Toshiba wins backing for HD-DVD (Financial Times)
DVDToshiba has won a major victory in the battle to determine the standard for next-generation DVDs with the endorsement by four Hollywood studios of its High Definition-DVD format. Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, New Line Cinema and Warner Brothers on Monday announced their support for the HD-DVD format advocated by Toshiba and NEC. Universal Pictures said it would come out with titles in the format during the 2005 holiday season while Paramount committed to bringing content out on HD-DVD in 2006.
The support of the Hollywood studios gives a strong boost to the Toshiba camp, which is competing with a group led by Sony to standardise the next generation of optical recording technology. Sony is working with a group of leading consumer electronics and PC manufacturers to promote the rival Blu-ray Disc format.
*** Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD both offer much more storage capacity than current DVDs, making it possible to record high-definition content. The main advantage of the Blu-ray Disc, according to its supporters, is that it is capable of storing more data than HD-DVDs. But one key advantage of HD-DVD, from Hollywood’s perspective, is that since the discs are similar to current DVDs, it is cheaper to convert existing DVD production lines to making the new discs.
Interesting. HDTV compatible versions of TiVo are now available as well. Now, if they’ll just start charging a reasonable price for the HDTV television sets, this format will be ready to become the new standard.
