Whether TDK is actually the first out of the gate with Blu-ray recordable discs available to the public, may be a matter of some debate - Sony is also claiming that honor - but today, TDK announced it’s ready to ship to US retailers what it’s describing as the first publicly available single-layer Blu-ray recordable discs.
The news means that retailers are likely to be able to sell 25 GB recording media to consumers when the first components hit the shelves, perhaps in late May, most likely in June. However, the question of 50 GB dual-layer availability is a little less clear.
TDK Blu-ray discs are manufactured at the company’s Chikumagawa Techno Factory in Japan.
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Details :
Unlike CD-Rs and DVD-Rs, at least for the time being, the first recordable BD-Rs and BD-RWs will be sold as singles. All of the discs will be rated at 2X speeds.
The discs use the TDK’s DURABIS technology, which eliminates the need for a cartridge or sleeve that protects it by placing a small, uniform layer of protective material along the surface of the disc. According to TDK, the discs will last up to about fifty years; each rewriteable disc may be rewritten up to about 10,000 times, the company said.
25 GB storage will provide plenty of space for recording a single high-definition movie at 1080p (progressive) resolution. Once the complete specification for AACS copy protection is completed, and once the system for maintaining Internet connections with Blu-ray players has been launched - at this rate, probably some time next year - Blu-ray customers will be able to make licensed recordings of movies via on-demand download services.
Pricing :
The discs aren’t cheap; the company’s estimated retail pricing for a single 25-Gbyte write-once (BD-R) recordable disc will be $19.99, while TDK will price a rewriteable (BD-RE) 25-Gbyte disc at $24.99. Later in 2006, TDK will ship 50-Gbyte dual-layer media, charging an estimated $47.99 for a write-once BD-R disc and $59.99 for a 50-Gbyte BD-RE disc.
Spindles of fifty 50-GB recordable Blu-Ray discs will be sold during the second quarter, TDK said.
In March, TDK made a similar announcement for the European market, setting European prices at 15 euros and €20 for 25GB BD-R and 25GB BD-RE, and charging €35 and €45 for the 50-GB BD-R and 50GB BD-RE media, respectively.
Rivals :
The announcement also allows TDK to shape the next-generation DVD media pricing depate to its own advantage. Although Toshiba has claimed that it will ship an HD-DVD-enabled notebook, members of the HD-DVD camp have not set an estimated price for media.
Toshiba’s first HD DVD players, while supporting the playback of recordable media, are not recorders in themselves; and even the first recordable HD DVD and Blu-ray components are awaiting the outcome of the dispute among members of the licensing body creating the AACS copy protection scheme, which both high-def formats will support. So rather than video, the first high-capacity media will probably be leveraged by PCs.
Sony’s first BD-R drive was announced last month, the BWU-100A, is still expected to ship this month, and will apparently support dual-layer 50 GB media the moment it’s made available - like TDK, Sony is holding out. Sony’s prices for Blu-ray recordable media is equivalent to TDK’s, although Sony’s rewritable format, referred to as BD-RE rather than BD-RW, leaves some questions open as to cross-manufacturer compatibility.
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Last week TDK Corporation announced shipments of its first generation of Blu-ray media in both writable and re-writable flavors and also hinted at dual-layer 50GB versions coming later this year. Recently, TDK prototyped a 4-layer 100GB version of its Blu-ray media which is said to have maximum transfer rates of 216Mbps (6x speed) which will be three times faster than the first generation discs.
After digging through TDK’s marketing information on their website we found plans to bring to the market not only 4-layer 100GB media, but also media with 8 layers at 25GB/layer totalling 200GB of Blu-ray capacity. TDK’s marketing department has put together a simple picture of how the company fits 4 layers on a disc to bring the capacity to 100GB.
The base of the disc is the plastic substrate which is followed by a reflective layer and a dielectric layer. The media is then topped off with the dielectric and reflective layers and a cover layer, in that order. Between the first and last 3 standard layers comes the first recording layer of the disc labeled “L0 recording layer.” There are a total of 4 layers to the right and each layer. Layers L0-L3 are separated by a spacer layer to help the laser focus on the correct layer for reading and writing.