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| Media Information > News Releases |
TOKYO—March 1, 2007—The DVD Forum, the international organization that defines formats for DVD products and technologies, today celebrated its official 10th anniversary at the annual general meeting of its members held in Tokyo. The Forum, which has been hailed as a model for collaboration between the consumer electronics, IT and entertainment industries, was founded in August 1997, to assume and extend the work of the DVD Consortium, the ten-company organization that initially developed the DVD format. When it started its work in developing the DVD format and promoting its widespread dissemination, the DVD Forum could count 86 members. Today, it has about 220 member companies, drawn from all over the world. The launch of DVD was one of the most successful consumer product launches in history. An immediate hit with consumers around the world, DVD brought new and exciting capabilities to home entertainment, computing and gaming, and created an immense global market: 2006 demand for DVD players and recorders stood at over 110 million units*1, and reached about 290 million units for DVD drives*2. In the same year, 1.7 billion DVD movie discs were shipped in the North America*3, while shipments of recordable discs climbed to 5.1 billion discs globally*4. This extraordinary success rests on the concerted efforts and long-term support of the DVD Forum. The Forum assured the versatility and wide-ranging applicability of DVD by defining key specifications that met diverse needs, including those for DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-Audio, DVD-RW, and DVD-Video Recording*5. The Forum continues to define the future for DVD, and is now promoting development of HD DVD, the next generation DVD format -- based on blue laser -- and working on the development of an integrated networking environment -- extending DVD formats to adapt to the expanding online world. The
DVD Forum will continue to benefit consumers – and promote
the growth and vitality of the consumer electronics, IT and entertainment
industries – by contributing to the usefulness and versatility
of DVD technologies and adding new functions, including downloading
to DVD format recordable discs.
For
further information on DVD Forum, please visit Press
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