Taiwan's storage media industry is expected to speed up efforts to develop a common blue laser DVD format in co-operation with its mainland China's counterparts now that the Beijing Olympic Games have finished.

According to the secretary general of the non-profit making, Taiwan Information Storage Association, Z.R. Cheng, the Tsinghua University in China had said prior to the Games it would consider allowing Taiwanese organisations to become involved in its China Blue High Definition Disc (CBHD) programme, based on Toshiba's ill-fated HD DVD, due to the nation’s prominence in DVD manufacturing and applications.

The university and Toshiba have been joint venturing in the development of a blue laser format for the mainland Chinese DVD market. However, Cheng believes the Tsinghua University introduced the format in a rush to meet its commitment to put the CBHD format into commercial use during Beijing Olympic Games, while there were a number of defects still to be rectified in the format.

Cheng said Toshiba's recent refusal to sell its HD DVD patents to Taiwan would not affect Taiwan's work on blue laser technology and noted Toshiba had offered to work with Tsinghua to develop products for China's vast market of multimedia technology products.

Acting on behalf of some of the leading Taiwan-based optical disc manufacturers, the Taiwan Information Storage Association had made an attempt to acquire the patents to the HD DVD format from Toshiba, now that the company has shelved its blue-laser standard. It is thought that the Taiwan-based makers are looking to strengthen their bargaining power for future negotiations over Blu-ray Disc royalties. Toshiba declined to sell however, according to the Chinese-language newspaper, Economic Daily News.

Story filed 10.09.08