OSTA and Ecma Join Forces to Establish Industry-wide Optical Disc Archival Testing Standard
Geneva (ots)
The Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA) announced today that it has signed an agreement with Ecma International to work together to finalize an industry-wide archival-grade optical disc specification. The purpose of this initiative is to address end user needs calling for established practices in media archive life testing and classification. The final goal is the issuance of an ISO standard available to industry for broad implementation.
Since its formation in Sept. 2005, OSTA's Optical Disc Archival Testing (ODAT) Committee has worked with a multi-national group of industry experts to develop a draft specification for an archival standard. The ODAT Committee is composed of global manufacturers of 120mm optical media and drives, as well as university and government members. Its defined charter is to develop optical media archival test methodology and promote its implementation Recently, a first Ecma draft of the proposed archival test standard was completed. The project was unanimously accepted by the Ecma TC31 committee at its recent meeting in Sapporo, Japan in late June. Further processing will take place under its charter.
"Under the OSTA organization, we brought together various independent groups that were working on similar ideas, in order to reach consensus on test methodology. Now we are partnering with Ecma in order to leverage their expertise in the creation of broadly adopted international standards," said Chris Smith, chairman of OSTA's ODAT Committee, general manager of Sony Corporation's Data Media Business Development Center in Boulder, CO, and active member of Ecma TC31 that will develop the international standard.
About Ecma International
Since its inception in 1961, Ecma International (Ecma) has developed standards for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Consumer Electronics (CE). Ecma is a non-profit industry association of technology developers, vendors and users. Experts from industry and other organizations work together at Ecma to develop standards. Ecma submits its work for approval as ISO, IEC, ISO/IEC and ETSI standards and is the inventor and main practitioner of "fast tracking" of specifications through the standardisation process in International Standards Organisations (ISOs) such as the ISO and the IEC. Publications can be downloaded free of charge from http://www.ecma-international.org/.
Contact:
Jan W. van den Beld
Ecma International
CH-1204 Geneva
Tel. +41/22/849'60'00/
Fax +41/22/849'60'01
Internet: http://www.ecma-international.org/
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