Toshiba also believes a single format would benefit consumers and it would continue to strive for that goal. Japanese business daily Nihon Keizai reported that the groups are stepping up their negotiations and could find a solution as early as this month. The groups basically hope to create something that will have the good points of both technologies. Both technologies offer much higher storage capacity than current DVDs which hold about 10GB of data at most.
"This is good news for the industry as a whole because it will help penetrate DVDs into homes ... it might also help DVDs improve their content," said Kazuharu Miura, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research. "Now I'm interested to see how soon the makers can come out with products with standardized technology ... because the move might slow down the launch (of products) and might let rivals such as Taiwanese makers, that came into the market later, advance in the competition."
"Sony's focus is and has always been to provide the best consumer experience. In the area of next-generation optical discs, we continue to be open to discussions with supporters of other formats consistent with this focus." said a U.S.-based spokeswoman for Sony. According to Newspaper reports, the pair has have already begun briefing Walt Disney Co. and AOL Time Warner Inc. and some major Hollywood studios for approval of a unified standard.
Source:
Reuters
Written by: James Delahunty @ 20 Apr 2005 21:04
