Second Generation Blu-ray Products To Be Rolled Out At Year'

[erdega79]

Second Generation Blu-ray Products To Be Rolled Out At Year's End

Second generation Blu-ray discs and players will likely be launched toward the end of this year, outpacing the rival HD camp in the world next-generation optical media market.

According to industry sources, two representative members of the Blu-ray media alliance, LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics, plan to roll out second generation Blu-ray players and discs, buoyed by tentative adoption of standard specifications and formats at the conference of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) recently held in Jeju. The association is an international organization for standardizing the next-generation optical recording media.

Since the adoption of new formats by the BDA will remove such rubs of its first generation products as inferior features of preventing illegal copying and reading only function of discs, Blu-ray technology supporters are expected to take leadership in the next-generation optical media market visa vis the HD camp led by Toshiba.

LG Electronics plans to launch second generation Blu-ray products around the end of this year, including a player, discs and an optical disc drive for PCs. The company, in particular, anticipates that it will be able to roll out products ahead of rivals given that its formats of media and illegal copying prevention technologies have been accepted as international standards in principle.

"The company will dramatically upgrade standard specifications of Blu-ray discs so that they can basically prevent unlawful copying of media as demanded by media publishers and they cannot be used in players or drives," said Kim Jin-yong, executive director at LG Electronics who is also assuming chairmanship of copy protection group of the BDA.

Samsung Electronics also intends to launch second generation Blu-ray products toward the year's end. Samsung Electronics agreed with TSST, its joint venture with Toshiba, that it would develop players by itself, while TSST would produce disc drives for PCs and discs. Seeing that standardization competition between Blu-ray and HD technologies will be heated for some time, the company is working on development of products that can support the two formats simultaneously.

"When content distributors begin to supply Blu-ray media based on the agreement recently made in Jeju, DVD market is predicted to make fast shift in generation. Our strategy is to unveil Blu-ray players and drives at the end of this year by abridging the period of development," said Hwang In-seob, CEO of TSST.

Founded with 15 exclusive members in 2002 to standardize Blu-ray technologies, the BDA was changed to an open consortium in November last year. Members of its board of directors include Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Dell, Hitachi and HP. Apple Computer recently announced its participation in the association.