Dutch consumer electronics giant, Philips Electronics, has announced today its plans to license its reference design of stand-alone DVD+RW recorders for 3rd party player manufacturers, such as those operating in China.
Philips wants to push recordable DVDs into consumer living rooms as soon as possible and to replace old VCR systems. Philips new reference design allows third party manufacturers to basically copy Philips' player and rebrand it with their own logo and pay licensing fees to Philips. Or manufacturers can opt to use only parts of the reference player's design in their own models.
Philips hopes that this move brings more brand and price diversity into electronics stores who normally want to have "high end" and "low end" players for different customer types.
Another goal with this plan is to boost "plus" DVD writable standard ahead of its rival, "minus" standard which currently seems to be leading in PC DVD game -- where Pioneer's DVD drives have been the most popular drives for a long time now. "Minus" standard is backed by the official DVD technology consortium, DVD Forum and the "plus" standard is backed by DVD+RW Alliance which includes Philips, HP and Dell.
Sources:
ZDNet
EETimes
Philips hopes that this move brings more brand and price diversity into electronics stores who normally want to have "high end" and "low end" players for different customer types.
Another goal with this plan is to boost "plus" DVD writable standard ahead of its rival, "minus" standard which currently seems to be leading in PC DVD game -- where Pioneer's DVD drives have been the most popular drives for a long time now. "Minus" standard is backed by the official DVD technology consortium, DVD Forum and the "plus" standard is backed by DVD+RW Alliance which includes Philips, HP and Dell.
Sources:
ZDNet
EETimes
