As a war brews between competing high-definition (HD) DVD formats Blu-ray and HD DVD, Apple has thrown its weight behind the former with an announcement that it has joined the Blu-ray Disc Association's (BDA) board of directors.
The BDA's membership roster currently consists of more than 100 companies. Apple joins a board that includes Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, Sony, TDK, Thomson, 20th Century Fox and Disney.
It wasn't unexpected that Apple would choose to support one of the formats, given the company's current strategy: In January, Apple completed moving all of its digital video editing software to HD with the introduction of iMovie HD, and by the end of June it should release Mac OS X Latest News about OS X v10.4, nicknamed "Tiger," its next-generation operating system, which will include QuickTime Latest News about QuickTime 7. QuickTime 7 supports the H.264 MPEG codec that has been adopted for use with both high-definition DVD formats.
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