We have at numerous occasions repoted about the format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray where many consumers are hoping for a universal player capable of handling both formats. We’ve earlier heard information that this would be impossible to solve but also the contrary; that it is just a matter of time. Now it seems that Ricoh has come a long way on the road to a universal player as a it has released information about a new laser head it has developed that with the help of only one laser will be able to read and write to all optical formats; CD, DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray.
“The 3.5-mm diameter, 1-mm thick round diffraction plate detects what kind of disc has been inserted, and adjusts to change the laser beam as necessary for the format. They’ll be showing off the tech later this week at the International Optoelectronics Exhibition ’06 in Japan.”
Ricoh hopes that its new laser head will appear in products already before the end of the year, but then only with players. Writing to medias will require more powerful lasers, but if this is a solution for a combo reader for HD DVD and Blu-ray it is looking very promising.
