HD DVD Interactivity Work Leads to New Advanced Interactivity Consortium
by Pravin on October 4th, 2007 in news.
Toshiba and Microsoft have announced the formation of the Advanced Interactivity Consortium (AIC), an open forum to promote enhanced interactivity features on media and formats including and going beyond HD DVD applications. The AIC will work on bringing what they’ve learned from HDi over to other services and platforms including PCs, TVs, cell phones, portable media players and game consoles.
Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, said, “The Advanced Interactivity Consortium has its roots in the work we’ve done with HDi™ and HD DVD, but is open to all companies interested in briging a broader set of experiences to consumers on different platforms… We look forward to contributing to this effort with HDi, our implementation of HD DVD’s interactive layer, and to collaborate with AIC members on how to extend interactive compatibilities to the consumers electronics market. The goal is to ensure a high-quality experience not only through optical discs but also through new digital download services.”
The major Hollywood studios involved with HD DVD (DreamWorks Animation SKG, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Bros.) are part of the consortium, as are Toshiba and Microsoft. The AIC founding member companies will soon formalize the organization and look towards adding more members.
The good news about the AIC is that it’s likely to advance HDi and related technology to something beyond what many consider to be just a gimmick. Due to the political nature of the format war, I doubt that the Blu-ray exclusive members will be joining the AIC, however there’s a lot of room for other companies to participate and extend this technology and make it much more of a useful and must-have feature.
Microsoft’s interests in this venture go beyond HD DVD since they make the Zune media player, Xbox 360 game console, and the Windows Mobile operating system that’s used on many cell phones. Toshiba also makes media players, and all of the studios involved have content that they’d be happy to present in new ways on more devices. Last, but not least, anything the AIC does to extend HDi is likely to supercharge its implementation on HD DVD too.
