Sales of Blu-ray and HD DVD versions of Tom Cruise’s latest hit, Mission Impossible: III, have broken all previous records, while DVD sales are very, very healthy too. And this is all despite Tom Cruise’s crazy antics, his very personal love life and troubles with movie studios. Have moviegoers forgiven him? Maybe not at the box office, but on DVD and next-gen discs, he’s doing fine.

While reports of new hardware indicate dual Blu-ray and HD DVD players may be in our future, they’re not here yet today, so sales of competing next-gen players and releases of new high-def movies are key to the future of both formats, whatever happens with the PS3 and Microsoft’s HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360.

Movie studios must be taking some comfort then in the early results of sales for Mission Impossible III, released on DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray and bundled on a 512mb MiniSD memory card with the 3.2 megapixel and DVD-like video recording Vodafone branded Nokia N93.

All all three disc based formats, over 3.7 million units were sold, according to Engadget. But as Engagdet reports, on the HD DVD and Blu-ray formats alone, at least 20,000 copies were sold, a number so significant for the nascent high-def next-gen formats that it has set a new sales record.

However, with a range of other HD titles due soon, this record is expected to fall to other titles, while sales of MI: III no doubt continue over the holiday season and beyond in 2007, especially as more next-gen video players are sold in both formats.

While it is a pity that we have to go through these competing format shenanigans at all, it’s good to see consumers embracing next-gen formats and bringing a higher quality of video into their lives at home.

High definition is the future after all, and if you thought today’s systems were amazing, just wait for a few years down the track when our current high definition systems look low-res in comparison.

Until then, the high-def revolution is well underway. Not only with the revolution be televised, available on pay-per-view, podcast, vodcast, streamed over the web to your PC, phone, games console and more, it’ll all be done in high-definition.

I can’t wait to see it!

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