In a rare and pleasant exception to the rule, several leading manufacturers gathered in an attempt to unify the much hyped blue laser specifications to avoid the fragmentation and format incompatibilities that have plagued the red laser products.

Sony and Matsushita led a group of nine manufacturers who hammered out the blue laser specifications which will eventually allow for up to 27 gigabytes on a single layer DVD or 50 gigabytes on a dual layer DVD. This is enough information to store up to two or four hours of high definition content respectively.

Although blue laser products will have the capacity to be backwards compatible with existing red laser material, each company will set their own policy regarding compatibility. Blue laser licensing begins this spring with plans to begin releasing hardware in 2003.