DEG says the 1.5 million Blu-ray homes include about 100,000 standalone Blu-ray players with the rest PlayStation 3 game consoles, which include Blu-ray players inside.

The research firm says there 300,000 HD DVD homes in the United States -- evenly split between standalone players and HD DVD XBox 360 attachment drives.

The DEG findings were reported this week by Warner Bros. senior vice president Steve Nickerson at an industry panel discussion of entertainment executives in Los Angeles. Warner Bros is currently releasing high-def DVDs in both the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats.

“Between April and mid-December, it was a warm-up, and since Christmas, it has been a very sustained level of business,” said Nickerson. "Really, this year is preparing for further consumer uptake of high-def. It will mirror the year 1999 or 2000 for DVD.”

DEG says consumers have spent $55 million on high-def DVD titles to date, with $35 million on Blu-ray movies and $19 million on HD DVDs.

The high-def DVD format war heated up this week when Blockbuster announced that it would carry Blu-ray titles exclusively in 1,450 stores. (It will keep both formats in 250 test stores.)

The decision has been called a tipping point in the war by some industry analysts who monitor the new high-def DVD category.

“It’s in the very, very early days of our forecasts, but we believe that High-Definition discs will help return consumer video spending to growth,” said Helen Davis Jayalath, a senior analyst video at the research firm Screen Digest.

Most Blu-ray players are in fact Playstation 3 game consoles. The Xbox 360 game console only supports HD DVD with an add-on drive.