Microsoft: We Didn’t Pay Paramount 150M for HD DVD

Kevin Collins, who runs Microsoft’s HD DVD unit, is denying that his company paid Paramount to exclusively back HD DVD in the high-def format war against Blu-ray. Paramount and DreamWorks last week stunned the High-Definition industry by announcing that they will back HD DVD exclusively. Paramount had previously released films in both formats while DreamWorks had yet to pick a winner in the battle.

The news led Blu-ray supporters to quickly charge that the studios had been paid off by Microsoft and Toshiba, the leading companies behind HD DVD.