According to news out of Japan, the broadcaster NHK is stating that Toshiba is planning to drop their HD format HD DVD.

Reuters: I have avoided the Toshiba rumors most of the week though we now have something firm coming out of Toshiba. Japanese broadcasting company NHK is stating that Toshiba is planning on ending their production of HD DVD.

It seems the HD format battle is finally over. In my earlier piece this week I noted that by the end of the year I expected this “war” to be over. Well it seems I may certainly be right, but even sooner than I expected. Now we can go about buying a HD medium that will be around for some time, and one which we know most all titles will eventually be released on.

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The unfortunate cost in this battle over formats is the early adopters. People who have invested in HD DVD players, only to find that they are no longer future proof, and that they will have to buy another player to continue buying new HD content. My main worry is prices from here on out. Without competition will prices continue to decline? Hopefully with DVD still giving HD content more competition that it can handle prices will continue to drop making titles and players more affordable for the average consumer. In the long run maybe it will now be possible for Blu-Ray to get its foot in the door on the computer market for a storage medium.

**Update**

As of early this morning Toshiba has confirmed their dropping of the HD DVD format in almost all aspects; players, recorder, disk drives for PCs and games. They will no longer be manufacturing any of these. However they are still evaluating the use of the drives in notebook PCs. Basically this means they are done for, leaving only the potential of a niche market on laptops.

I imagine soon here we will see the few HD DVD only movie studios announce their parting of ways also. Check out the Toshiba press release here.

Source: Reuters

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