Sony not dropping DVD-R
A mistranslation or misinterpretation of a statement by Sony's vice president for consumer electronics, Katsumi Ihara, led many U.S. media outlets to believe that Sony was dropping all support for DVD. But in reality, that's not the case.
The Japanese Agencies press service translated Ihara's statement as follows: "We plan to make all our recorders in the domestic market Blu-ray compatible in future, allowing consumers to record high-definition programs over a longer period." Asian news sources interpreted the statement to mean that after November, Sony's recordable consoles will no longer be DVD-R only.
A reinterpretation of Ihara's statement appeared on Yahoo News this afternoon, which used the verb "ditch" to characterize Sony's move as removing DVD-R support entirely, and perhaps DVD playability as well, from future disc consoles sold in Japan.
The Japanese Agencies press service translated Ihara's statement as follows: "We plan to make all our recorders in the domestic market Blu-ray compatible in future, allowing consumers to record high-definition programs over a longer period." Asian news sources interpreted the statement to mean that after November, Sony's recordable consoles will no longer be DVD-R only.
A reinterpretation of Ihara's statement appeared on Yahoo News this afternoon, which used the verb "ditch" to characterize Sony's move as removing DVD-R support entirely, and perhaps DVD playability as well, from future disc consoles sold in Japan.
But Sony's own press release yesterday tells a completely different story, listing the following formats as supported by all four new players in its product line: "HDD, BD-ROM,BD-RE ver.2.1/ver.1.0,BD-R ver.1.1/1.2, Discs recorded in AVCHD format, DVD video, DVD+RW/+R, DVD-RW/-R/-R DL(dual layer) (video mode)/-RW(CPRM)/-R(CPRM), DualDisc, DVD+RW/+R DL(dual layer)/-RW/-R also compatible with 8cm disc." ("DualDisc" refers to a dual-format DVD containing separate video and audio tracks.)
Globalization is a challenge in more ways than one, eh? In this case, it's interesting to note that we nearly were sucked into the Yahoo! News version of the story, but fortunately noticed the truth in time.
