The battle over the next generation of DVD format is finally over. At last, Sony emerged as the winner in developing a new recording, rewriting and playback system for HD video.

This is not so surprising though, Toshiba’s HD-DVD knock down has been in the works for some time. We witnessed how five major movie studios decided to take the Blu-ray format: Sony, Walt Disney, Lions Gate Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox and MGM figured out it was best to stick with Sony and Blu-ray.

A small hope appeared when Paramount and Universal decided to go with Toshiba’s HD-DVD format. At that point it seemed to be some chance Toshiba would make a comeback and continue the battle.

Alas, last month Warner Bros. decided to release movie discs in the Blu-ray format only. And that’s where the beginning of the end for HD-DVD happened. I guess there are plenty of you who didn’t saw this coming. It reminds me of VHS and Betamax battle, that wasn’t so long ago.

Blockbuster and NetFlix decided to go with Blu-ray discs, while Wal-Mart said it will sell only Blue-ray DVD’s and hardware. That was the time when Toshiba decided it is enough.

Toshiba announced today that it will not produce any HD-DVD hardware, software and other tools.

This news will make millions of people who bought Toshiba’s HD-DVD players groan. Sometimes it’s just not convenient to be an early adopter.

So Toshiba has officially surrendered in the HD format war. What’s next for HD-DVD owners? Yes, we can continue using our HD-DVD players as upscaling DVD players for our standard definition DVD collection. How about something more? Wouldn’t it be cool if Toshiba open sourced their entire line of HD-DVD players so that enthusiasts could hack the devices and turn them into something interesting? How about an HD capable MythTV frontend? The HD-DVD players are powered by a MIPS processor and already run Linux with BusyBox. I’ve started a Online Petition asking Toshiba to do just that. Whether they respond is any body’s guess. The more signatures the better. Please sign the petition even if you don’t own an HD-DVD player. Thanks

Japanese tech giant Toshiba has now confirmed that they are now quitting the HD DVD industry. The company no longer plans to develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders.

With this, Sony has won the next generation format war with its Blu-Ray technology.

Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida spoke about this decision: “We concluded that a swift decision would be best.”

The turning point was apparently Warner Bros. Entertainment deciding to switch to Blu-ray format for their movies. Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Co. and News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox were already in the Blu-Ray camp.

He added: If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win.”

Toshiba will discontinue its HD DVD products, it said Tuesday, handing victory to rival high definition disc format Blu-ray Disc.

The company will no longer develop, manufacture, and market HD DVD players and recorders.

It will reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail markets and aims to cease the businesses altogether by the end of March.

But the Japanese electronics giant pledged to provide full product support and after-sales service for owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

Recent changes in the market prompted the decision, Toshiba said. Early this year, Warner Bros. said it would stop issuing movies on HD DVD in the coming months and rely exclusively on Blu-ray Disc. The Hollywood studio was one of three major studios remaining in the HD DVD camp, and its defection created widespread belief that the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc was now over.

More recently, major U.S. retail chain Wal-Mart announced it would phase out the sale of HD DVD products, moving to exclusivity with Blu-ray Disc. Electronics retailer Best Buy also said it would back Blu-ray Disc, but it did not say it would stop offering HD DVD.

Warner made its decision based on consumer confusion and indifference to high definition movies, an indifference that cost Hollywood in lost revenue, it said. Wal-Mart said U.S. customers preferred Blu-ray Disc movies and hardware. Blu-ray Disc is the high definition disc format championed by Sony.

"This once again shows why incompatible and mutually exclusive formats should be avoided at all cost by the industry," said Carl Gressum, a senior analyst at Ovum. "It reduces profitability and delays customer adoption."

"The big question is, however, the impacts on Toshiba as an electronics company," he added. "It has after all bet its disc media business on HD DVD, as well as gone for HD DVD integration into some of its laptop PCs. The channel has inventory to clear, and demands from owners of HD DVD players."

Toshiba said its decision came after careful analysis of the long-term impact of continuing the format war, and said a swift decision was called for to help the high definition market develop.

The company also pledged to remain a player in the high definition market. Developing HD DVD created many assets for Toshiba and its partners, which include Microsoft, Intel, HP, and Universal Studios, the company said. Toshiba plans to work with these companies to seek future business opportunities.

For those who do not already know, Blu-Ray and HD DVD are the next generation of movie formats, offering higher definition and greater sound quality supposedly. Now recently due to a series of rather unfortunate events, Blu-Ray is pretty much crossing the line victorious. The differences between the two are slight, Blu-Ray has slightly higher capacity, but is slightly more expensive.

But why did we as consumers need to live through this horror in the first place? Why couldn’t the companies agree on a single format to begin with? Wouldn’t it be cheaper and easier in the first place to just agree on a single format and pursue that one? By making two different formats, some companies will spend the money developing products for one format, only for that one to lose and have to develop for the other one, whilst others my develop technologies for both formats at the same time, usually at the result of high cost or poor quality. Surely companies will also lose out due to customers buying only one kind of format (rarely both) or staying out of the market completely, waiting for a conclusion to be reached.

For once, Sony was not on the losing side for a format war (see SACD, Minidisc, Betamax, ATRAC), then again, they have had some successes in the past before, so it shouldn’t really come as a surprise (3.5″ floppy disk, CD, memory stick). The victory of Blu-ray is also useful for the PS3, with it’s built-in Blu-Ray drive and the XBox 360 will soon enough have a Blu-ray external drive, like the HD DVD one it currently has (showing that Microsoft does have some level of intelligence somewhere in it’s organisation). I do want to congratulate Sony on having the balls to actually make the PS3 more expensive by putting the Blu-Ray drive into it, this move should pay off as now the PS3 sales should increase, along with it’s lowered price a few months back.

I still want to give an ultimatum to large technology companies and get them to stop all this useless bickering between them when it comes to a new digital format and simply settle on something in between what everyone wants. Yes this could be a challenge, seeing as each company has differing levels of research into different technologies, but the long term gains should outweigh this. Just think of the consumers next time and stop us from having to worry about which format to choose from