According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lions Gate Home Entertainment has jumped off the fence and thrown its support behind Blu-ray Disc, giving the Sony-developed next-generation optical disc format yet another win in a string of recent victories over rival format HD-DVD.

Steve Beeks, president of Lions Gate Entertainment, said the studio was swayed by recent advances in Blu-ray's copy-protection capabilities as well as assurances by replicators that they would be able to manufacture Blu-ray discs in time for a first-half 2006 launch.

"The reason we decided to wait and not choose sides until now was we felt not enough information was available to back up claims for either format, both in terms of manufacturing ability and copy protection," Beeks said.