New technology promises to bring PCs and other devices closer

Microsoft, Panasonic and FujiFilm have announced technology to make PCs and devices such as CD players, car stereos and DVD players more compatible.

They say 'HighMAT' will make it easier for consumers to manage their digital photo, music, video collections on recordable discs.

HighMat stands for High-performance Media Access Technology. CDs created using it will be fully compatible with existing devices that play back recordable disc media.

The companies will adopt the technology for use in their own future products and offer licenses to other software developers and electronics manufacturers.

The companies say they were inspired by the growth in use of digital still and video cameras and compressed digital music.

At the moment consumers are often frustrated by the lack of consistency in the different devices read data.

Each interface for finding media is different and the contents of discs are displayed very differently.

HighMAT is aimed at solving these issues by creating an optimised way for PCs to identify digital files on recordable disks and standard ways for consumer devices to read them.

The companies say this will speed up start-up times and make navigation across a broad range of consumer electronics devices, including car stereos, DVD players and CD players, more consistent.