Almost two weeks after Sony and Toshiba began talking about whether to aim for a unified next-generation DVD format, Panasonic said it plans to open a technology center for producing next-generation DVDs in the Blu-ray format. The company said that it's a temporary move but one aimed at assuring Hollywood the format battle will be settled in Blu-ray’s favor.
"We're not in the replication or authoring businesses," Panasonic Hollywood Lab director Eisuke Tsuyuzaki said, announcing the plan. "We wanted to show that the technologies are there waiting for companies when they want to launch their efforts. …The studios have been concerned with how a new next-generation format can be established, and this demonstration was more to alleviate some of those concerns."
Hollywood has hoped for a unified next-generation DVD format to avoid buyer confusion and the expense of printing movies onto different formats, discussions Panasonic has joined even though production efforts for Blu-ray have been ongoing, Tsuyuzaki told reporters.
A unified next-gen DVD format is finding a small but growing consensus among adult-entertainment producers. But Metro Studios production manager Gustavo thinks the next-generation DVD machines have to come out before anyone can even think about which format they might have to choose. "And I'd rather see the customer have a unified format so everybody can watch it," he told AVNOnline. "If a customer wants to buy a certain title and he doesn't have the player, he can't buy it."
Gustavo also echoed previous comments from players like VideoSecrets' Greg Clayman that having to produce next-generation DVD product in competing formats would prove extremely expensive for content providers and, by extension, customers.
Panasonic has been marketing a Blu-ray machine, the model DMR-E700BD, in Japan only, a machine the company touts as capturing 4 1/2 hours of digital satellite high-definition television when used with dual-layer Blu-ray formatted rewritable DVD discs storing up to 50GB. Recording times are said to extend to six hours for digital terrestrial HDTV and nine for standard definition satellite TV. The machine retails for about $2,780, with 50GB discs selling for about $69.
Sony brought out its commercial BDZ-S77 Blu-ray recorder in April 2003, a machine now retailing for about $3,000. And Sony has also said its next-generation PlayStation 3 game console would run Blu-ray.
Panasonic parent Matsushita has been a co-developer with Sony of the Blu-ray format, joined by such rivals as TDK and Philips, while Toshiba has been pushing the HD-DVD format. Both formats have been rounding up support from an assortment of Hollywood film heavyweights.
In December, Walt Disney Company and its Buena Vista Home Entertainment home video division came out in support of Blu-ray, joining 20th Century Fox and Sony Pictures, which means MGM is in the Blu-ray camp since Sony bought MGM in late 2004. HD-DVD has received endorsements from Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, and New Line Cinema.
Meanwhile, in late December, Victor Company of Japan (JVC) threw in another card—they announced over Christmas weekend that they developed a prototype for a read-only disc that could hold both Blu-ray and HD-DVD formatted data, the first known disc able to hold both. JVC and Memory-Tech – the latter announcing their own dual-format data-holding disc a few weeks before the JVC announcement – said their double-discs could help the movie industry and other content providers make an easier transition to the next generation of DVD.
