[opendtv] News: Sony Says Open to Avoiding DVD Format War
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 08:21:11 -0400
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=8169932
Sony Says Open to Avoiding DVD Format War
Wed Apr 13, 2005 10:22 AM ET
By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology Correspondent
BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) - Sony Corp said on Wednesday it was open
to discussions to create a single standard for the next generation of
DVD discs, a move which could head off the looming threat of a major
format war among the world's biggest technology companies.
"From the point of view to provide the best service to the consumer
one format is better than two. We're open to discussions," Yukinori
Kawauchi, general manager in charge of the next DVD format at Sony's
Video Group, said in an interview.
But he added that specific proposals had yet to be tabled.
"There's no visible progress to do that (create a single standard),"
Kawauchi told Reuters at an event organized by Sony.
The electronics industry is facing a battle between the so-called
Blu-ray optical discs and HD DVD discs, two different new DVD formats
which offer higher capacity than current DVDs.
The first players and recorders for the new formats are expected to
be on the market by the end of this year, and as the introduction
dates draw closer industry specialists fear a bloody battle similar
to the video tape war between the VHS and Betamax formats in the
early 1980s.
Japan's TDK Corp., Sony and Philips Electronics are part of a large
group promoting Blu-ray against a group led by Toshiba Corp. and its
HD DVD technology.
At stake is pole position in the $10 billion-a-year DVD player and
recorder market, and a similar-sized PC drive market.
The worldwide value of all published DVD products is expected to
grow at an average 18 percent a year to $77 billion by 2009 from $33
billion in 2004, high-tech market research group In-Stat forecast in
a report published last month.
The companies which establish the next DVD standard will reap
royalties on the technology for many years to come.
At the core of both formats are blue lasers, which have a shorter
wavelength than the red lasers used in current DVD equipment,
allowing discs to store data at the higher densities needed for
high-definition movies and televisions.
Hollywood studios are still divided on what format to support. Apple
Computer joined the group of Blu-ray companies last month, with Dell
and Hewlett-Packard already pushing that format.
© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
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