Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Walt Disney Co. and Microsoft Corp. will join an industry group in Japan today to help decide which next-generation DVD disk format should be used in the $22.2 billion U.S. home video market.

Disney, the second-largest U.S. media company, and Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, will join the 20- member steering committee of the Tokyo-based DVD Forum, the nonprofit group said on its Web site.

Committee membership, which is dominated by companies such as Sony Corp that support the Blu-ray Disc format, allows voting rights on how data should be stored on the new disks. Disney and Microsoft's presence may improve support for Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp.'s rival HD DVD standard, said Takutoshi Fujiwara, whose Tokyo-based storage technology consultancy, Fujiwara-Rothchild Ltd., advises both Sony and Toshiba.

``With Disney and Microsoft joining, maybe the balance of voting power will be improved,'' in favor of Toshiba's HD-DVD format said Fujiwara. ``Then it will become much easier for the HD-DVD specification to be admitted by the forum.''

Movies watched on DVDs and VHS tapes at home drew sales and rental revenue of $22.2 billion in the U.S. last year, more than double box office receipts, Sony has said. The next generation of DVDs, with better quality and more capacity, will help spur sales as fewer VHS tapes get transferred to DVD.

Critical Formats

``Format developments are critical to the future growth of the home entertainment business worldwide,'' said Irene Chan, Walt Disney's spokeswoman in Hong Kong. ``As DVD has brought significant growth over the last several years, the next generation high definition format promises to offer the same opportunities in the future.''

The Blu-ray disk is supported by 10 companies on the steering committee, including Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Sony, the world's largest- and second-largest consumer electronics companies, respectively. The HD-DVD format has had the support of seven companies, including Toshiba and NEC Corp.

The steering committee in November selected Toshiba's HD-DVD format for disks that can't be used for recording, such as rental DVDs, said Keisuke Ohmori, a spokesman at Toshiba in Tokyo. The committee will discuss the compression format that will be used on the next generation DVD, said Fujiwara.

Sanyo Electric Co., the world's biggest maker of digital cameras, will also join the committee, where it will join companies such as Intel Corp., the world's biggest semiconductor maker, and Philips Electronics NV, Europe's largest consumer- electronics maker.

To contact the reporter for this story: Desmond Hutton in the Tokyo newsroom at dhutton@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 24, 2004 21:38 EST