We’re a few days late to the party with this one, but lost amidst all the non-existent hoo ha from last week was New Line’s announcement that they are, like their parent company Warner Brothers, going to support both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. The mild theatrical hit Hairspray is scheduled to be New Line’s first next gen release.

The fact that New Line is supporting both next-generation formats isn’t surprising, given that the label is distributed by Warner Home Video. Paramount’s recent defection from the Blu-ray camp left Warner as the only major studio to support both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD.

“Clearly, there isn’t a format winner at this point, so we’re going to adopt the strategy from Warner, our sister company, and mirror what they are doing,” said Matt Lasorsa, New Line’s executive vp marketing. “And by supporting both formats, we are giving consumers the ultimate choice.”

Lasorsa said the HD DVD version of “Hairspray” likely will be released in the first half of next year. He attributes the delay to region coding issues; Blu-ray has region coding, but HD DVD does not. “And since we sell to independent international distributors,” Lasorsa said, “we have to be more sensitive to their release dates than a major studio.”

After “Hairspray,” most New Line titles will be released the same day on standard DVD and Blu-ray Disc, with a lag for the HD DVD version. “But for second-party acquisitions to which we don’t have international rights,” Lasorsa said, “we will be day-and-date on all three formats.”

Buried later in the article is this other perhaps-more-pertinent-for-our-purposes factoid:

Also gearing up for its high-def disc debut is Starz Home Entertainment, which will begin rolling out Anchor Bay Entertainment horror titles on Blu-ray Disc only beginning Oct. 2. The first wave of titles includes “Day of the Dead,” “Evil Dead II” and the original “Halloween.” Each release will come with many of the same extras found on the DVD, as well as “Fast Film Facts,” an exclusive Blu-ray pop-up trivia track. Two more Blu-ray titles are due Oct. 16: “Masters of Horror Volume 1″ and “Masters of Horror Volume 2.”

Anchor Bay going Blu-ray only, eh? Hmm…

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