Paramount has confirmed its last ever HD DVD releases will go on sale in the States on Tuesday, 4 March. From then on, it’s DVD and Blu-ray Disc only.And DreamWorks Animation has clearly had word from Toshiba: it’s knocking its HD DVD release schedule on the head too, including the Bee Movie disc, originally due to go on sale in the US on 11 March.

Movies schedules for HD DVD release from both companies will appear on DVD, but don’t expect Blu-ray versions until the summer, Paramount said. Neither have said what their first Blu-ray releases will be.

DreamWorks’ CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg earlier this week said he was committed to the agreement reached with Toshiba in August 2007 to release hi-def content only on HD DVD.

“We have a partnership with Toshiba and have an obligation to see this through,” he said. “It really is in [Toshiba's] court at this point to really declare what the next step will be.”Presumably, Tosh told him that it’s OK to go Blu. The Japanese consumer electronics giant’s thoughts on the matter were so important to Katzenberg and co. because, as he admitted, DreamWorks was “well-compensated” for backing HD DVD.

The only other studio that had committed itself exclusively to HD DVD was Universal, and it hopped on the Blu-ray bandwagon very quickly after Toshiba announced it would no longer manufacturer HD DVD hardware.

Despite Paramount’s official statement that they are sticking with the flagging HD DVD format as their next-gen disc of choice, rumours still abound online that the company will go Blu-ray in the not-too-distant future.

Adding fuel to those particular flames of rumour is the recent discovery of some “coming soon” Blu-ray-flavoured Paramount discs on Amazon.co.uk.

The three releases, due on 10th March 2008, according to info on the e-tailer’s site, are “Trading Places”, “Coming To America” and “Anchorman”.

Although the two Eddie Murphy vehicles did get a US Blu-ray release before Paramount’s switch to HD DVD last summer, it seems Anchorman did not, leading to speculation that this is a slip from Amazon, rather than an admin error.

“Please take HD DVD off life support and let the HD packaged media community and market heal and grow. Please let HD DVD die.”

So ends the heartfelt plea currently live on PetitionsOnline.com, created in response to the “Save HD DVD” campaign running concurrently on the same site.

At the time of writing, the kill-it crew have notched up 4,210 signatures while the please-save-it team are stonking ahead with 11,920 virtual scrawls.

The “Save HD DVD” epetition went live on January 5th as an immediate reaction to Warner Bros’ decision to go Blu.

The petition creator states the purpose of the exercise is to “show Warner Brothers that the consumer has not ‘clearly’ chosen Blu-Ray.”

As well as reversing Warner’s decision, the hope for the petition is to show Universal and Paramount, “that HD-DVD still has supporters, thus they shouldn’t switch to Blu-Ray.”

“We have a chance to save a superior format from collapsing under the weight of the greedy Sony corporation and its inferior Blu-Ray format,” pleads the intro text. “Let’s do it!”

People power or a waste of time? You can throw your two cents into the fight now by clicking on one of the links below. Who knows what could happen if the save-it team hits the heady heights of 12,000 signees?