ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 9, 1995 TAG: 9512110047
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: TOKYO
SOURCE: Associated Press
The CD will soon join the LP in the electronics graveyard.
Nine major electronics and entertainment companies announced Friday they have agreed on most of the technical details for a new type of disc that can hold movies, music and computer data. The companies also agreed on a name for the new disc - DVD, short for ``digital versatile disc.''
The new discs look like compact discs and can hold 133 minutes per side of video or the equivalent of eight CDs of music.
A single DVD player can potentially play different discs containing movies, music and computer data - including current CDs and CD-ROMs.
Players are expected to go on sale in the United States next fall for about $500.
The agreement on technical details, including the name of the format, follows an agreement in principle in September between two rival groups of companies that had originally backed different technologies. One group was led by Toshiba and one by Sony.
Many executives and customers believed two incompatible formats would hurt sales and create a repeat of the battle fought in the 1980s between VHS and Beta videotape formats, which was eventually won by VHS.
The nine companies are Toshiba, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Sony, Philips Electronics NV, Time Warner Video, Pioneer Electronic Corp., JVC, Hitachi Ltd. and Mitsubishi Electric.
Representatives of a 10th company, Thomson Consumer Electronics are expected to later join the agreement.
LENGTH: Short : 38 linesby CNB