Paramount officially denied reports that it would break exclusivity with HD DVD, saying that it plans to continue support for the format, at least for now.

"Paramount's current plan is to continue to support the HD DVD format,'' according to a spokeswoman for Paramount, as quoted by Bloomberg.

Paramount responded after the Financial Times had reported Paramount was poised to adopt Sony's Blu-ray format instead of the HD DVD.

Paramount could defect because a clause in its contract with the HD DVD camp allowed the studio to switch to Blu-ray if Warner Bros. Entertainment had dropped its support of Toshiba's standard, the newspaper had reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the plan. Toshiba had described the FT report as speculative.

Warner Bros. said on Jan. 4 it would drop its support of HD DVD. The shocking news for Toshiba left HD DVD with less Hollywood backers, but still with the support from Intel and Microsoft.