Sony Gets a Big Blow over Blue-Ray Hopes

In what comes as a big blow to Sony’s hopes of making Blue Ray the new standard for DVD storage, Microsoft and Intel have announced their support for Toshiba’s HD-DVD format.

Next-generation DVD discs, designed to store movies and other content with much more detail and clarity, have sparked a three-year battle between Toshiba and Sony, over what is expected to be a multi-billion-dollar market for next-generation DVD players, PC drives and optical discs.

"We wanted to choose the format that has the highest probability of this market taking off," said Stephen Balogh, director of optical media standards and technologies at Intel.

The announcement from Intel and Microsoft, which together supply the technology behind at least 9 out of every 10 personal computers sold worldwide, came as no surprise, since Microsoft said in June that it would work with Toshiba to develop technology for the HD DVD format.

Intel also said it likes the way HD DVD incorporates the ability to allow consumers to copy discs for personal use, ie. to a Media Center’s hard drive, and then to beamed around the house via wireless networks to Media Center Extenders. "HD DVD discs also will allow copies of the movie to be played on portable devices," said Intel. Assuming, of course, content providers set the appropriate flag.

Other companies who have already announced their support for the format include NEC, Sanyo and Hitachi, along with movie studios Universal, Warner Bros. and Paramount. Blu-Ray backers include Apple, Philips, Hewlett-Packard, Twentieth Century Fox and Buena Vista Home Entertainment.