Blu-ray disc spec approved

A group promoting and developing a format for a next-generation DVD technology announced on Wednesday the completion of the first version of the specification, paving the way for disk production.

The Blu-ray Disc Founders group said the physical format for the read-only version of Blu-ray Discs is complete, so manufacturers can begin preparing to produce discs. Players and discs are not expected to be available until late 2005. Other aspects of the read-only version, such as which codecs to support, have to be determined. Rewritable Blu-ray Discs and recorders are already available in Japan from Panasonic and Sony.

Blu-ray Disc, and rival format HD-DVD, are considered next-generation DVD technologies and are based on blue lasers. Current DVD technology is based on red lasers. The blue-laser technology will allow greater storage capacities, up to 50GB for dual-layer rewritable disks, compared with 4.7GB on current DVDs.

The two blue-laser formats are incompatible, but both are compatible with current DVD formats.

The Blu-ray Disc Founders group consists of 13 member companies: Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Mitsubishi Electric, Pioneer, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp Electronics, Sony, TDK and Thomson.

Blu-ray Disc Founders has been working to add support from companies by opening up its membership ranks.

Advertisement

Talkback 1 comments

    All this talk of using blue la ...Anonymous -- 12/08/04

    All this talk of using blue lasers begs the question, "why didn't they use them to start with"?
    Perhaps we should just all wait a few more years for the UV version to come out rather than promote the churn.

Latest Videos

Sponsored content

Power Centre - Content from our premier sponsors

Blogs

  • Suzanne Tindal Sick of broken tender sites
    Some of the state governments desperately need to invest in more user-friendly tender sites so that looking for information on government tenders doesn't have to be a game of blind man's bluff.
  • Array Cyberwar: What is it good for?
    In this week's episode, Cyberwar. What is Australia's place in the world of digital warfare? What are the implications for the NBN?
  • Array Is wholesale-only backhaul just a pipedream?
    The potential acquisition of Pipe Networks by SP Telemedia has raised the question about whether vertically integrated backhaul providers will mean higher wholesale prices for ISP customers.
  • More blogs »

Tags

Back to top

Featured