By James Wells
SYDNEY: Philips Electronics Australia has been unable to confirm the local launch of Blu-ray products, despite announcing the introduction of Blu-ray players and media in North America and Europe.
Philips is one of the founding members of the association which is supporting the Blu-ray high definition recording and playback format.
Philips today announced it will introduce its first Blu-ray device – the TripleWriter PC drive and the BDP9000 in North America and Europe later this year before other countries globally. Accompanying the launch of the hardware will be two types of recordable media – a 25GB single layer recordable only Blu-ray Disc as well as a version which is recordable and re-writable which can record more than six hours of high definition video, 12 hours of standard DVD quity or 36 standard audios CDs.
Philips Consumer Electronics Australia general manager, Matthew Moran, said plans to introduce Blu-ray products into Australia are still to be determined.
“Blu-ray enables unprecedented High Definition viewing experience. To consumers, Philips will be able to ensure complete end-to-end High Definition home entertainment, through the availability of discs, recorders and playback devices,” said Moran.
”As co-inventor of the compact disc, Philips is passionate about fuelling the growth of Blu-ray as the next generation HD format for both PC and video platforms. Blu-ray is the most advanced optical storage standard today satisfying the future requirements of storage capacity, data speeds, copy protection, interactivity, convenience and cost.
“We believe that consumers will develop the same veracity for HD content as they did when the CD and DVD were recognised as the best audio and video storage devices of their time,” Moran said.
Blu-ray Disc is supported by more than 170 of the world’s largest gaming manufacturers, movie, studios, consumer electronics and PC manufacturers. Seven out of the eight major movie studios have announced movie titles for the Blu-ray launch: Disney, Fox, Paramount, Warner, Sony, MGM and Lions Gate.