War of the DVD formats starts now

Hi-tech rivals head to shops

THE 21st century version of the great VHSBetamax battle kicked off in shops yesterday.

British customers will get the chance to buy one of two new "super DVD" systems fighting it out to dominate the market. 

The first fighter in the ring is the Blu-ray disc player, which offers far clearer pictures and much more storage capacity than standard DVD machines. Blu-ray's makers claim it's the future. But they have a rival, the HD-DVD player, which does more or less the same thing.

Both machines offer high definition technology but neither system's discs will work in the other and experts cannot make up their minds which one will be the new VHS, with the other ending up in the wilderness like Betamax.

Jason Jenkins, deputy editor of gadget magazine T3, said: "It's Betamax and VHS again, that's the easiest way of explaining it.

Electronics giants Samsung have launched what they say is "the world's first commercial Bluray disc player" - the DMP-BD-P1000. It hit the shelves in the UK yesterday at a price of £999.

Samsung believe it will appeal to "early adopters" - wealthy men desperate to own the latest gadgets.

Rival Panasonic's DMPBD10 Blu-ray player is on sale at about 50 Panasonic stores priced at around £1299. It will also go on sale at John Lewis this week.

Meanwhile, Toshiba are preparing for the November launch of the first HD-DVD to go on sale in Britain. It will cost around £500