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LAS VEGAS--Matsushita Electric Industrial will support Microsoft WindowsMedia technologies in a range of consumer products, including a DVD player dueout in February, furthering Microsoft's goal of pushing its multimedia formatbeyond PCs and into a range of consumer devices.
In a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show here Monday evening, BillGates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, is expected to showhow consumers for the first time can burn a CD using Windows Media Audio (WMA)and then play it back on a Panasonic DVD player, officials said. Panasonic is abrand name of Matsushita.
Some users like to play music CDs on their DVD players because they areoften hooked up to high-fidelity audio systems.
Panasonic's first player to support the Windows technology, theDVD-RV32, is slated to go on sale in the U.S. in February priced at $200.Panasonic will also support Microsoft's audio format in its SV-SD80 digitalmusic player and will make chips for its DVD and CD players that work with theMicrosoft technology, Panasonic officials said.
Apex Digital also announced a DVD player that supports WMA, whileToshiba and China's Jiangsu Shinco Electronics Group Company will releaseWindows-compatible DVD players later this year, according to Microsoft.
Some DVD players already let users play CDs recorded in the MP3 format,including models from Panasonic. Adding support for WMA will be good forconsumers because the Microsoft format is more compact, meaning users can storetwice as much music on a disc as they could using MP3, according to MichaelAguilar, president and chief operating officer of Panasonic.
"Consumers will be able to store 17 albums on a single CD, or over 22hours of music," said Mike Fester, general manager of Microsoft's WindowsDigital Media division.
The deal is not exclusive, meaning Panasonic can support competing mediaformats from Real Networks and Apple Computer down the line, Aguilar said in aninterview. The electronics maker is initially supporting Microsoft's audioformat, but expects also to support its video technology in the future, hesaid. It will include software with its DVD players for navigating and playingsongs.
Microsoft is trying to position its media format as a reliable platformthat lets consumers transfer music and video easily among a range of deviceswithout having to worry about compatibility issues, said Richard Doherty,director of the research company Envisioneering Group, in Seaford, NewYork.
However, security problems that have dogged its desktop software meanthe company may face an uphill battle to win the confidence of consumers anddevice makers, he said. In addition, Microsoft's cross-device strategy isn'tseamless, he said: Its Xbox game console, for example, doesn't play backrecordable CDs.
The news will likely stirthe debateabout copyright protection and therights ofconsumers to copy digital media and share it among friends anddevices. Microsoft has "worked very hard" on the copy protection in WMA and therecording industry is "pretty comfortable" with it, said Reid Sullivan, generalmanager of Panasonic's Entertainment Group.
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