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TOKYO (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp. said on Wednesday that no unified format for a next-generation DVD is likely before its year-end launch of adanced DVD players, a development that could leave users confused and hinder industry growth.
Japanese electronics makers Toshiba and Sony Corp., leading rival camps, have waged a three-year battle to have their different standards adopted for new DVDs, which promise much greater capacity for high-definition movies.
Toshiba, along with NEC Corp. and Sanyo Electric Co., has been promoting HD DVD, while Sony and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., the maker of Panasonic brand products, have been developing a technology known as Blu-ray.
At stake is pole position in the multibillion dollar markets for DVD players, PC drivers and optical discs.
"We've been working towards unification. But talks are now stalled. We will press ahead with the product launch as planned," Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida told Reuters in an interview.
Nishida added, however, that Toshiba will continue efforts to ultimately agree a unified standard even after its planned launch of HD DVD players at the end of this calendar year.
"Regrettably, two different types of products seem set to hit the market. But this is the kind of technology that will be around for five or 10 years. Efforts should be made continuously to make unification happen," Nishida said.
Sony plans to put a Blu-ray disc drive in its new PlayStation game console next year.
The two sides made a last-ditch effort to forge a common format earlier this year, without success, to avoid confusion and inconvenience of the kind that occurred as a result of the VHS-Beta battle over videocassette formats two decades ago.
At the core of both DVD 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 television.
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