Blu-ray Group Investigated by Department Of Justice

home - news

Posted on Wednesday 28th of January, 2004 at 12:00 by SirQUK
Source:

Some interesting news has been posted on IGN.com about the Blue Ray group being investigated for impeding the progress of the DVD Forum.

"The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the U.S. Department of Justice has started a preliminary inquiry into activities by the Blu-ray Disc Founders (BDF), a coalition of electronics vendors led Sony Corp., Matsushita, Philips and seven other major electronics companies.

The investigation is looking to determine whether the group's members potentially acted in concert to impede the technical progress of the DVD Forum, which has a competing high definition DVD format called HD-DVD.

The Forum approved HD-DVD over Blu-ray as the next-generation format to succeed the DVD format. The DVD Forum is a consortium of consumer electronics firms that was created to help facilitate the DVD specification, and all of the participants in the Blu-ray effort are Forum members. HD-DVD was developed by Toshiba and NEC and was originally known as AOD, or advanced optical disc.

Not much is known about the investigation and all of the parties involved are being awfully quiet. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment to WSJ. A U.S. spokeswoman for Japan's Sony said the company wasn't aware of any inquiry by the Justice Department. A Matsushita spokesman in Japan also said he wasn't aware of such an inquiry. A representative for Philips didn't return calls."

If this turns out to be true, it could mean an increase in the rate at which the DVD format is produced, and could mean faster Drives being released to the public earlier than certain parties involved in the investigation might want them to be.

Next