Blu-ray vs HD-DVD: Matsushita (ADR: MC) to Offer Blu-ray PC Drives Spring '06

Panasonic, Matsushita Electric's (ticker: MC) leading brand announced yesterday in a press release that it will introduce Blu-ray Disc (BD) drives for notebook and desktop computers to be available by Spring 2006. Panasonic will be first to market and the drives will feature the ability to read and write single- and dual-layer BD's as well as all types of recordable DVD and CD media. Read on for more information:

Panasonic collaborated with Hewlett Packard (ticker: HPQ) on the development of the BD drive technology. The two originally announced their partnership at CES Las Vegas last January. A mutual goal has been to create a drive that supports both the play and recording of BD while also supporting all other DVD formats to allow "customers (to) enjoy the best experience in the next-generation optical dics," said Kazuhiro Tsuga, Executive Officer in charge of Digital Network and Software Technologies of Matsushita. He also commented that the collaboration has "brought a super-multi media era to recordable DVDs."

In the press release Dell's Chief Technology Officer, Kevin Kettler said, Dell (ticker: DELL) was pleased with Matsushita/Panasonic's efforts and that "Dell intends to promote BD products throughout our desktop and notebook product lines capitalizing on BD's large 50 GB capacity designed to enable customers to play high-definition content or backup and archive large amounts of data."

An interesting point as Mr. Kettler mentions in the press release is that by offering both notebook and desktop versions of BD drives, Panasonic has effectively cut the "traditional interval" between the respective platform releases. This is great news for notebook users.

For more details on the specs of the drives see the link to the press release at the beginning of this post.

As you may know the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD battle has been heating up with major players taking sides and possibly making on a bet that will have the significance of yesteryear's Betamax vs. VHS. At this time the two camps include the likes of:

* Blu-ray supporters: Panasonic, Sony (SNE), HP(HPQ), Dell(DELL), Disney (DIS), Fox (NWS), and Lions Gate(LGF).

* HD-DVD supporters: Toshiba, NEC(NIPNY), Sanyo(SANYY), Microsoft(MSFT), and Intel(INTC)

Intel made a lot of headlines with its recent move to support HD-DVD technology. I find it fascinating that even the media companies are getting involved. Note: the author does not hold a position in any of the above listed companies.