Blu-ray came out on top in the battle for the next generation optical format where HD DVD eventually admitted defeat, much thanks to Sony’s PlayStation 3 console. The movie market has been the empowering factor and still is, but prices of both Blu-ray burners and media needs to come down further before the format will gain significant ground. Sanyo has now announced a new high-efficient blue laser diode that will enable both faster burning and using discs with higher capacities.
The new laser sports a power of 450 milliwatt which is almost twice that of Sanyo’s current diode used in Blu-ray products. The increased power should enable up to 12x speeds and read up to four layers of data. The latter would result in discs with 100GB capacity, 25GB per lager.
At 12x speed it would take a bout 10 minutes to burn a disc like that, that’s fast. Unfortunately it will take another two years before we will see products with the new laser diode, but that is the time the media manufacturers need to catch up with the latest development.
