An industry standards group has made a preliminary decision to include Microsoft's video compression technology in a next-generation DVD format, giving the company a key boost in the digital media arena.

The steering committee for the DVD Forum on Friday announced provisional approval for Microsoft's VC-9 and two other video technologies--H.264 and MPEG-2--as mandatory for the HD-DVD video specification for playback devices. VC-9 is the reference title for the underlying video decoding technology within Windows Media Video 9. The approval is subject to several conditions, including an update in 60 days of licensing terms and conditions.

Read more: CNet News (http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5166786.html?tag=cd_lede).

Yes! This is what we all need! WMV-DVDs!

But wait, why only decoding?

.....they've gotten their little toe in the door. Watch out for the likes of that foot. M$ to the rescue. :eek:

Might be a good move. I mean, has anyone checked out that new Terminator 2 DVD with a WMV high resolution encoded version of the film, or those high-res WMV clips they have on microsoft. Certainly looks better than the standard DVD does anyway.

Thomas is right..MS's high-res WMV films are sweet, here's a link http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx