Apple today announced that the DVD Forum has ratified the H.264 Advanced Video Codec (AVC) to be included in the next generation High Definition (HD) DVD format. The H.264/AVC codec was jointly developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and has been ratified into the MPEG-4 specification as the next-generation video codec. H.264/AVC is based on open standards and will ship in Apple’s QuickTime in an upcoming release next year.