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Sony, Toshiba Mull Unified Format to Avoid DVD War

malebolgia   on 21 April 2005 - 15:42 · 16 comments & 1721 views

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Japan's Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp. are in talks to develop a common standard for next-generation DVDs and end a fierce battle over formats that has been threatening to stifle the industry's growth. Sony and Toshiba, heading rival groups, have waged a three-year battle to have their new technology standards adopted by the industry and gain pole position in the multi-billion dollar markets for DVD players, PC drives and optical disks.

While a final deal is still far from certain, both camps are well aware that a drawn-out fight would likely confuse consumers and hinder the industry's development, just like the famous spat between the VHS and Betamax video tape formats two decades ago. "Toshiba believes a single format will benefit consumers. We are in talks (with the rival camp and related parties) and we will continue engaging in the talks," a Toshiba spokeswoman said.

News source: Reuters


Test configuration and benchmarks

The systems used for testing on which we have successively installed Windows XP SP 2 and Windows XP x64 Professional Edition was provided by Senorg Romania www.senorg.ro.

The configuration of the test system:

- ABIT AN8 Socket 939 with nForce 4 chipset motherboard
- AMD Athlon 64 bit 3000+ boxed processor, cooler included
- 512 MB RAM Kingston Dual Channel 400 MHz
- SATA Western Digital 120 GB hard disk
- ATI Radeon X700 PCI Express cu 256 MB RAM GDDR3 ABIT video card
- DVD-RW Lite-ON optical device
- 350 W power source
- Eizo 1280x1024@85 Hz monitor

For the motherboard, the following drivers were used: nForce 6.53 for Windows x32 and nForce 6.39 for Windows x64, being the last available versions from Nvidia when this test was done.

The driver for the ATI Radeon X700 video card was Catalyst Center 4.5, available on the ATI site both for Windows XP Professional Edition and Windows XP x64 Professional Edition.

The operating systems were Windows XP Professional Edition SP2 and Windows XP x64 Professional Edition SP1 build 1433.

The following benchmarks were used:

SiSoftware Sandra 2005 Professional Edition, both 32-bit and 64-bit
3D Mark 2005 1.20
ScienceMark 2005, both 32-bit and 64-bit bit
Chronicles of Riddick : Escape from Butcher’s Bay, both 32-bit and 64-bit bit

Post a comment · Send to friend Comments · There are 16 additional comments
(1 reply) #1 Galley on 21 Apr 2005 - 16:02
This might possibly affect the PS3 release, since it was supposed to have a BluRay drive. It would be sweet if it used the unified format instead!
#1.1 Knight' on 21 Apr 2005 - 20:56
It's possibly due to the fact that Sony and Toshiba are all part of the same group who have invested (jointly) billions of dollars into the Cell design... Maybe that's their reason for trying to get along?
#2 bangbang023 on 21 Apr 2005 - 17:27
I really hope these guys can come up with something where neither sacrifices too much and, in the end, everyone is happy. It's hard enough explaining to people the difference between -r and +r.....god help me if I had to go into that kind of thing for regular movie purchases.
#3 Nelsinho on 21 Apr 2005 - 17:59
hmm I hope what works in effect on the market
(3 replies) #4 Yogurth on 21 Apr 2005 - 18:45
I think it is Fear effect ... more important (bigger) corporations have backed HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray feels a squezze. Nothing to do with customers at all IMHO.
#4.1 hardgiant on 21 Apr 2005 - 19:59
BluRay is:

Apple, Dell, Hitachi, HP, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK and Thomson

BluRay has more companies supporting it.

BluRay is better tech so I hope it wins out.
#4.2 Knight' on 21 Apr 2005 - 20:57
And here was Steve thinking it was the year of HD?
#4.3 eAi on 22 Apr 2005 - 11:11
HD and HDDVD aren't the same thing, HDDVD just uses two common well known terms (HD and DVD) but HD just means high defintion and BlueRay could support higher HD that HDDVD
#5 CrisCr0ss on 21 Apr 2005 - 18:54
Thank god cuz with all these formats i my self sometimes get confused. I mean if it wasn't for google i would get lost. This will hopefully make things a lot eaiser for everyone.
#6 Mateus-ES on 21 Apr 2005 - 20:09
Sony must yield and adopt HD-DVD in PS3 and definitive high-res format.
(1 reply) #7 Unwonted on 21 Apr 2005 - 22:23
Sony should do what Toshiba asks, and just keep their proprietary format for their video game system. Piracy would literally be impossible, or at least unlikely.
#7.1 cal2002 on 22 Apr 2005 - 01:03
It's not just their format....
#8 cal2002 on 22 Apr 2005 - 01:07
Don't get your hopes up, this will not be happening any time soon or ever for that matter. Both groups already think they have what is the best format, there are big pros and cons to both. The two will not be joining.
(1 reply) #9 jasondefaoite on 22 Apr 2005 - 02:08
^^ If there are pros and cons to both, would it not make sense to go with a unified firmat with the pros of each technology?
#9.1 cal2002 on 22 Apr 2005 - 03:37
It would have, years ago when they started developing the technology. The hardware is already being built for the devices; standards are set for half of media. It is too late for anything to change. The companies making the processors that will in effect power the players, are not going to rebuild their processors. Development of the AACS and mandatory codec support has slowed this process enough. There is too much at risk from everyone else in the game to do something like this. If the formats were to mix, join, unify, etc at this point; you have a number of companies out millions for the past year of develop. You can’t just mix the two and expect everything to work out, it’s not going to.

Sorry to say, this will not be happening.
#10 eilegz on 22 Apr 2005 - 04:55
lets hope that both reach an agreement im just tire of multi format stuff, lets hope that everything could be like CD era no more problem or hassle for consumers in general, that dont want to know any personal preferences.

As for PS3 lets sony use only br disc, just like psp use umd, so they can protect more agaisnt piracy, its virtually impossible to pirate.

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