Sony’s Blu-ray technology is emerging as the likely winner in the format battle for the next generation of DVD players as news reports suggest that Toshiba is ready to ditch its HD DVD business.

Such a move would help consumers and would likely boost sales in Blu-ray gadgets, analysts say. But it will disappoint the 1 million people around the world estimated by Toshiba who have already bought HD DVD players.

It was one month ago that Toshiba’s laptop division headquartered in Irvine unveiled new laptops at the Vegas Consumer Electronics Show — all featuring HD DVD-ready drives. One of those is the Qosmio G45 laptop with two hard drives and the first HD-DVD rewritable drive in a laptop. The Qosmio runs Windows Vista and is designed as a home theater system that plugs into a TV through the HDMI input.

But two other Irvine companies steered clear didn’t choose sides, choosing to support both formats. Two years ago Broadcom announced a chip that would let DVD players play both Blu-ray and HD DVD movies. Gateway also doubled up, offering its computers in both formats.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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