By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 1/21/2008

WAYNE, N.J. —Toshiba came back from International CES with the gloves off, stepping up its marketing campaign in the light of what it called "record-breaking unit sales in the fourth quarter of 2007."

Although Warner Bros. announced on the eve of the show that it had decided to ditch HD DVD and back Blu-ray Disc exclusively beginning in May, Toshiba vowed to continue the fight with its remaining studios, Universal, Paramount and DreamWorks SKG.

A report in TWICE sister publication Daily Variety said that Universal's contract with Toshiba to exclusively back HD DVD has expired, and Paramount has an escape clause in its HD DVD contract allowing it to release titles on Blu-ray after Warner's decision to back that format exclusively.

But neither studio had announced any such defection at press time. In fact, Universal's Ken Graffeo issued a statement saying: "Universal's current plan is to continue to support the HD DVD format."

Toshiba then announced it will run major initiatives, including joint advertising campaigns with studios and extended pricing strategies set to begin in mid-January.

The efforts are "designed to spotlight the superior benefits of HD DVD as well as the benefits HD DVD brings to a consumer's current DVD library by up-converting standard DVDs via the HDMI output to near high-definition picture quality," according to a statement.

During CES, Jodi Sally, Toshiba digital A/V group marketing VP, said: "You can't deny that Toshiba has delivered on its promises again and again, so it is difficult for me to read all of the comments declaring that HD DVD is dead. Clearly the events of the past few days have led many of you to that conclusion. But we've been declared dead before."

Sally added, "The reality is we entered 2007 with a majority lead in year-to-date market share. Our unit sales for the fourth quarter were the best to date for HD DVD and now nearly 1 million dedicated HD DVD players from all brands are in the market in North America."

Toshiba said sales of HD DVD "achieved the No. 1 sales volume in the next-generation DVD category with an approximately 50 percent market share in 2007," and "HD DVD is proven to be the format of choice for consumers."

Toshiba said the format also accounts for "an 80-percent-plus market share of all next-generation DVD-equipped notebooks for the fourth quarter 2007."

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