Microsoft, Intel throw weight behind HD DVD standard

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft and Intel on Monday threw their weight behind the next-generation HD DVD format being promoted by Toshiba in a blow to Sony's, Blu-ray format.

The world's largest software maker and the world's largest microchip maker announced that their products would support Toshiba's HD DVD format. They said the HD DVD format would make it easier for consumers to copy high-definition movies to computer hard drives.

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 nine 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.

Toshiba, with NEC and Sanyo Electric, has been promoting a technology called HD DVD while Sony, along with Samsung Electronics and Matsushita Electric Industrial, maker of Panasonic brand products, had been pushing for Blu-ray.

"Microsoft and Intel have tremendous clout," said In-Stat analyst Gerry Kaufhold, saying that their backing would likely give HD DVD an edge over Blu-ray, especially in North America, their strongest markets.

But the battle over next-generation DVD formats is far from over, Kaufhold said, noting support in Hollywood for Blu-ray. Several studios, including Walt Disney, Sony Pictures and News Corp unit Twentieth Century Fox, have said that they will release high-definition movies on Blu-ray.

Universal Studios, a unit of General Electric's NBC Universal and Viacom's Paramount Pictures are backing HD DVD.

The first HD DVD-compatible players and recorders are expected to start appearing on store shelves as early as the end of this year, and new products for both formats are scheduled for wider release in 2006.

Toshiba, Japan's second-largest electronics conglomerate, has said that it plans to launch HD DVD players in the last quarter of 2005 in Japan and the United States.

Sony has said that its popular PlayStation 3 console, due for debut next spring, will support Blu-ray DVDs.

Intel and Microsoft said they also chose to back HD DVD because of its "hybrid disc" technology, which allows users to view current-generation DVDs on HD DVD discs imprinted with both formats. They also said that HD DVDs would be cheaper to produce, resulting in lower prices for consumers.

Earlier this year, Sony and Toshiba briefly held talks over unifying their formats and avoiding an all-out standards war similar to the one between the VHS and Betamax videocassette formats, but those discussions fizzled.

At the core of both formats are blue lasers, which have a shorter wavelength than the red lasers used in current DVD equipment, allowing discs to store data at the higher densities needed for high-definition movies and television.

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