"A steering committee of the DVD Forum has approved the final specification of one potential successor of today's DVD. The HD-DVD-ROM will carry one or two data layers with a total capacity of up to 30 GByte. First drives are expected within the next twelve months. The approval of the Specification 1.0 of the HD-DVD-ROM format marks a significant step forward for NEC and Toshiba, the two main backers of the technology, to bring their technology to the market."
One additional point to note is that according to Microsoft, the provisional status was removed and WM9 received mandatory status for HD-DVD. Wow, I can certainly live with 30GB disks although I don't know whether the approval of HD-DVD automatically means a setback for Blue-Ray disks. I guess time will tell.