Sony to Delay Release of Videodisc Player

Sony Corp. said Wednesday that it will delay introducing its digital videodisc player until the spring, citing a lack of movies to play on the new machine.

Sony, along with other consumer electronics companies, had been hoping to ship digital videodiscs and players this fall, in time for the holiday shopping season. Disputes within the group of inventing companies over copyright protection, licensing and other issues have stifled the industrywide debut.

“Our key concern is that there is no software strategy yet developed from the industry,” said John Briesch, president of consumer audio and visual products at Sony Electronics Inc., a U.S. unit of the Japanese company. “There has been no agreement on encryption issues, packaging or distribution.”

The digital videodisc, or DVD, is a souped-up compact disc that can store movies, video games and vast amounts of computer data. It is expected to eventually replace the VCR.

Hollywood studios have balked at putting their libraries of movies on DVD, for fear of piracy. Digital recordings remain so true to the original that movie studios could lose money if illegal copies became widespread.

“We are holding off until the copy protection issue is resolved,” said spokeswoman Gail Becker of Warner Home Video, a unit of Time Warner Inc., one of the inventing companies. Warner plans to put about 75 movies on DVD to coincide with the eventual DVD player debut.

Even if the copyright issues are resolved within the next few months, Sony is concerned that there won’t be time to press enough movies to make consumers want to buy the player, Briesch said.

A group of consumer electronic and movie companies agreed last September to create one industry format for DVD, ending a standards battle that had threatened to hamper the introduction of the technology.

Japanese rival Toshiba Corp. said Sony is postponing the introduction because of technical problems in meeting a new standard. Sony disputed that.

The recently approved industry standard is closer to the one proposed by a group led by Toshiba and Time Warner than the format invented by Sony and Philips Electronics, said Ken Ishihara, a spokesman for Toshiba in the U.S.

Toshiba plans to go ahead with its DVD player introduction this fall in the U.S. and Japan, Ishihara said. It began airing DVD commercials last week in both countries.

The companies that developed DVD include Sony, Philips, Toshiba, Time Warner, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Hitachi Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Co., Pioneer Electronic Corp., Victor Co. of Japan and Thomson of France.