Blu-ray may have triumphed over HD DVD here in the US, but in Japan — home to sushi, Human Tetris and Sony's Blu-ray format — the war still rages, and with a surprising contender.

Known as CBHD, or China Blue High-Definition, it currently has a 3% market share lead over Blu-ray and this year gained the support of Warner Brothers, which will be releasing big titles such as the Harry Potter series on the format. CBHD started as CH-DVD back in '07, though has since rebranded and gained a foothold. It's a joint venture by China's OMNERC and the DVD Forum, which was responsible for the HD DVD format that lost out to Blu-ray.

Blu-ray also launched in China this year, where the CBHD standard is already heavily entrenched. CBHD boasts more protection than its HD DVD predecessor, and with more Chinese-developed technologies that will ensure less money is lost to royalties paid because of foreign patents.

If you speak Japanese, there's a news report on it you can check out here.

Format War Central, via Maximum PC