A bid to set a universal standard for next-generation DVDs that could ease the lives of consumers is proving difficult, with wide gaps between Sony and Toshiba on which technology should be used, Toshiba’s negotiator said on Monday.
The two Japanese giants have each promoted their own next-generation DVD system, which stores more data than current discs, opening up new frontiers in cinematic quality images and interactive entertainment.
After three years of fighting, the two sides agreed last month to study compatibility to prevent a scenario in which Sony discs do not work on Toshiba players or vice versa.
But the two formats, which are expected to see mass-market release later this year, have major technical differences.
”The Sony side failed to provide enough evidence that its format has a clear advantage over ours in terms of cost and range of applications,” said top Toshiba negotiator Yoshihide Fujii, as quoted by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business newspaper’s Monday-evening edition.
He said further discussion will be a ”waste of time” unless Sony looks seriously at Toshiba’s proposal, but added: ”We won’t give up the idea of forging a unified format.”
Sony and Matsushita Electric, which makes the Panasonic brand, introduced the Blu-Ray standard in February 2002, and Toshiba and NEC followed with the HD DVD standard.
The size of the discs is the same, but the method of writing data differs.
The Blu-Ray disc is expected to have a greater storage capacity but also be more expensive to make, at least in the short term, as the format has greater differences from current-generation DVDs.
Among the Hollywood studios, Walt Disney and Sony Pictures Entertainment back Blu-Ray, while HD DVD supporters include Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures and Warner Brothers Studios.
Supporters of the Blu-Ray technology also include Apple Computer, Dell, Hewlett Packard and Samsung Electronics.
The technology war is seen as similar to the one that erupted in the late 1970s when home video-cassette players hit the market. By the 1980s, customers who had gambled on the Sony-developed Betamax system had to switch to VHS, which became the standard. — Sapa-AFP