Commerce Dept. figures confirm that DVD players enjoy fastest ado...

Commerce Dept. figures confirm that DVD players enjoy fastest adoption rate of any consumer electronic product. Four million players have been sold so far this year compared with 3.2 million in 2001, said Chris Israel, Commerce Deputy Asst. Secy. for Technology Policy, at opening of DVD 2002 conference at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) hq. NIST currently has several projects under way that are important to DVD industry, Israel said, among them reliability testing of writable CD/DVD media and interoperability evaluations of commercially available DVD writers and players. Tests include accelerated aging that simulates 20 years or more shelf life. Information on lifetime and reliability of data archived onto DVD will be shared with manufacturers, he said. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) also has been seeking research information on data archiving since Sept. 11, Israel said. FEMA and NIST recently signed memorandum of understanding under which NIST becomes research resource for disaster recovery agency. DVD 2002 conference is co-sponsored by NIST and DVD Assn.