• February 19, 2008

The two-year battle over which technology will become the industry standard for the next generation of high-definition DVDs looks set finally to end this week after Toshiba gave the strongest sign yet that it would exit its HD-DVD business, reports the Financial Times.

The move follows Friday's announcement by Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, that it would no longer stock Toshiba's HD-DVD discs and players and was instead committing itself exclusively to the rival Blu-ray format backed by Sony.

Warner Brothers, Hollywood's largest player in the home video market, made a similar decision last month, putting strong pressure on Toshiba, which has been the driving force behind the HD-DVD format that is also backed by Microsoft.

--Nina M. Lentini