Low cost Blu-ray replication coming soon?
Pioneer and Mitsubishi Chemical Media have teamed up to create the next generation Blu-ray Disc. The new disc creation method uses an organic dye recording layer which significantly reduces the materials cost. The technology is called “Low to High” (LTH) – which has been used even in vinyl groove recordings – and was approved for use in the “Blu-ray Disc Recordable Format Ver.1.2” specification.
Using the LTH technology will allow standard CD-R and DVD-R manufacturing facilities to make BD-R media using modified equipment they already own instead of purchasing new lines and plants. This will greatly reduce the start-up costs for BD-R production. HD DVD has long claimed this as an advantage for their format.
Current BD players and recorders will not be compatible with the LTH format. The reason for this is the LTH polarity is different. A firmware update for existing players should fix this problem. As of right now I’m not sure if this firmware update is for players only, recorders only, or for both players and recorders.
Mitsubishi and Pioneer both showcased BD25SL BD-R discs with write speeds up to 2x. They expect LTH to be on the market in Spring 2008 along with LTH BD burners. In the future, they both plan to use a metal nitride recording layer to improve write speeds. Mitsubishi already announced 4x BD-Rs and should reach 6x soon (current BD spec only reached 4x).
Since 2004, Pioneer and Mitsubishi have been partnering to develop standardization on low-cost, write-once Blu-ray media (BD-R).
Originally reported by AV Watch
