EETimes.com – Next-gen DVD talks collapse — Gee, what a shock.
TOKYO — Talks among Matsushita, Sony and Toshiba designed to unify competing next-generation DVD formats have failed, making it more likely the rivals will follow separate paths to the video market.
Backers of the rival HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats said talks would nevertheless continue.
The rivals met here Monday (May 16). A separate meeting of the Blu-ray Disc Association atttracted 230 attendees from 80 companies. The HD DVD Promotion Group held an extraordinary meeting that drew 120 attendees from 64 companies. Both meetings were closed to the public.
Sony and Toshiba updated the status of unification talks during both meetings, according to attendees. Kiyoshi Nishitani, Sony’s senior vice president, acknowledged that the three companies had failed to reach an agreement, according to a Sony spokesman.
That’s great news. The longer that process takes the longer we’ll be able to make backups of our DVDs. I’m guessing the next format, whatever it is, will have a slightly better encryption.
Any encryption is breakable, given enough time and smart kids. The issue will be that with this sort of indecision more money is taken from the market – just as it was in Beta vs VHS days. Beta people – betazoids as they’re known to trekkies 😉 – such as myself bought all that great hardware and tapes, only to have to buy everything again a few years later and convert to VHS… If there’s 1 standard you sell 200 machines, 100 Beta and 100 VHS. If there’s two and you’re lucky you will sell 250 or so – 100 VHS, 100 Betamax, then 50 additional ones (or more) of Betazoids coming to VHS a few years later. So it makes good business sense!
Both of these formats deserve to die if for no other reason than to teach yet another lesson — which should have already been learned by now — about corporate greed.
Hardware makers do this again and again and again. If the engineers and marketers aren’t old enough to remember VHS vs. Beta, has the dismal failure of SACD versus DVD-Audio taught them nothing?
This is shame; high def DVD in some form or fasion would have been nice to have. As it stands, I hope they both fail and cost their respective backers millions in the process.