Toshiba Corp., the company behind HD DVD format that lost the battle against Blu-ray disc (BD), on Monday confirmed its intention to adopt the Blu-ray technology in its future products. In addition, Toshiba will join the Blu-ray disc association (BDA), the standard setting organization.

Toshiba aims to introduce digital products that support the Blu-ray format, including BD players and notebook PCs integrating BD drives, in the course of this year. Details of the products, including the timing of regional launches, are now under consideration. The company will make announcements in due course.

It is necessary to note that apart from the optical disc drive itself as well as firmware difference, virtually all Toshiba’s HD DVD players are truly similar to the Blu-ray profile 2.0 players. All HD DVD players feature two video decoders to enable picture-in-picture (PiP) capability, Internet connectivity as well as up to 1GB local storage. As a result, Toshiba can rather easily migrate to Blu-ray or even unveil universal HD DVD/Blu-ray players by changing optical disc drive and loading a new firmware version.

Toshiba provides a wide range of advanced digital products, such as DVD recorders and players, HDTVs and notebook PCs that support a wide range of storage devices, including hard disk drives (HDD), DVD, and SD cards.

“In light of recent growth in digital devices supporting the Blu-ray format, combined with market demand from consumers and retailers alike, Toshiba has decided to join the BDA,” a statement by Toshiba reads.

Tags: Toshiba, Blu-ray