The end of HD-DVD imminent?

It’s looking increasingly like HD-DVD will be imminently laid to rest after a weekend of crushing developments in the bloody Hi-Def war with Blu-ray.

Shock news emerged over the weekend that Toshiba are preparing to halt production on disks and drives and, in the ensuing scramble, share prices at the company rose.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were already striding over a fiery horizon when the mighty Wal-Mart (Asda) dropped HD-DVD in favour of Blu-Ray on Friday eve.

That telling blow came in a week when US rental service Netflix and retail giant Best Buy abandoned the format in its utmost hour of need. “Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me.”

The official line from Tosh is that they are “examining the business,” but everything points to a pending white flag flying high above HD DVD headquarters within days.

It has indeed been an agonising month since that CES humiliation in Las Vegas, but the sheer speed of their looming surrender remains a surprise. They’ve barely lasted longer than Sam Allardyce’s hilarious Newcastle tenure.

The implications of this are huge and as soon as we hear for sure that Tosh have switched off the life support machine of their experiment, we’ll be examining the future of Hi-Definition, so stay tuned. The war is coming to an abrupt end.