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Managing Member Companies of HD DVD Promotion Group Welcome Intel and Microsoft as Newest Members of the Group (29/9/2005)

Memory-Tech Corporation, NEC Corporation, SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. and Toshiba Corporation, the managing member companies of the HD DVD Promotion Group, today warmly welcomed Intel Corporation and Microsoft Corporation's announcement of support for the HD DVD format and their decision to join the HD DVD Promotion Group.

In a statement issued in Tokyo on behalf of the HD DVD Promotion Group, the four companies noted that: "The participation of the two global leaders in the IT industry will assure enhancement of HD DVD format promotion, bring their technical and marketing expertise to the Group, and will contribute to the early market penetration of HD DVD products."

"The capacity for volume production of HD DVD discs is already in place, and the content industry has great expectations of HD DVD as the key product to sustain the growth of the next-generation audio-visual software market," said Shiroharu Kawasaki, President and CEO of Memory-Tech. "We welcome the participation of Intel and Microsoft as further enhancing HD DVD's potential applications."

"HD DVD format is extremely important for the development of both the PC and AV markets, as it fulfills the needs of PC applications requiring high-capacity data and AV applications that require the recording and playback of high definition images," said Hiroshi Gokan, NEC's Executive General Manager of Computers Storage Products Operations Unit. "We are fully confident that Intel and Microsoft's affiliation with the HD DVD Promotion Group will significantly contribute to the propulsion and penetration of the HD DVD format."

"SANYO believes that the participation of the two leaders of the US IT industry in the HD DVD Promotion Group will accelerate the synergistic conversion of the technologies they have nurtured in the PC and server industries with those from the digital consumer domain, encouraging further technology innovation and the creation of new markets," said Hiroshi Ono, General Manager of SANYO's R&D Headquarters.

"The announcement from these two leading IT companies reconfirms the design advantages of HD DVD format and its achievement of maximum compatibility between AV and PC products. In fact, it is increasingly clear that HD DVD offers the best way forward in the convergence of the AV and PC worlds," said Hisashi Yamada, Chief Fellow of Toshiba's Digital Media Network Company and Chairman of Technical Coordination Group at the DVD Forum. "Hollywood studios are now working on preparation of HD DVD content, and I look forward to the near future, when people everywhere will be able to enjoy high definition images on TV and their PC."

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