Speaking at the DVD-RAM press briefing at PC Expo this morning, Dr. Alan Bell, Director of IBM Research Division’s Digital Media Standards and Commercialization gave members of the press and industry analysts insight into the DVD Forum’s new DVD Multi Logo plan. “The DVD Multi program is aimed at providing consumers with a simple way to identify those DVD products which offer a consistent and high degree of compatibility among the various media specifications of the DVD Format, including interoperability between DVD Multi products designed for either the consumer electronics or personal computer environments,” he explained.

“DVD has been the most successful consumer technology introduced in the past 10 years,” said Dr. Bell, “and the presence of the DVD Multi Logo on future DVD products will indicate compliance of the product to the common set of hardware and functional specifications required to ensure this high level of DVD media compatibility and interoperability”

The DVD Forum is an industry association whose 228 members include all major DVD manufacturers as well as major DVD software developers and DVD media producers around the world. The DVD Forum has established global DVD formats including DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-Audio, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD Video Recording. Currently, these formats do not define compatibility with each other. As the number of DVD formats for different applications and DVD products of various types increase, a compatibility problem could arise, which is why the DVD Forum has decided to develop solutions at an early stage.