Rival camps keep slugging it out in DVD format war

MAKUHARI, Japan (Reuters) - There was no sign of compromise on Wednesday in a fight over next-generation DVD technology as executives from rival camps talked up their formats and vowed to launch products to woo consumers to their side.

"It will come down to which camp comes out with products that have merit for consumers. Content will also be key," Kiyoshi Nishitani, senior vice president at Sony, told Reuters on the sidelines of CEATEC Japan, an electronics trade show held in Makuhari, near Tokyo.

Nishitani had just finished participating in a panel discussion held to tout the merits of the Blu-ray disc format for next-generation DVDs. Blu-ray is up against a group led by Toshiba that endorses a standard called HD DVD.

At the core of both 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.

The HD DVD group also held a press conference at which executives from Toshiba and Microsoft made the case for HD DVD. Last month, the software giant and top chip maker Intel threw their weight behind the format in a move widely seen as a heavy blow to Blu-ray.

Sony and Toshiba held high-level talks earlier this year to try to unify their formats and avoid an all-out standards war similar to the one that raged between the VHS and Betamax videocassette formats in the 1980s, but those discussions broke down.

Nishitani said it was unlikely that this battle would be as drawn out as the decade-long VHS/Beta tussle in which Sony's Beta famously lost to the VHS camp. He said he had good reason to believe Sony would prevail this time.

"I'm not really worried, but I can't tell you right now why that is," Nishitani said. "In the end there will be one format."

The Blu-ray camp received a vote of confidence earlier this week from news that Paramount, one of Hollywood's top studios that until now has been firmly in the HD DVD corner, would take a neutral stance and release movies in Blu-ray as well.

Nishitani declined to comment on media reports that Warner Bros, which has been a staunch supporter of the HD DVD format, would soon follow suit.

Paramount cited Sony's next-generation PlayStation 3 game console as a key factor behind its decision. Due next spring, the next-generation console will come equipped with a Blu-ray DVD player and that could drive demand for movies on Blu-ray discs.

The Blu-ray Disc Association said on Wednesday that it would establish a read-only disc format for Blu-ray by the end of this year, paving the way for movie studios to issue titles in the format starting next year.

By comparison, HD DVD has already established its read-only format and put 35 movie titles on display at its booth at CEATEC that it says will be ready for launch from the end of 2005.

At its booth, Toshiba displayed a notebook PC that can read HD DVD discs. Equipped with a slim, read-only drive produced by a joint venture between Toshiba and South Korea's Samsung Electronics, the PC will hit stores early next year.

Panasonic products maker Matsushita Electric Industrial displayed a Blu-ray disc drive for notebook PCs and demonstrated methods to slash DVD production costs -- an area that has been considered a weakness for the Blu-ray camp.

But Patrick Griffis, senior director of Microsoft Windows Client Division's Worldwide Media Standards, said HD DVD would be a less costly transition for the industry as the structure of HD DVD discs is very similar to conventional DVDs.

"Existing DVD replication lines can be converted relatively easily and inexpensively to produce HD DVD discs. The key point here is ... that at launch, disc production capacity will not be a problem," Griffis said in a speech.

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