InterVideo, an industry leader in next-generation DVD and multimedia software, announced its commitment to support HD DVD. At WinHEC 2006, InterVideo showcased its plans for HD DVD playback support on PCs in late 2006 and early 2007.

With a growing list of top movies available and favorable reviews of the latest HD DVD players, the community of supporters for HD DVD hardware and software continues to grow, says the company. Already this year, PC OEMs such as Toshiba have begun offering HD DVD drives in desktop and notebook PCs. Additionally, a full line of IHV components from leading manufacturers including Intel will help support HD DVD playback on PCs.

InterVideo has reaffirmed its commitment to include HD DVD support in all of its PC products and will focus on developing new software that will ensure seamless playback on Windows Vista PCs.

As Microsoft reiterated at the WinHEC Conference, Windows Vista will ship with the drivers, file system, and all other components necessary to support HD DVD playback. The company gave a progress report on the state of third-party software players and announced a new initiative designed to create the best possible HD DVD playback solutions by helping ISVs implement VC-1 codecs and iHD support.

InterVideo says this programme will also provide iHD test vectors, sample code and more –all of which will facilitate integration with third-party iHD implementations for Windows Vista.

WinDVD HD is being bundled with Toshiba's new Dynabook Qosmio G30/697HS Series Notebook – the first notebook PC with an integrated HD DVD-ROM drive. The Qosmio G30 is currently available throughout Japan.

Story filed 28.05.06