The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) is the industry consortium that develops and licenses Blu-ray Disc technology and is responsible for establishing format standards and promoting business opportunities for Blu-ray Disc. The BDA is divided into three levels of membership: the board of directors, contributors, and general members. The "Blu-ray Disc founder group" was started on 20 May 2002 by nine electronic companies: Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Thomson, LG Electronics, Hitachi, Sharp, Samsung Electronics and Sony. In order to enable more companies to participate, it announced in May 2004 that it would form the Blu-ray Disc Association, which was inaugurated on 4 October 2004. Members Board The board members as of November 2016 are: Sony Xperi DTS Hitachi-LG Data Storage Intel Corporation Koninklijke Philips LG Electronics Lionsgate Mitsubishi Electric Oracle Corporation Panasonic Pioneer Corporation Samsung Electronics Sharp Corporation Dolby Laboratories Vantiva Toshiba Universal Studios Walt Disney Company Warner Brothers Contributors The contributors as of December 2017 are: BluFocus Inc. CESI Technology Co. Ltd. China Hualu group Co., Ltd. Corel Corporation CyberLink Deluxe Digital Studios, Inc. Fraunhofer IIS Irdeto USA, Inc JVC KENWOOD Corporation Memory-Tech Holdings Inc Scenarist Inc Testronic Laboratories, Inc. sMedio, Inc. Funai Electric Co., Ltd. Lionsgate Entertainment Lite-On IT Corporation MediaTek Inc Nvidia Corporation Ritek Timeline of major changes to membership On 3 October 2004 20th Century Fox announced that it was joining the BDA, and on 29 July 2005 the studio officially announced its support for Blu-ray Disc. On 10 March 2005 Apple Computer announced its support for Blu-ray Disc and joined the BDA. On 31 August 2006 Sun Microsystems joined the BDA. On 30 August 2007, during the IFA Consumer Electronics Fair 2007, Acer and China Hualu joined BDA, and a few days later Acer also announced that they joined HD DVD North American Promotion Group. Timeline of major events and announcements involving members On 30 June 2004 Panasonic, a founder member of the Blu-ray Disc Association, became the second manufacturer after Sony to launch a Blu-ray Disc consumer product into the Japanese market. The DMR-E700BD recorder supported writing to existing DVD formats, and became the first unit to read and write to dual-layer Blu-ray Discs with a maximum capacity of 50 gigabytes. The launch price of the recorder was US$2780. On 8 December 2004 The Walt Disney Company (and its home video division, Buena Vista Home Entertainment) announced its exclusive support for Blu-ray Disc. On 7 January