Blu-ray Hoping for Standard

"Toshiba says talks with Sony for a single DVD format are over, but Blu-ray still sees a ray of hope.

Toshiba says it doesn’t expect a single DVD format to emerge before its next-generation machines reach stores this fall, but the Blu-ray Disc Association said on Wednesday that negotiations may not be completely over.

The association is banking on the reported delays of HD-DVD rollouts for an opportunity to revive talks with Toshiba and the HD-DVD camp, said Marty Gordon, spokesperson for the association and the vice president for corporate alliances at Philips Electronics, which backs the Blu-ray standard.

Toshiba and Sony, who are heading their respective rival camps’ HD-DVD and Blu-ray, have been in a three-year format war for the next-generation, or high-definition DVDs and DVD players. Both standards promise better pictures and sound, plus higher storage capacities.

The two Japanese consumer electronics giants have been in talks to unify the format for months but have not come to any compromise. Both camps have spent millions of dollars to develop this technology for what In-Stat estimates is a $40-billion DVD market in 2005.

‘Some products will try to bridge the two formats, but there is a price penalty for that.’ -Wolfgang Schlichting, IDC

“There are widely reported delays with the release of HD-DVD, and if that is the case, we hope that might buy us more time for further discussion,” Mr. Gordon said. “From our perspective, we are very open to continuing the discussion.”" [more]