HP: smoothing format waters
p2p news / p2pnet: HP wants to see the troubled disk format waters smoothed by having Blu-ray adopt features to ensure customers will be able to legally rip movie DVDs to a PC hard drive, standards already included in HD DVD.
The thinking is, whichever standard ends up winning after products start to appear in 2006, consumers will know how to use either, says BusinessWeek Online.
And by pushing for adoption of the same software used to add interactive features to HD DVDs, such as the ability to add the latest movie trailers, movie studios wouldn’t have to throw extra money at supporting two approaches.
Senior HP vp John Romano says his company sees format compatibility as critical to making technology accessible and easy to use for consumers, according to Information Week.
But, Whether H-P succeeds in the latest quest to unify the divergent optical disk formats remains to be seen, says the story. So far, the Blu-ray and HD-DVD camps have succeeded mostly in polarizing entire industries along separate camps. For instance, PC makers Dell, HP and Apple Computer support Blu-ray, while PC parts suppliers Microsoft, Intel, Toshiba and NEC back HD-DVD.
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See:-
BusinessWeek Online – DVD Wars: Last Hope for Peace?, October 20, 2005
Information Week – HP Tries To Bridge Blu-ray, HD-DVD Formats, October 19, 2005
