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Dubbed Total HD, the disc is the first significant attempt to overcome consumers' reluctance to buy into either of the new technologies, should one go the way of Sony's Betamax, which famously lost out to VHS as the standard for video tape cassettes.

In an interview with the New York Times, Warner's CEO Barry Meyer said that the new disc should appease both consumers and retailers.

'The next best thing is to recognise that there will be two formats and to make that not a negative for the consumer,' he said. 'We felt that the most significant constituency for us to satisfy was the consumer first, and the retailer second. The retailer wants to sell hardware and doesn't want to be forced into stocking two formats for everything. This is ideal for them.'

Warner filed for a patent for the new disc last year, although at the time analysts such as Forrester Research's Ted Schadler predicted that a hybrid player would appear long before a hybrid discs.

'I think we'll see a universal player before we see universal disc,' Schadler said. 'It's very hard to produce Blu-ray and HD DVDs, so it must be

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even harder to produce a hybrid disc.'

Several companies, notably Korea's LG, have long been rumoured to be working on a cross-platform player, but as yet none has materialised, although it is possible that LG may reveal its first such device at next week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where, coincidentally, the Warner disc will be unveiled.

Technical details are scarce, to say non-existent, but it is known that the disc will not allow a third, standard DVD version of its content to be stored alongside the high-def recordings, although such as possibility is covered by the patent filing.

Warner is one of just three major Hollywood studios that are releasing films in both high-definition formats. Most have restricted their offerings to Blu-ray (BD), despite the fact that there is technically little to choose between them. It is possible that they have been swayed by the fact that Sony will be putting BD drives in its PlayStation 3 games console, which is expected to heavily outsell Microsoft's HD DVD-equipped Xbox 360.

While both the Blu-ray and HD DVD camps will be hoping that their format is the new DVD, it is entirely possible, as Freedom To Tinker notes, that both may end up being the new LaserDisc, the much-hyped alternative to VHS that enjoyed brief success in the 1990s. Movie watchers, while continuing to buy DVDs in large numbers, are increasingly turning to the Internet for their film fix - albeit by illicitly downloading copied files. Whether they will be quite so keen if they have to pay remains to be seen, but Apple and Disney have demonstrated that there is a market for $15 downloads.