Toshiba changes mind: Toshiba sees eventual unified DVD format

May 26, 2005

I'm lost,
but maybe some of our smarter visitors get it. We've reported that the HD-DVD
and the Blu-ray camp where in talks for an unified format, we also reported that they didn't reach an
agreement and it would probably never happen. Today we can report that the president of Toshiba has said that he thinks that the next generation of optical discs will eventually use one format. However he also thinks that for the coming time two competing formats will be on the market.

Toshiba, Japan's second-largest electronics conglomerate, backs a new DVD technology called HD-DVD, while Sony and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. are the leaders of rival format Blu-ray. "We may actually have a situation where merchandise from both sides is put on store shelves. But the market would not allow that situation to last very long," Toshiba President Tadashi Okamura told Japanese business leaders.
The two sides have been engaged in a last-ditch effort to forge a common format, but no substantial progress has been made so far. Both sides say that reaching a unified format would be ideal to avoid confusion and inconvenience, which occurred with the VHS-Beta battle over video tape formats two decades ago. But the clock is ticking. Toshiba plans to launch HD DVD-based players by the end of 2005, and Sony plans to put a Blu-ray disc drive in its new PlayStation game console next year.

At least they do understand that for consumers a single format is less confusing and that it should be the way to go. Now let's hope the company bosses are able to put aside their ego's and work on a single blue laser format.

Source: Reuters