Toshiba to resume format wars?

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 3 Jun 2008 at 11:19

Rumours suggest Toshiba is working on an upgrade of current DVD technology that would boost video quality to match Blu-ray.

According to rumours in the Japanese newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun, Toshiba is developing a circuit that will be embedded into new DVD players that will convert the video into a higher definition, though it does not explain how this seemingly unlikely task will be achieved.

If the rumour proves to be true it would represent an amazing turnaround for the company, which was comprehensively floored by Sony's Blu-ray in the recent format wars. Since then, however, the victorious format hasn't taken off in the way Sony might have hoped, with many blaming the high price of the players.

This is an area Toshiba seems to be hoping to exploit, with the rumours suggesting the enhanced players will be considerably cheaper than their Blu-ray equivalents, and backwards compatible with existing DVDs.

The reports claim the technology will be rolling out within the next six months, so we won't need to wait long to find out how much of this is true.

Toshiba had not returned our request for comment at the time of writing.