The two-year battle over which technology will become the industry standard for the next generation of high-definition DVDs looks set finally to end this week after Toshiba gave the strongest sign yet it would exit its HD-DVD business.

The move follows Friday’s announcement by Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, that it would no longer stock Toshiba’s HD-DVD discs and players and was instead committing itself exclusively to the rival Blu-ray format backed by Sony.