Toshiba announced recently they were adding a third layer to its HD-DVD format to increase the capacity to 45Gb. This is going to give them a much stronger competitor against Sony and perhaps give them some more bargaining room as Sony and Toshiba continue negotiations to develop a universal standard for DVDs based on the blue laser technology upgrades.

Right now, there are two blue laser based DVDs on the market. The first is the Toshiba. As mentioned, HD-DVD has 45 gigs and is triple layered over the previous double-layered 30 gigs. This will be great for the longer features and those with a lot of extend features like documentaries of the film and the like. This should help the movie studios supporting Toshiba on this venture.

The other format is Sony’s Blu-Ray technology. It’s slightly more than Toshiba at 50 gigs and has two 25 gig layers in it. This was substantially more than Toshiba’s original offering and Sony has planned this one since the very beginning.

The problem Toshiba will run into primarily is that production had already started on their other product and some HD-DVDs have already been circulating. It’s going to require some upgrades for folks who already own one of their players. They also still don’t quite match Sony’s capacity overall. Also, this original Toshiba format for these disks was a cheaper price point and now that went out the window.

It remains to be seen whether Toshiba will be able to make a successful run with this new disk.

John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.