| Toshiba Announces HD DVD-R Discs To Be Ready For 2006 |
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| Friday, 10 June 2005 | |
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Toshiba
has announced the successful development of HD DVD-R discs, a
write-once next generation DVD disc, which can be easily produced at
high volume on standard DVD-Recordable production lines. Hitachi Maxell
and Mitsubishi Kagaku Media/Verbatim, two of Japan's leading
manufacturers of optical disc media, have separately tested and
verified the manufacturability of the write-once discs, which use a new
organic dye specifically developed for blue-laser applications, and
confirmed the prospect of volume production.
Hitachi Maxell and Mitsubishi Kagaku Media/Verbatim will have HD DVD-R
discs ready next spring, at the same time as the launch of HD DVD
recorders and PCs with built-in HD DVD drives by hardware
manufacturers, including Toshiba. Development of the new dye is a breakthrough for HD DVD-R. Standard DVD-Recordable discs use a photosensitive organic dye as the data storage medium in their recording layer. In the transition to HD DVD, manufacturers had to meet the challenge of developing a dye for HD DVD-R discs that could be used with the narrow wavelength of a blue laser and offered sufficient readout stability. The newly developed organic dye is highly sensitive to blue laser light, has the readout stability essential for practical use, and the solubility in organic solvent required for easy production of the dye recording layer by a spin-coating process. As the HD DVD-R disc is based on the same disc structure as DVD discs, back-to-back bonding of two 0.6 millimeter-thick substrates, already installed DVD-Recordable manufacturing lines can utilize the new dye in efficient production of HD DVD-R. Hitachi Maxell and Mitsubishi Kagaku Media/Verbatim have both used the new dye in production of single-layer, 15 gigabyte HD DVD-R discs on their current DVD-Recordable production lines, and confirmed that the process can be applied to mass production. For more information please visit http://www.toshiba.com Like this article? Bookmark and share with any of the sites below.        |
