem to go beyond old methods of delivery in terms of its breadth of content alone. But that six month window seems terribly wide, doesn't it? Especially considering that, with the backing of Microsoft and Sony, Vongo will undoubtedly be marketed to PSP and Xbox-rocking gamers. Bill Gates is expected to expand on the deal and the concept in his CES keynote this week.