Consumer electronic makers Toshiba Corp. and Sony Corp. offering competing technologies for next-generation DVDs have given up efforts to develop a unified format.

For 3 years, the two companies have tried to have their respective technology standards adopted to gain dominance in the markets for DVD players, PC drives and optical discs.

Toshiba, along with NEC Corp. and Sanyo Electric Co., has been promoting HD DVD, while Sony and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., the maker of Panasonic brand products, have been developing a technology known as Blu-ray. The Blu-ray technology is also backed by Dell Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.

The two groups have held negotiations on unifying the formats to persuade consumers to shift to advanced discs and to promote growth in the industry. However, negotiations fell through as neither side yielded and time ran out to develop a format before the launch of new products from both groups.

At the core of both formats are blue lasers, which have a shorter wavelength than red lasers used in current DVD equipment, allowing discs to store data at higher densities needed for high-definition movies and television. (Reuters)