Late last month, there were a series of reports on the Internet stating that Toshiba was planning to launch its own Blu-ray Disc player, joining Sony and other industry players in the Blu-ray Disc Association. Following said reports, the company has officially announced today that it has applied for membership of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), confirming plans to introduce new products that are designed to support the aforementioned optical format. The move is somewhat to be expected, considering the company's decision last year to end the development of the HD DVD optical disc format.

 

According to a recent press statement, the Tokyo, Japan-based manufacturer will continue to provide its customers with a wide range of advanced digital products, including DVD recorders and players, HDTVs and notebook PCs, while also showing its support for a series of storage devices, such as hard disk drives (HDD), DVD, and SD cards. In addition, following a recent growth in digital devices supporting the Blu-ray format, the company decided to join the market and apply for membership in the BDA. The move could enable the Blu-ray format to become more affordable and provide users with a more competitive market.

 

Toshiba has been an active promoter of the HD DVD optical format, as an alternative to the Blu-ray format, which wasn't as popular due to increased prices for supporting devices and optical discs. However, the long-lasting war between the two formats, seeing Toshiba on one side and Sony on the other, was ended early last year, when the Japanese company decided to put an end to the format it had developed.

 

Toshiba stated that, in the course of this year it planned to introduce new digital products that would include BD players and notebook PCs that would integrate the new BD drives. Unfortunately, the company is yet to announce details about said products and their availability dates.