HP Urging Blu-ray Adoption of Home Networking Capability & More Consumer-friendliness (HPQ, MC, SNE, DELL, DIS, NWS, LGF, NIPNY, SANYY, MSFT, INTC)

AP reported today that Hewlett Packard (ticker: HPQ), a major supporter of the next generation DVD Blu-ray format asked the Blu-ray Disc Association yesterday to introduce home networking capabilities to make it easy for consumers to transfer movies from a DVD to a home network. Also yesterday, Forrester Research predicted that Blu-ray would win the format war but it would be costly as consumers may seek other means of accessing digital content. See below for a list of the two competing format camps and links to articles...

* Blu-ray supporters: Matsushita/Panasonic (MC), 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)

Link to the AP news article on SiliconValley.com.

For more background on the format battle and for information on Matsushita, which plans to be first to market with Blu-ray disc drives next spring, click here.

Also for news on China planning to introduce its own next generation DVD format, click here.