Blu-Ray Consortium gets support from Apple Inc.

The war on what technology would become the next de facto standard for the next generation DVD Drives just got hotter. Two technologies vying for the title are HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats. And Blu-Ray just attained some major weapons in their arsenal. Apple Inc joined the Blu-ray forum on Thursday, which gives them a big boost in the battle considering Apple itself is a major player in both the creative and entertainment industries.

The news was confirmed by the vice president of Blu-ray disc group from Sony Corporation Victor Matsuda at the currently underway CeBIT electronics trade fair. Apple has joined the board of directors which include representatives from Dell, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung and LG. Other big names involved in the group from the entertainment industry are Walt Disney Pictures and Television, Twentieth Century Fox and Sony Pictures.

One of the major decisive factors for the final decision is going to be Hollywood. Movies on DVDs are a huge market and not many studios would prefer to release movies in two separate formats. Hence, the format chosen by the big Hollywood studios could decide which one of the two technologies become the standard for the next generation DVDs.

Apple has a major stake in the Animated Movie Studio Pixar. The competition to the Blu-Ray group consists of players like NEC, Toshiba Corp. and Warner Home Video.