Toshiba expected to reject HD DVD

There is growing speculation that Toshiba is planning to withdraw its support for HD DVD, making it likely that the format will die out and leave the field open for Blu Ray.

Since Warner announced at CES that it was moving its support to Sony’s Blu Ray, the rival format to HD DVD has been gaining market share, with growing hardware and disc sales.

Following the CES even, Toshiba cut prices dramatically on its HD DVD players, and is believed to be unable to sustain the losses it is making as a result.

However, Toshiba maintains that it doesn’t plan to kill the format just yet and will continue to watch the market before making a decision.

Two major US retailers, Best Buy and Netflix, have recently announced that they will only stock Blu-ray products, due to stronger studio support for the format and consumer preference.