Submitted by: kirkland on Friday February 27th, 2004 at 07:15 PM EST

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 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 regarding licensing terms and conditions.

The provisional decision "ends months of speculation over whether Microsoft would be endorsed or not," said Richard Doherty, president of media consultancy Envisioneering Group. "It's a good tailwind for Microsoft."

A standards win on DVDs would dramatically boost Microsoft's ambitions to take its multimedia technology beyond the Internet. It also could give the Redmond, Wash., giant substantial credibility to shop its codec to partners outside of the PC business.

Last September, Microsoft submitted its Windows Media Series 9 as a standards candidate to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) -- a first for the company and a marked departure from its longtime commitment to keeping its technology proprietary.

With the DVD Forum's approval, Microsoft could have valuable leverage with technical standards bodies in other industries, such as wireless, and with SMPTE.

SMPTE is holding a digital engineering meeting in Chicago this week and the news is being well-received, Doherty said.

"The DVD Forum vote was a pretty big vote of confidence for VC-9," a Microsoft representative said.

» Read the full story @ MSNBC