Toshiba has fought hard to promote their HD-DVD products and the war with Blu-Ray has been one with a highly awaited result. As with the previous battles between media formats, like the one between the VHS and Betamax format, this too has been one that had a real impact on the consumers. Whenever two large companies clash, they tend to create better and cheaper products and we can only rejoice at that though. What really happened?
On February 19, 2008, after major content manufacturers and key retailers began to withdraw their support of the format, Toshiba made an official announcement to no longer develop, manufacture and market HD-DVD players and recorders, effectively ending the high definition optical disc format war.
This move leaves the high-definition market to its main rival: Sony's Blu-ray format. The two formats had been fighting for dominance in the high-definition home video market. But in recent weeks, HD-DVD had been abandoned on both the retail and content sides.
Toshiba's announcement is going to be a relief to consumers who have had a tough time over the past couple of years choosing between the two formats. If someone needed to upgrade from the now old DVD format, the decition between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD would have been a tough one.
There are also good news. If you made the bad call and chose HD-DVD, don't worry. There are methods for you to keep your videos in the markets leading high-definition format. One good "How To" can be found on Wired.com but I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of them popping up all over the Internet now.
