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Matsushita to Release Blu-Ray DVD Drive for PCs By March

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 October 2005, 12:01 CDT

By Kyodo News International, Tokyo

Oct. 4--TOKYO -- Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. said Tuesday it will begin shipping Blu-ray format DVD drives to personal computer manufacturers by next March.

The announcement came after Toshiba Corp. released a plan to sell PCs with a different DVD format called HD DVD early next year.

The two camps pushing for the incompatible formats for next-generation DVDs are thus moving to launch DVD products without unifying the formats, reminding consumers that the electronics industry was once divided into the VHS and Beta camps for videocassettes.

Matsushita displayed a Blu-ray DVD drive at a combined exhibition of advanced technologies that opened in Chiba on Tuesday.

Matsushita has already started negotiations with PC manufactures such as Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. on sales of the Blu-ray DVD drive and is planning to introduce its own PCs compatible with the format.

At the exhibition called CEATEC Japan 2005, Matsushita demonstrated technology to halve DVD production costs in a bid to emphasize what it claims as Blu-ray's superiority.

NEC Electronics Corp., a semiconductor subsidiary of NEC Corp. supporting the HD DVD format, has joined a Blu-ray promotion group as well as the HD DVD group, which includes the parent firm, company officials said Tuesday.

The semiconductor manufacturer has thus indicated its readiness to adopt both formats because Sony, which is in the Blu-ray group, and Toshiba, which is aligned with the HD DVD camp, are key customers.

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NIPNY, 6701, MC, 6752, SNE, 6758, TOSBF, 6502, DELL, HPQ,

Source: Kyodo News International, Tokyo

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