Reuters and others are reporting the end of the HD format war (LINK to full story), with Toshiba expected to make a formal announcement regarding their exit of the HD DVD business this coming week. This concludes the format war with the Sony-backed Blu-Ray Disc.
Toshiba to give up on HD DVD, end format war: source
Sat Feb 16, 2008 9:02am ESTTOKYO (Reuters) – Toshiba Corp (6502.T: Quote, Profile, Research) is planning to give up on its HD DVD format for high-definition video, conceding defeat to the competing Blu-Ray technology backed by Sony Corp (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research), a company source said on Saturday.
Japanese public broadcaster NHK had earlier reported that Toshiba would suffer losses in the tens of billions of yen (hundreds of millions of dollars) as it scrapped production of HD DVD players and recorders and took other steps to exit the business.
The company source told Reuters that Toshiba was in the final stages of planning to exit the HD DVD business and that an official decision would be made soon.
(Reporting by Mayumi Negishi, Kentaro Hamada and Nathan Layne, editing by Mike Peacock
It will be interesting to see how hardware and discs are liquidated, and if any manufacturers bother producing players that support both formats in the future.
Previous OPB Reports: “HD Format War Developments“, “More HD War Developments Out of CES“, “HD Format War – More Bad News for HD DVD“, “HD Format War – Two More Blows Against HD DVD“, “HD Format War News Reports: Toshiba Expected To “Pull The Plug… In The Coming Weeks””
Jason De Bord