The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) announced on Wednesday in Beijing that DRA (Dynamic Resolution Adaptation) technology, a digital audio coding standard has been included in the 2.3 specifications for the BD-ROM format.

This makes DRA an optional audio technology for the BD-ROM format.

DRA is a chinese-developed audio technology to which China owns intellectual property rights. The technology had been formally approved after two rounds of technical evaluations by the BDA in the US and Japan last July.

DRA is a Multi-audio Track Audio-visual Encoding and Decoding Format developed in 2004 by Guangdong Guangsheng Assets Management Company, one of the three largest state-owned companies in China. Digirise's proprietary technology had been approved as China's digital audio industry standard in January 2007. The technology was supported by the Chinese government in hopes of saving billions of dollars in royalty fees now paid to companies like Dolby and DTS, which dominate the Chinese audio products market.

Digirise had been actively applying to join the Blu-ray Disc Association, as a means to promote its Multi-audio Track Audio-visual Encoding and Decoding Format as part of an international standard for next generation disk players.

The move marks China's establishment of a share in the international Blu-ray Disc standard system, a shift from the long run dominance of foreign companies over technologies in this field. In addition, it paves the way for the Blu-ray format to be established in China. The BDA had to include intellectual property owned by Chinese companies in the Blu-ray format for the Chinese territory, since that was a demand by the Chinese government in order to approve the Blu-ray as a candidate format for the local territory.

Currently, the Blu-ray is facing the competition of the China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD) in mainland China. The physical format of CBHD includes Chinese-owned intellectual property and it is based on Toshiba's HD DVD. CBHD includes a couple of the Chinese IPs such as China DRM and AVS Audio and Video, and Warner has already announced the release of movies in the CBHD format.



Source: People's Daily Online