Toshiba has just fired the newest salvo in the high-capacity DVD wars. It appeared, for a while, that the Blu-Ray camp was forging ahead, but Toshiba now announces that they are ready to start mass production of their own HD-DVD format media and drives. That’s well ahead of the previous ETA of ’sometime’ next year, when the whole system was supposed to become practical.

This is welcome news for everyone who has a modern system. With the shrinking price of storage comes a complementary need for larger and larger storage and backup media. HD-DVD, with it’s native 15 GB capacity, is a good start at meeting those needs. Compression will bring to market drives capable of storing a huge 45 GB per disk.

The sony side of things, Blu-Ray, with 50 GB of storage space, is slightly bigger, but not by much. The battles are going Toshiba’s way, but the war rages on. At least the noncombatants are the ones who will ultimately win.

[tags]toshiba,hd-dvd,sony,blu-ray[/tags]