Tokyo Japan, Feb. 19, 2002: Nine leading companies* today announced that they have jointly established the basic specifications for a next generation large capacity optical disc video recording format called "Blu-ray Disc". The Blu-ray Disc enables the recording, rewriting and play back of up to 25 gigabytes (GB) of data on a single sided single layer 12cm CD/DVD size disc using a 405nm blue-violet laser.

* Hitachi, Ltd. , LG Electronics Inc. , Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. , Pioneer Corporation , Royal Philips Electronics , Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. , Sharp Corporation , Sony Corporation , Thomson Multimedia

The Blu-ray Disc Association has member companies from the consumer electronics (CE), information technology (IT), media and software industries. Following companies are Board of Directors of the Blu-ray Disc Association.