"The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) today announced that Apple(R) will become a member of the consortium's Board of Directors. Apple has been a leader in driving consumer adoption of DVD authoring since January 2001, with the introduction of its SuperDrive(TM), the industry's first high-volume CD- and DVD -burning drive, and its revolutionary iDVD(R) and DVD Studio Pro(R) 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(R) HD, Final Cut(R) Express HD and Final Cut Pro (R) HD editing software.

Additionally the next release of Apple's QuickTime(R) software, QuickTime 7, will feature the MPEG developed H.264 Advanced Video Codec (AVC) which has been adopted for high definition DVDs . Apple will release QuickTime 7 in conjunction with the release of Mac OS(R) X version 10.4 "Tiger," the fifth major version of Mac OS X that will ship in the first half of 2005.

"Apple is pleased to join the Blu-ray Disc Association board as part of our efforts to drive consumer adoption of HD," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "Consumers are already creating stunning HD content with Apple's leading video editing applications like iMovie HD and are anxiously awaiting a way to burn their own high def DVDs ."" [more]