LG Electronics, a leading maker of consumer electronics, said on Tuesday that it would continue to develop and manufacture hybrid high-definition players that support both Blu-ray and HD DVD. The announcement comes following Toshiba’s decision to drop HD DVD equipment manufacturing, which means that the format is left without any forthcoming hardware.

“LG believes that at this present moment in time, it is necessary to provide a player which supports both formats and therefore create simplicity and convenience for the existing HD DVD consumer,” said Daniel Aziz, marketing manager for LG Electronics, in an interview with Pocket-lint web-site.

LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics are the only consumer electronics makers to offer hybrid high-definition video players. Unfortunately, both companies offer their rather exclusive devices at prices that frequently exceed the cost of standalone Blu-ray and HD DVD players combined, but keeping in mind that in about two months time there hardly be any HD DVD equipment in retail, options from LG and Samsung may find themselves rather popular among early adopters of HD DVD.

Despite of the fact that HD DVD standard may see its dusk soon, there are several hundreds of movies available on such discs, many of them are exclusive to HD DVD. As of mid-February, over 380 HD DVD titles have been released in the USA, over 210 Japanese HD DVD titles have been released and there are hundreds of HD DVD titles available in Europe with tens more incoming. Therefore, HD DVD playback capability seems to be a truly valuable feature now and in the forthcoming quarters.

“With the recent announcement from Toshiba, Blu-ray will now be the format that will pave the way for high definition movies, however this does not rule out HD DVD immediately as there are still a number of consumers who have chosen HD DVD and begun to build a HD DVD collection,” Mr. Aziz is reported to have said.

It remains to be seen whether Samsung Electronics plans to continue developing and selling its hybrid high-definition players.