US assesses optic storage disc standards
US assesses optic storage disc standards
The US Justice Dept has launched an inquiry into a consortium led by Sony & Matsushita Electric about their anticompetitive moves to be the standard-setter for next-generation optical storage discs.
The Wall Street Journal says the department is looking into the consortium's promotion of the Blu-ray disc format as a global standard to succeed digital versatile discs. They want to find out if the group's members conspired to impede the technical progress of the DVD Forum, an official standards-setting body for DVDs.
The companies are fighting to establish a new DVD format capable of playing movies in crystal-clear high-definition, which requires far more storage space than the current movies on today's discs.
The newspaper claims that there are quarrels over the design of the successor to the DVD, which is hoped to drive sales for a new wave of entertainment gadgets; and there is a battle about potential royalties which would provide income to the companies that set the standards.
The Blu-ray group is founded by Sony, Matsushita, Philips and seven other major electronics companies. They are promoting this disc which has a format that can store about six times as much data as a conventional DVD, enough for more than four hours of high-definition video.
A US spokeswoman for Japan's Sony said the company was not aware of the Justice Department inquiry: "We know nothing about this." A Matsushita spokesman in Japan also said the was unaware of the inquiry.
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