Apple has announced at CeBIT in Hanover that it has joined the board of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) in a move that will hurt the High Definition DVD (HD-DVD) camp.
The announcement will offer a boost for the BDA, since Apple's hardware is commonly used for DVD burning and the company will be including Blu-Ray support in the next edition of its iMovies software suite.
"Apple has a long history of technical innovation around DVD hardware and software, and its support of the Blu-ray format is a testament to its commitment to ongoing innovation," said Maureen Weber, chief spokeswoman at the BDA and general manager of HP's optical storage solutions business.
A standards war has been raging over the DVD formats, and Apple's move further weakens the HD-DVD standard supported by Toshiba and NEC.
While HD-DVD players are up to three times cheaper than Blu-Ray machines, the HD-DVD standard has had trouble getting support recently and those Hollywood studios that do support it will also be supporting the Blu-Ray standard created by Sony.
The move by Apple could be the final nail in the coffin for HD-DVD, with the BDA now having over 100 members including Dell, HP and many of the major studios.
Do you agree?
Replacing propaganda with truth...
...is so refreshing. Please see Apple's website with an article (published before this article) revealing Apple's support for both formats. (It now has software available to burn HD content onto HD DVDs). http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/apr/17hd.html Oh, and HP just released the first external HD DVD drive for PCs. Not all companies are exclusive to Blu-ray....
Posted by Kevin, 27 Nov 2006
Get you dates straight!
RE Kevin:
The story was published on 11 March 2005, the Apple press release is dated 17 April. Since when does April come before March...?
If you accuse somebody of inaccuracies, at least make sure yo actually have your facts right.
Posted by carol, 29 Nov 2006