Toshiba Denies HD DVD Rumors While Scheduling Announcement

It feels like every time websites start declaring the end of the high definition format war, one of the companies decides to mess around and deny what we’ve been reporting. It’s happened with almost every major report since Warner Brothers announced they were abandoning HD DVD. First came the inevitable declarations that Paramount and/or Universal were also giving up on the format, rapidly denied by both studios. Now we have the news that Toshiba is going to stop making HD DVD players, which is now being denied by the manufacturer.

Despite several days of reporting, Toshiba reps say that they have not decided to abandon HD DVD as a format quite yet, according to the latest report by The Hollywood Reporter. Spokeswoman Junko Furuta told the press, ”There have been many reports in the media over the weekend, but Toshiba has not made a decision on the future of the HD DVD and we are currently assessing the market and reviewing future strategy.”

Right now the expectation is that the Toshiba board of supervisors will make a formal decision on the future of HD DVD sometime this week, but it seems awfully strange to come out and contradict what is already being reported if there’s a chance that it could be true. Why not go ahead and have the board meeting, finalize decisions, and then release an official statement. The way things are unfolding it almost seems like the format could still have a shot at continuing on, at least for a little while.

Not to sound like a pessimist, but I’m on the HD DVD bandwagon and even I’m reading the writing on the wall. The format wars are over. Someone just needs to tell Toshiba, Paramount, and Universal to go ahead and change sides so we can start making Blu-ray as perfect a format as possible.

Update: Reuters says Toshiba is expected to make their formal announcement tomorrow, on Tuesday. Get those tombstones back out and ready.