HP Backs Blu-ray Disc with 2005 PC Lineup

PALO ALTO, Calif - HP today announced plans to include Blu-ray Disc drives across many of its product lines, including select consumer desktop and notebook PCs, personal workstations and digital entertainment centers.

The technology enables the recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition (HD) video, as well as the ability to store immense amounts of data - up to 50 gigabytes on a single dual-layer disc, enough to record 26 hours of standard definition television and eight hours of HDTV.

An optical disc technology, Blu-ray Disc is poised to replace current DVD technology and become the next standard for personal computing data storage and viewing high-definition movies.

More than 70 of the world's leading technology and entertainment companies have committed to the Blu-ray Disc format because of recording versatility, advanced interactivity and increased capacity over competitive formats. For example, Blu-ray will offer up to 66 percent greater recording capacity and more media types compared to the HD-DVD format.

"HP has been a key contributor in the development of the Blu-ray Disc format," said John Romano, senior vice president, Global Consumer PC Business, HP. "The arrival of high-definition content in the home, along with the convergence of PCs and home entertainment, has created a need for a higher capacity optical disc format."

Blu-ray discs will have three different media types available at launch:

• BD-ROM - read-only format for software, games and movie distribution
• BD-RE - rewritable format for HDTV recording and data storage
• BD-R - write-once format for HDTV recording and data storage

Blu-ray Discs are the same size as DVDs, but use a blue laser and a slightly different disc structure to enable higher capacities. HP's Blu-ray Disc drives are expected to be backward compatible, meaning they can be used to read and write current CDs and DVDs.

The drives also will include LightScribe technology, a labeling solution developed by HP that allows silk-screen quality text and graphics to be burned directly onto LightScribe-enabled Blu-ray Discs using the same laser that burns to the data side of the disc.

"HP workstations are used for broadcast video and feature film production. As television and packaged movies continue to migrate toward high definition, our enterprise customers who focus on digital entertainment will require a higher capacity optical disk format," said Jim Zafarana, vice president of worldwide workstation marketing, HP. "The capacity of the Blu-ray Disc format far exceeds any other viable alternative, and our customers are demanding a format that will take them well into the future."

HP intends to continue to work with the other companies of the Blu-ray Disc Association to complete the format technology and develop the drives. HP plans to introduce Blu-ray Disc technology in late 2005 in select media center PCs, desktop PCs, personal workstations and digital entertainment devices followed by notebooks in early 2006.

More information about Blu-ray Disc technology is available at http://www.blu-raydisc.com .

About HP
HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and printing. For the four fiscal quarters ended July 31, 2004, HP revenue totaled $78.4 billion. More information about HP (NYSE, Nasdaq: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com .