Matsushita president insists Toshiba yield on DVD format

The President of Matsushita, Kunio Nakamura said that it is now up to Toshiba to yield its position in talks on a unified next gen DVD format making it clear neither Matsushita nor their partner Sony will budge. This is just the latest of many signs that talks between the two have hit some problems. Both sides decided to engage in talks earlier this year to attempt to avoid a format war that would cost each side millions of dollars and would discourage consumers from choosing to move to next generation discs.

One key problem is that both sides would prefer a unified standard based on their own disc structure, which is quite understandable since each side has spent enormous sums of money and time to develop it. "The talks continue, they have not collapsed," Nakamura said. "But Matsushita and Sony have not changed their stance. We are waiting for Toshiba's decision." For several months both sides have bee competing with each other to gain support for their formats.

Blu-ray has one major advantage over HD-DVD; it can hold 50GB which is about 20GB more than HD-DVD. However, firms backing HD-DVD claim that it would cost a lot less to the industry to adopt it because it is very close to the structure of current available discs. Both formats utilize the use of blue lasers, which have much shorter wavelengths than red lasers allowing discs to store data at the higher densities.

Source:
Reuters

Written by: James Delahunty @ 19 May 2005 3:36

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18 comments

gibney85

Feck Sake!

When will they stop muttering and realise that the BLu-Ray is the way to go.

It holds 50GB FFS! Over 20GB more than HD-DVD

I like the name HD_DVD Better though!

19.5.2005 04:12 #1

spooky2k

even though the equipment is the same, whether we go with an equipment upgrade for BLu-Ray now, or in 10 years, it is GOING TO HAPPEN.
essentially, if Toshiba says no to it, they're majorly hindering progress of this technology. Give it up toshiba. Take what you can get, cos if you go head to head with Blu-Ray...you'll lose more money than if you go with it.
Dan x

19.5.2005 05:24 #2

gibney85

Theres no doubt they will lose if they go head to head with Sony but I suppose they are scaring Sony into making a compromise. The last thing sony want is a repeat of a Format war. It helps nobody

19.5.2005 05:37 #3

steve7059

The new PS3 that Sony is releasing in the very near future will utilize the Blu-ray format. Having this first mover advantage in what promises to be a very popular item will just about ensure that Blu-ray will become the de-facto successor to DVD. I agree, get on board Toshiba!

19.5.2005 10:15 #4

OzMick

I seem to remember saying when news of these meetings was first announced that Sony would pull some shit like this... They want to hold "negotiation" talks, but really all they want to do is make everyone surrender to their monopoly. I don't know all the technical details behind either format, but there is probably a good reason why Toshiba are holding out. I'd be more interested to know what their arguments are for not giving in, good on them for sticking to their guns and not just caving in to Sony's demands.

19.5.2005 15:46 #5

bitchklar

First of all, OzMick, you have got to be some f<deleted>g idiot :)

Smiley or no smiley, do not refer to another member as you just have, bitchklar.

Of course they want their product to get monopoly, but for f<deleted>s sake, you shud to, just for now they only got 20 gb more space, but i think i remember them saying they could cram more or less 200gb on the discs :S(flame me if i'm wrong^^')

You're wrong. I won't flame you, but your second reference to the 'F' word just earned you an official reporting to the admins.

so we shud all just st down and hail sony!!!:P

<Edited A_Klingon>

20.5.2005 01:35 #6

OzMick

Firstly, the whole premise of these negotiations reeks of anti-competitive business practices cleverly disguised as something else. Second, why do we need this sort of storage capacity? What the hell do you need with 50GB of storage on the one disc? And if you want a game that takes up a full 50GB of space, you might like to think about load times. Thirdly, having a format closely modeling the DVD structure is smart for a lot of other people in related industries, such as DVD authoring software and everything to do with that. We just don't need another type of media introduced into the market at the moment, it is suicidal to be trying to revolutionise storage every decade. Go on, call me a fucking idiot. I don't care. I've got a brain and can think for myself.

