Toshiba Corporation bids farewell to HD DVD business

Toshiba Corp. is highly likely to quit the high-definition DVD business early this week.

Photo: Toshiba Corporation bids farewell to HD DVD business

Toshiba Corporation bids farewell to HD DVD business

The move would follow Warner Bros.' decision in January to support Sony Corp.'s competing format, Blu-ray, which fueled sales of the product.

Blu-ray Disc is a high-density optical disc format for the storage of digital information, including high-definition video. The name Blu-ray Disc is derived from the blue-violet laser used to read and write this type of disc. Because of its shorter wavelength (405 nm), substantially more data can be stored on a Blu-ray Disc than on the DVD format, which uses a red (650 nm) laser. A Blu-ray Disc can store 50 GB, almost six times the capacity of a DVD.

Should Toshiba exit the business, companies supporting its HD DVD format — including General Electric Co.'s Universal Pictures and Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures — would be released from their contracts.

Toshiba Corporation is a Japanese multinational conglomerate manufacturing company, headquartered in Tokyo , Japan . The company's businesses are in high technology, electrical engineering and electronics fields.

Toshiba-made Semiconductors are among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. is one of the world's largest producers of film and television entertainment.

It is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank , California . Warner Bros. has several subsidiary companies, including Warner Bros. Studios, Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Television, Warner Bros. Animation, Warner Home Video, and DC Comics. Warner owns half of The CW Television Network.

Founded in 1918 by Polish immigrants, Warner Bros. is the third-oldest American movie studio in continuous operation, after Paramount Pictures, founded in 1912 as Famous Players, and Universal Studios, also founded in 1912.

Sony Corporation is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue of $70.303 billion (as of 2007) based in Minato, Tokyo . Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics, video, communications, video game consoles and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets, which developed the company into one of the world's richest companies.