Sony says unified next-gen DVD standard unlikely

Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony, said a unified next-generation DVD standard is currently unlikely. Sony, Matsushita and many others are part of the Blu-ray group, while Toshiba, NEC and others are trying to make HD DVD mainstream. Recently both camps announced talks to create one next-generation DVD standard but it seems the talks were abortive.

Kutaragi said at a meeting with reporters in Tokyo on Thursday that the chances of a unified format are almost none.

Both sides have highlighted the problems in creating a unified standard for the discs, which use a blue laser to read and record information. Blu-ray's recording layer is located 0.1mm from the surface of the disc, compared with 0.6mm for HD DVD.

"With the dialogue focusing on 0.1 and 0.6, there is no way for the two sides to divide things fairly," Kutaragi said.

In terms of storage capacity Blu-Ray is far more superior as the Blu-ray camp already presented a 100GB disc while HD DVD is currently limited to 45GB. More details at Taipei Times