Toshiba Corp. announced on Monday that it has gained the trust of four major Hollywood studios for its HD DVD format. These studios include – Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Studios.

HD DVD is an upcoming high-definition DVD format that is developed by Toshiba and NEC along with a few other companies.

HD DVD will compete against Blu-Ray format, which is also an upcoming high-definition DVD format from rival Sony and Matsushita. Blu-Ray, thus far, has gained its Hollywood studio supporters. They are Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn Studios and Twentieth Century Fox.

In a statement today, Hollywood studios stated that their reason to pick HD DVD is due to its performance and copyright protection.

HD DVD products and notebook computers with HD DVD drives are expected to enter the market in Q4, 2005.

Universal and Paramount studios said they are planning to bring out DVDs with the aforementioned format towards the end of 2005 and beginning of 2006.