James Delahunty
27 Feb 2007 9:36
Even though the Blu-ray camp has already declared victory for itself and Sony's PS3 has been loosed in Japan and North America and with the highly-anticipated European launch less than a month away, Toshiba Corp. is sending a message that it is far from giving in to Blu-ray. Toshiba has submitted the specification of the 51GB HD DVD disc to the standard's overseer.
The 51GB capacity has been achieved by packing three layers into a disc that can store 17GB of data each. Toshiba has not proved the technical feasibility of the disc and there are no details on whether any currently available HD DVD hardware is "triple-layer-ready". Nevertheless, the company hopes to have the disc out in the wild by the end of the year.
Toshiba had talked about a triple layer 45GB disc back in May 2005, but by pushing capacity to 51GB the company may aim to get it out while Blu-ray dual-layer discs offer 50GB capacity. Of course, Blu-ray is not "stuck" at 50GB just as Toshiba is not stuck with 30GB, and a Blu-ray disc with 4 layers offers an impressive 100GB capacity. For now though, even HD DVD's 30GB capacity has been adequate for high-definition movie releases.
HD DVD's 3X DVD has also achieved considerable media attention lately considering the possibilities it offers; providing high-definition (720p) movies on a (DVD) disc that is cheap to produce and works with all HD DVD hardware. Blu-ray supporters can also be happy with the format outselling HD DVD since the PS3 launch. Right now though, both sides still have some price reductions to consider to open HD to a larger market.
Source:
HDTV News