20.5.2005 03:29 #7

rav0

Blu-ray's advantage is massive: MORE SPACE. Note that whether HD-DVD gets used, or Blu-ray, the disk structure for videos will most certainly be new, making existing authoring software useless. Besides, Blu-ray sounds better, though they might want to use spell check next time thay think up a product name. And why is it that more during kidz educational shows, than other times, producers like to replace the letter S with a Z?

20.5.2005 04:06 #8

nanu-nanu

Nero has announced that its TOOLKIT now supports Blu-Ray. I dont see whats so great about either one on a consumer level. So I have a disk that can hold 25 or 50 gigs. Well, if Holly Wood has its way and the FCC then all shows will come with tags that prevent them from being recorded by Tivo and other recorders.

maybe I just have not read enough, but I dont see what the point of either is for me.....a Pirate

20.5.2005 07:18 #9

GrayArea

"...HD-DVD...would cost a lot less to the industry to adopt it because it is very close to the structure of current available discs."

So what? With the scale that any of these discs will be manufactured (billions) at tool up costs are a minimal part of the price. If that's the best reason they can give to adopt HD-DVD (besides market domination...) then my vote is BLU-RAY. Adopting inferior technology for the sake of saving manufacturers a few bucks in the short term is a greed based line of reasoning and clearly bad for consumers.

P.S. Microsoft supports the HD-DVD format. That one thing alone is enough for me to go with BLU-RAY... Windows Media files/player/DRM are to be avoided at all cost!!!

20.5.2005 11:10 #10

GrayArea

"...HD-DVD...would cost a lot less to the industry to adopt it because it is very close to the structure of current available discs."

So what? With the scale that any of these discs will be manufactured at (I'd say billions over time) tool up costs are a minimal part of the price. If that's the best reason they can give to adopt HD-DVD (besides market domination...) then my vote is BLU-RAY. Adopting inferior technology for the sake of saving manufacturers a few bucks in the short term is a greed based line of reasoning and clearly bad for consumers.

P.S. Microsoft supports the HD-DVD format. That one thing alone is enough for me to go with BLU-RAY... Windows Media files/player/DRM are to be avoided at all cost!!!

20.5.2005 11:11 #11

GrayArea

Oops...

20.5.2005 11:12 #12

Excel2005

I think that the acronym HDDVD should be condensed slightly for the sake of conversation. I'm thinking something like HDVD (High Density Versatile/Video Disc) just so that the name rolls off the tongue easier.

20.5.2005 13:22 #13

daemonzx6

They were actually "negotiating" about possibly using the Blu-Ray structure and Toshiba's great new consumer fuckover (copy protection) that they were going to use on HD-DVD, and then release that as the "unified standard."

20.5.2005 16:22 #14

A_Klingon

Bitchklar:

Revisit your post (above), and please don't do it again.

Thank You.

20.5.2005 18:36 #15

bitchklar

never never never ever again :)
and btw, im right :P http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117867,00.asp

this is a nice one to : http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/bluray-has-already-won-023974.php

sorry, guess i snapped.. ^^

21.5.2005 07:38 #16

A_Klingon

No sweat -

I would like to see BluRay win out as well. 100GB on a single, 4-layer disc is nothing to sneeze at!

The key 'advantage' of HD-DVD that Toshiba keeps yakking about is aimed only toward the manufacturers, not to you and I. So what if HD-DVD is cheaper to produce? We're still going to pay plenty for the new hi-density discs when they come out regardless of format.

And anyway, if we continually held on/clung to older formats forever, we'd still be burning mpeg-1 VideoCD movies onto CD-R.

I personally think BluRay is going to win, and it's going to kick ass! I just hope they don't do something dumb (as they did with DVD) and come out with blank media which has only half the capacity of the commercial discs. If Hollywood cranks out 4-layer Hi-Def movies and Sony only sells (say) 2-layer blanks, we're going to be compressing video all-over-again.

Compressing Hi-Definition Video would kind of suck, and defeat the whole purpose, right?

(Of course, we're gonna need some brave and innovative young soul(s) to come up with a Blu-Ray ripper first.)

That should only take about 10 years or so !!

21.5.2005 08:30 #17

bitchklar

Maybe we're lucky, and they make a weeeeee little bug in the copy protection :P

Or they outsmart us all.. and we get "screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewed" :)

21.5.2005 09:16 #18

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