Apple’s backing is expected to enhance Blu-ray’s competitiveness with Toshiba and NEC’s HD-DVD association in the battle to create a new, technically advanced standard of digital video discs.
Both groups claim their new discs have enhanced picture quality and sound, greater recording capacity and more secure copyright protection, as well as interactive capabilities, but Blu-ray says that its format has more storage capacity than the HD-DVD standard.
Reports say it is likely that the addition of Apple on the board of the Blu-ray Association will help decide the format to replace standard DVDs. It also bodes well for Blu-ray that it has secured the support of some Hollywood studios including Walt Disney, Twentieth Century Fox and Sony Pictures, as it has been suggested that the entertainment capital will probably be the decisive factor in the battle.
Other key Hollywood studios, including Warner Brothers, Universal and Paramount, are considering releasing movies on HD-DVD discs because they are cheaper to make. However, these companies have not completely dismissed the idea of choosing Blu-ray should their customers decide they would prefer the more expensive format.
Apple joins Sony, Dell, HP, Sharp, Philips, Panasonic, Hitachi and eight other companies on Blu-ray’s board of directors.
Some media speculation has seen Apple’s move to come down on the side of Blu-ray as clouded, especially since the computer company is still voicing its support of HD video across its applications such as iMovie HD and Final Cut HD. It has also said it will support the H.264 HD video format in the next version of QuickTime, which is expected later this year.
