HD DVD-R media ready for production

HD DVD hasn’t been slowing down at all and is working just as hard as Blu-ray at the moment. It is right now planning for a big launch next year when both new technologies is suppose to arrive. HD DVD has now also managed to get a good push in the right direction now as four manufacturers has managed to develop a prototype of a HD DVD-R disc that will easily be massproduced in regular DVD-manufacturingplants. This is an important step in actually getting the HD DVD format out to the people and if they can manufacture discs on similar equipment used for regular DVD-media there is a lot of money to save. But this is on the other hand something HD DVD has claimed all the way.

“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 (15GB single layer), which uses a new organic dye specifically developed for blue-laser applications and have confirmed the prospect of volume production.”

HD DVD-R media is expected in stores during spring 2006 together with HD DVD-burners for PCs. It’s quite clear HD DVD will make anything it can to stop Blu ray from becoming the dominant format and considering we haven’t heard anything on the discussions that was going on before we assume we are entering a “win or die trying” situation between the two formats.

Source: CDR Info