The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) surpassed a milestone today as its membership grew beyond 100 companies.
Established in October of last year, the BDA has rapidly gained the support of leaders from the computer, consumer electronics, video gaming, optical media, disc replication, authoring and content industries. All of these industries are critical to the successful development and launch of a high-definition optical format.
Among the most recent companies to join the BDA are Toho Co., Ltd and Toei Video Company, Ltd., which are the two leading movie studios in Japan. Toho Co., Ltd. is a leading production house and distributor of movies in Japan. Toei Video is known for its production of movies, sales of DVDs as well as other packaged media. Toei Video generates a steady stream of release titles from its diversified parent company Toei Co., Ltd. that includes Japanese films, animation and independent films.
"When a new format launches, people tend to notice only the end product -- the hardware and the software. What often remains out of sight is the ecosystem needed to support those end products," said Brian Zucker of Dell Inc.'s Client Product Group. "What's most remarkable about the growing support for Blu-ray is not just its sheer volume, but its breadth. Blu-ray has support from the computer, consumer electronics, gaming and content industries, as well as the authoring, replication, application development and manufacturing leaders that are critical to sustaining any format."
Blu-ray Disc provides consumers and content providers with a single common format that has the capacity, image and audio quality, interactivity and connectivity needed to expand beyond the simple movie playback offered by other formats and into a range of interoperable consumer products and applications that will bring a new dimension to home entertainment.
"The addition of new members to the BDA enables expanded opportunities for both the format and consumers," said Victor Matsuda, Sony Corporation of America's Vice President for Blu-ray Disc. "Due to the broad support of Blu-ray Disc, we will be able to offer unparalleled games, versatile recording applications, and hybrid discs that allow high definition and standard definition movies to reside on a single disc. These combined attributes will also offer the greatest flexibility for both new and legacy consumer playback devices."
Currently, the Blu-ray Disc Association's Board of Directors consists of: Dell Inc.; Hewlett Packard Company; Hitachi, Ltd.; LG Electronics Inc.; Mitsubishi Electric Corporation; Panasonic (Matsushita Electric); Pioneer Corporation; Royal Philips Electronics; Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; Sharp Corporation; Sony Corporation; TDK Corporation; Thomson; Twentieth Century Fox; and Walt Disney Pictures and Television.
Contributors: AudioDev AB, Broadcom Corp., Canon Inc., CMC Magnetics Corporation, Coding Technologies GmbH, CyberLink Corp., DaTARIUS Technologies GmbH, Deluxe Media Services Inc., Digital Theater Systems Inc., Dolby Laboratories Inc., Electronic Arts Inc., Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., Kenwood Corporation, LITE-ON IT Corporation, MediaTek Inc., Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co., Ltd., Moser Baer India Limited, MX Entertainment, Nero, Optodisc Technology Corporation, Pulstec Industrial Co., Ltd., Ricoh Co., Ltd., ShibaSoku Co. Ltd., Sigma Designs Inc., Sonic Solutions, Sonopress LLC, ST Microelectronics, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Ulead Systems Inc., Victor Company of Japan, Ltd., Visionare Corporation and ZOOtech Ltd among others.
General Members: Almedio Inc., Alpine Electronics Inc., AMC Co. Ltd., ArcSoft Inc., Asahi Kasei Microsystems Co., Ltd., ATI Technologies Inc., Bandai VisualCo., Ltd., BenQ Corp., Ciba Specialty Chemicals Inc., D&M holdings, Inc., Daewoo Electronics Corporation, Elpida Memory, Inc., ESS Technology Inc., Expert Magnetics Corp., Funai Electric Co., Ltd., Imation Corp, Infomedia Inc., Intersil Corporation, InterVideo Inc., Konica Minolta Opto Inc., Lead Data Inc., Leader Electronics Corp, LINTEC Corporation, Memorex Products Inc., Mitsui Chemicals Inc., Mitsumi Electric Co., Ltd., Nan Ya Plastics Corp., NEXAPM Systems Technology Inc., NVIDIA Corp., Ono Sokki Co., Ltd., Opt Corporation, Ritek Corporation, SDI Media USA, Shinano Kenshi Co. Ltd., Sony BMG Entertainment, STEAG ETA-OPTIK GmbH, Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd., TEAC Corporation, Teijin Chemicals Ltd., Toho Company, Ltd., Toppan Printing Co., TOPTICA Photonics AG, Ltd., Unaxis Balzer AG, Yamaha Corp. and Yokogawa Electric Corporation among others.