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Blu-ray backers band together

Posted on 21 May 2004 at 12:16

The battle lines for next-generation optical format wars are being drawn. The struggle to establish industry momentum has taken a new turn with the formation of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) by Sony and other electronics companies.

It is intended to help promote the next generation optical drives that enable over two hours of recording on a 27GB disc (about 13 hours of standard-definition television) and up to 50GB on a dual-layer disc.

The new group will incorporate the existing Blu-ray Disc Founders (a group formed in May 2002), reports the NE Asia Online website. And it is intended to draw more companies from a wider range of industries to participate in the creation of standards.

Comprising Dell, HP, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Matsushita (Panasonic), Pioneer, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Thomson, the home for the Blu-ray Disc Association on the Web is www.blu-raydisc-official.org.

Notable by their absence, however, are Toshiba and NEC. These companies are a force behind HD-DVD, a rival next-generation optical drive technology. While Blu-ray is currently gaining momentum, an advantage of HD-DVD is its backwards compatibility with the existing DVD format, which will be a strong selling point for consumers looking to avoid having to recreate their DVD collection.

One Blu-ray development that perhaps addresses such concerns is the 'three-in-one' Sony prototype we reported on yesterday. The new device bonds together a blue-violet semi conductor laser chip and a two-wavelength semiconductor chip for red and near infrared lasers, and this enables the Blu-ray, DVD and CD formats to be accommodated.