Petteri Pyyny
19 Feb 2002 6:39
Nine major DVD equipment manufacturers announced today that they've agreed to produce uniform recordable standard for blue-laser DVD discs -- new standard is dubbed as 'Blu-Ray'. Blue-laser DVDs are about to hit the markets in 2003 and they multiply the current appx. 9GB maximum capacity (dual layer -- writable consumer discs can only have one layer which limits them to 4.36GB) on regular DVDs to 27GB on one side (manufacturers are also developing dual layer version of the format which would have 54GB of data on one side of the disc).
Manufacturers want to avoid current situation where markets are flooding with uncompatible DVD formats such as DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD+R. Group says that they will start licensing the technology in spring.
Main driving force behind the development of blue-laser DVDs is the fact that Japan is about to move to digital TV broadcasting in 2003. Funny thing is that American digital TV is not driving this phenomenom, most likely because companies are afraid of bringing new perfect-quality recorders to U.S. markets where TV networks don't really like the idea of people even time-shifting broadcasts, not to mention get perfect copies of them.
Companies that agreed to develop upcoming standard include Sony, Matsushita, Hitachi, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, LG and Thomson.