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Microsoft and Toshiba strengthen ties

27 June 2005 23:11 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 4 comments

Microsoft and Toshiba have announced that both companies will strengthen joint development of consumer electronics goods and consider working together on HD-DVD players that will play one of the competing formats for the next generation format of DVDs. Both companies have been working together for years now. Toshiba is the third largest notebook PC maker in the world. Both companies reached an agreement back in May that would allow each company to use the others patents on computer and digital electronics technology.

Both companies are now considering working together on making HD-DVD players that would run on Windows software; a move that could bring down the development costs for the players, Toshiba hopes. "We think the agreement will have practical benefits such as lower costs and shorter development times," Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida said at a news conference in Tokyo. Bill Gates was also in attendance at the conference.

Toshiba hopes to be able to provide HD-DVD players for the Japanese and U.S. markets by the last quarter of 2005 which would play back the HD-DVD format backed by Toshiba. Sony Corp. is supporting the Blu-Ray Disc format, which stores higher capacity than HD-DVD (HD-DVD holds about 30GB, whereas Blu-Ray holds about 50GB). However, the HD-DVD camp claims that their format will be a much cheaper option for the entertainment and software industries to adopt.

According to Bill Gates however, Microsoft still has not taken any sides in the battle for the next generation DVD format.

Source:
Reuters

Permalink to this article

Survey shows consumers prefer Blu-Ray Disc over HD-DVD (14 July 2005)

The next generation DVD format mess (11 July 2005)

Blu-ray and HD-DVD - to be together or not to be? (20 June 2005)

Write-Once HD-DVD discs in 2006 (9 June 2005)

Toshiba brings LightScribe to laptops (30 May 2005)

Toshiba sees a unified blue laser future - eventually (26 May 2005)

Matsushita president insists Toshiba yield on DVD format (19 May 2005)

Next generation format talks stalled (16 May 2005)

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Discuss this article!
p4_tt (Senior Member) 28 June 2005 15:54
"Considering that such a decision would postpone the launching date, Microsoft will equip the initial models with classic DVD drives" Read that on softpedia so it looks like MS won't do that for some time. [ + quote]
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 29 June 2005 4:05
Well i gotta say heres another pieice of the pie that BG wants to take over.... wats next???? :) [ + quote]
ToxicFish (Member) 29 June 2005 11:32
HD-DVD on XBOX 360. Take that you punk Sony. Think you're all bad with your Blu-ray on your PS3. This means more support for HD-DVD from game manufactures. Remember N64 had less titles than playstation because they didn't like working with cartridges. If it's harder to work with, it'll have less support. Possibly, XBOX 360 will have cheaper/better games than PS3. I don't want to switch -_-;;; [ + quote]
trevk (Newbie) 2 July 2005 9:27
TDK Develops 2X, 100GB Blu-ray Disc Prototype What is the max for HD-DVD. I personaly like the HD-DVD becasue it doesn't require a cartrige. I like the space that Blu-ray offers! I wish they would work together to offer the best for us the consumers. Would movies come in cartrige's? I hope not! [ + quote]