Fri, Oct 21, 2005 page12

• HP urges Blu-ray to be user-friendly

  HOME ENTERTAINMENT Blu-ray has strict content rules to prevent any copying of discs. But consumers want to be able to move disc content within their own homes

  • AP AND BLOOMBERG
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  Hewlett-Packard Co (HP), a major backer of the Blu-ray high-definition DVD format, is urging that it be more consumer-friendly in a bid to forestall a lengthy and costly war with a competing standard.

  The appeal came on the same day Forrester Research predicted that Blu-ray would eventually win the war, but that consumers, hungry for digital content, would look elsewhere for video and take longer to embrace high-definition DVDs.

  Hewlett-Packard Co, the US' second-largest PC maker, on Wednesday asked the Blu-ray Disc Association to make it easier for consumers to transfer movies from a DVD to a home network, an option seen as essential to consumer adoption of any high definition DVD format.

  Blu-ray's rival format HD DVD, which is backed by Microsoft Corp, Intel Corp and Toshiba Corp, among others, features a standard known as "mandatory Managed Copy," which will allow a consumer to make a legal copy of their DVD and store the digital file on a home network. The movie can then be moved from a computer screen to a television and other authorized viewing devices on the network.

  Blu-ray has much stricter content protection rules that allows studios to lock their movies to the disc, preventing any copying.

  That stricter standard is favored by Hollywood studios, which are afraid of piracy. But companies such as Microsoft Corp, Intel Corp and HP are marketing hardware and software that enable home networking, a feature believed to be desired by most consumers.

  "It's critical that we have the ability to move content around the home," said Maureen Weber, HP's general manager of personal storage, who was in Los Angeles on Wednesday presenting the com-pany's case to the Blu-ray board.

  The possibility of a format war between Blu-Ray and HD DVD was heightened last month when Microsoft and Intel threw their support behind the HD DVD format.

  The announcement meant that PCs running Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista operating system or Intel's Viiv entertainment technology will come with support for HD DVD drives.

  That announcement prompted HP to push Blu-ray to adopt the more lenient copy protection standard.

  Weber said on Wednesday that it was "critical" that PCs running Microsoft's operating system support Blu-ray drives.

  "We were hopeful there wouldn't be a format war," Weber said.

  "With Microsoft and Intel announcing support and with Chinese manufacturers allowing low cost players in the market, we know there will be a format war. We're trying to broker an olive branch here," she said.

  Mark Knox, a spokesman for the HD DVD camp noted that HP was "advocating consumer-friendly features that have long been a part of the HD DVD format."

  A format war is also feared by Hollywood studios, which make most of their profits from home video sales. Until recently, the six major studios were evenly split between supporting the two rival formats. That balance was disrupted earlier this month when Paramount Pictures said it would release films in both formats.

  Blu-ray gained the edge when Viacom Inc said Oct. 3 that it will back Sony's technology, adding its Paramount Pictures unit to three other Hollywood studios and several electronics makers in the Blu-ray camp, Forrester analyst Ted Schadler said in a report released on Wednesday.

  Forrester's victory call is among the first by an analyst group to predict that Sony, whose Betamax system lost out to VHS for videocassette players in the 1980s, will win the DVD format war.

  Competing systems are bad for retailers and consumers as well as media and electronics companies, Schadler said.

  "The longer the battle continues, consumers don't benefit as much as they could because they might buy the wrong one," Schadler said in an interview. "That just says the market develops more slowly."

  Neither format will succeed unless it gives consumers the option to move video around a home network, the Forrester report said.
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