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Companies prepare video-recording format

Nine companies announced Monday that they will begin disclosing details for the latest large-capacity digital video-recording format, called "Blu-ray Disc," on June 14. The companies include Hitachi, LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Pioneer, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, Sony and Thomson Multimedia. The companies will be called "Blu-ray Disc Founders" and will pursue a broad acceptance of the format. The companies will promote the new format and begin licensing it around the end of June. "Blu-ray Disc" discs will store up to 27GB of data on a single-sided 12cm disc. Drives will use a short-wavelength blue-violet laser instead of the red lasers in current optical drives to read data off discs.

Richard Shim Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Richard Shim
writes about gadgets big and small.
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Richard Shim
Nine companies announced Monday that they will begin disclosing details for the latest large-capacity digital video-recording format, called "Blu-ray Disc," on June 14. The companies include Hitachi, LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Pioneer, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, Sony and Thomson Multimedia. The companies will be called "Blu-ray Disc Founders" and will pursue a broad acceptance of the format. The companies will promote the new format and begin licensing it around the end of June.

"Blu-ray Disc" discs will store up to 27GB of data on a single-sided 12cm disc. Drives will use a short-wavelength blue-violet laser instead of the red lasers in current optical drives to read data off discs.