HD DVD Said to Be Near Death

The Hollywood Reporter is saying that industry insiders expect that Toshiba will soon call it quits on HD DVD. This would effectively end the battle between Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD for the next-generation optical disc format for home entertainment.

“An announcement is coming soon,” said one source close to the HD DVD camp. “It could be a matter of weeks.”

Perhaps the tide started shifting last summer when Blockbuster decided to offer only Blu-ray movies at all of its company-owned stores.

Then in January, Warner Home Video announced that they plan to abandon HD DVD and distribute their movies exclusively on Blu-ray Disc.

Perhaps the final blow was delivered earlier this week when Best Buy and Netflix both decided to support Blu-ray exclusively. Both companies cited Warner’s shift to Blu-ray as a key factor in their decision.

A Netflix spokesman said the format war appears to have been won by Blu-ray. He added, “We wanted to put an exclamation point behind that.”

The format war seems to be over as we wait for the official obituary.

HD DVD, we hardly knew ya.