14 DAY TRIAL // Now that the whole Blu-ray HD-DVD standard war is dead and buried it's time for the recording industry to crown its winners, The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announcing that they are going to award Panasonic Corporation, Royal Philips Electronics, Sony Corporation, and TDK Corporation with an Emmy for their work.
As you may or may not know, development of the Blu-ray disc started in 1997 with Panasonic, Philips and Sony, the very first prototypes being unveiled in October 2000 at the CEATEC fair in Japan, in 2002 the project being officially announced, the three companies joining forces to initiate the Blu-ray Disc Founders, followed in 2004 by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA).
A long format war followed soon, Blu-ray going head to head with Toshiba's HD DVD standard, this ending in early 2008 when Toshiba withdrew its support for HD DVD.
This made Blu-ray the preferred HDTV content delivery solution, since 2006 over 1400 million Blu-ray pre-recorded discs, 188 million Blu-ray recordable/rewritable discs, 50 million Blu-ray players&recorders and over 25 million Blu-ray PC optical units being produced.
“Sony began development of blue laser optical technology in the late 1990s, realized the world’s first high definition recording on 20GB optical media by using blue-violet laser, and has contributed greatly to the continuous development of the Blu-ray Disc format and the business by releasing a wide variety of Blu-ray Disc devices,” said Jun Yonemitsu, Chief Distinguished Researcher and Deputy Senior General Manager of Home Entertainment Development, Sony Corporation.
“We would like to thank the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) and everyone who worked together to make the format a success.”
The award ceremony will take place on January 6th during CES in Las Vegas Nevada, nowadays Blu-ray optical discs being used by millions of consumers worldwide to enjoy their favorite movies.