BEIJING, May 17 -- The presidents of Sony Corp (SNE.N)., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Toshiba Corp. will meet as early as this week to try and hammer out an agreement on a unified format for next-generation DVD technology, a source close to the matter said on Tuesday.

    The rivalry between the two camps began several months ago. Sony's Blu-ray technology, which is supported by other consumer-oriented firms such as Dell, Samsung, and Philips Electronics, calls for a data layer to be placed on a substrate surface and covered by thin protective layers. Also participating in the development of the Blu-ray technology is the Matsushita Electronic Industrial Co.

    The negotiations have been leaning toward unifying the formats based on the Blu-ray disc structure, but Toshiba continues to maintain that adopting the HD DVD structure would be more cost efficient because it is closer to the current DVD.

    The high-level talks offer new hope for negotiations that appeared to have reached an impasse in recent days. A senior Toshiba official was quoted on Monday as saying one format based on Sony technology would be "extremely difficult" at this stage.

    Yoshihide Fujii, Toshiba's top negotiator, told reporters today that "the Sony side failed to provide enough evidence that its format has a clear advantage over ours in terms of cost and range of applications." Fujii went on to say that further discussion will be a "waste of time" unless Sony makes an effort to examine Toshiba's proposal for a unified technology.

    Both sides£¬however, still believe one standard is the best scenario, knowing that a prolonged format battle like the one between VHS and Betamax two decades ago would likely discourage consumers from shifting to advanced discs and stifle the industry's growth.

    "We continue to believe in the merits of establishing one format but discussions up until now have not been able to produce an agreement," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "So the talks will be taken to a higher level."

    The source said it had not been decided whether Toshiba would send its current president, Tadashi Okamura, or incoming president Atsutoshi Nishida. Likewise, it is not clear whether Sony will be represented by Ryoji Chubachi, who is scheduled to become president in June, or current president Kunitake Ando.

    (Agencies)