TOSHIBA TO WITHDRAW HD-DVD FORMAT

THE WAR BETEEN HD-DVD AND BLU-RAY MAY BE OVER, BUT… 

Toshiba will announce to step down its HD DVD format, and production of the device this coming Monday, scoped by NHK, Japanese public broadcast station on Saturday evening in Japan Standard Time.

According to the report of NHK, Toshiba may likely to lose hundreds of millions of dollars due to this decision. All HD DVD related new developing will be halted, but Toshiba will continue to sell HD DVD product throughout the first quarter of 2008.

Toshiba has not made any public announcement due to this news release.

It looks like the winning victory of Blu-Ray format. However, unlike the war between VHS and Betamax, this would not be the simple victory for Sony, Panasonic and other Blu-Ray supporters.

It is commonly said that the movie industry follows about 5 years behind music industry.

By looking at the trends of music industry, although people are still buying CDs, many people are just buying their favorite songs through Apple's iTunes.

Nowadays, you can download high definition movie from the internet onto PCs, and iPod. If the hardware company would succeed to embedded internet function onto TV set. Next enemy for Blu-Ray would be download.