Great news!

Well not too surprising what with Sony leading the pack, but...

I wish they would have just sat back and let the rest of the industry sort it out. With H.264 in both standards, Apple could have won either way. (Actually they still could to a lesser extent).

Anyway... I call for the first Blu-Ray drive in a Mac at MWSF '06.

Screed ...beware the ides of Betamax...

The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) today announced that Apple will become a member of the consortiums Board of Directors. Apple has been a leader in driving consumer adoption of DVD authoring since January 2001, with the introduction of its SuperDrive, the industrys first high-volume CD- and DVD-burning drive, and its iDVD and DVD Studio Pro software applications. Apple is also helping bring High Definition (HD) to market with a complete line of HD content creation tools for consumers and professionals alike including iMovie HD, Final Cut Express HD and Final Cut Pro HD editing software. Additionally, QuickTime 7, expected for release alongside Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger," will feature the MPEG developed H.264 Advanced Video Codec (AVC) which has been adopted for high definition DVDs. The BDA was created to broaden support for Blu-ray Discthe next generation optical disc for storing High Definition movies, photos and other digital content. Blu-ray Discs will have five times larger capacity than today's DVDs, with a single-layer Blu-ray Disc holding up to 25 gigabytes of data and a double-layer Blu-ray Disc holding up to 50 gigabytes of data. Current DVDs hold 4.7 gigabytes on single-layer discs and 8.5 gigabytes on dual-layer discs.

I think blue ray is almost out of it. HD-DVD is an easier identity to name a High Definition DVD for consumers to begin with, and there is a 75% vs. 25% of DVD player makers going with HD so far. Sony has influence, and partners that can help it appear as a 50/50 split in the end, but this is going to be a battle just to keep it going IMO. (It's beta2)
I thought it would have been a better idea to merge the better features of both technologies into one with this whole HD, and large capacity DVD push, but now it's their game.

Computer hardware support will have very little inital impact on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.

Content is paramount and whoever comes the market with the best and bountiful titles at the best pricing will assume the lead. HD-DVD has already announced the pending availability of 89 titles. Blu-Ray group hasn't answered yet.

The advantages seem to be

Blu-Ray- 25GB Single Layer 50GB Dual layer. 72Mbps 2x BD recording.

HD-DVD- Presumed lower pressing costs. Name. 20GB HD-DVD recording Single Layer, 32GB recordable Dual Layer.

I have no doubt that eventually we'll have the option to support both units. The whole jumping on board is for show.

Merge threads please.

Reference: Howstuffworks.com

Screed

In the end, the same thing that happened with the whole DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM will happen again.

Manufacturers will just start making players capable of playing both formats when it becomes affordable and the format will become irrelevant.

There's a pretty big list of Heavy Hitters behind Blu-Ray:
Its Board of Directors consists of Apple; Dell Inc.; Hewlett Packard Company; Hitachi, Ltd.; LG Electronics Inc.; Mitsubishi Electric Corporation; Panasonic (Matsushita Electric); Pioneer Corporation; Royal Philips Electronics; Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; Sharp Corporation; Sony Corporation; TDK Corporation; Thomson; Twentieth Century Fox; and Walt Disney Pictures and Television

Microsoft, ATI, and NVidia are also supporting Blu-Ray.

That's very powerful group.

I do wish they could have come out with a single standard. I guess it's like DVD-/+ all over again.