Japanese Onkyo Corp. said Wednesday it will stop production and sale of players in the HD DVD format. A decision made by Toshiba to pull out of its HD DVD operations made it impossible for Onkyo to maintain its own operations, Onkyo said.

Onkyo had procured key components from Toshiba to make HD DVD players for sale in Europe and North America.

Onkyo said it will switch to the rival Blu-ray Disc format.