The HD-DVD/Blu-ray war continues on with no signs of either side giving ground. The latest offensive assault comes from the HD side with an announcement from Toshiba proclaiming they are releasing a firmware update that will let its HD-DVD players access the Web to download exclusive content. All that Toshiba owners need do is connect their player to the internet via the device’s Ethernet ports and the unit will take care of it automatically.

Whether this will turn out to be a new leg up against the Blu-ray competition remains to be seen, but Toshiba is promising that its consumers will be able to take part in interactive content exclusive to their format of next gen DVD. Toshiba cites an example with Warner Bros. HD-DVD for “Blood Diamond” which lets the viewer participate in interactive polls and see the latest results fed back to their unit.

Figures for the second quarter of the year say that more consumers are picking up Blu-ray DVDs over HD-DVDs by a factor of 2 to 1. However, the number of HD-DVD titles, which had been lesser than movies released on the Blu-ray format, have only started to increase.

via DigitalTrends