IP: More on DVD makes way for the 'Blu-ray Disc'

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Eric Rosenthal <eric () erosenthal com>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 21:14:46 -0500
To: farber () cis upenn edu
Subject: Re: IP: DVD makes way for the 'Blu-ray Disc'

Dave: 

This may be the hot thing this week.  But the really hot thing is
Constellation 3D.  They multiply the data density of a DVD by 19 times more
than the blue lasing diode technology introduced by SONY.  Constellation 3D
uses a flourescent multilayered technology (developed in Israel, Russia,
California, Massachusetts and UK) so that you effectively get a 19 layer
raid drive of a DVD with 1.5 gbps transfer rate. Constellation 3D is being
developed by the same folks that developed the Maxell floppy disk technology
in the 80's.  The first production prototype drives (90GB) were made
available in Jan 2002. The company claims that with compression they will be
able to store 3 to 6 TB per DVD within 3 years

E.



> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> DVD makes way for the 'Blu-ray Disc'
> Aki Shimazu of Sony Corporation holds the Blu-ray Disc during a press
> conference in Tokyo after nine electronics companies announced that they
> jointly established the basic specifications for the next generation large
> capacity optical disc video recording format. Photo: AFP Tokyo: Nine major
> international technology firms have unveiled the "Blu-ray Disc", a new digital
> optical disc format that will eventually replace the popular DVD. "It is a
> truly remarkable format, marking a new era," corporate senior executive vice
> president of Japan's Sony Corp Shizuo Takashino said after posing with a model
> of the disc. The new invention is 12 centimetres in diameter, the same size as
> compact discs (CDs) and digital versatile discs (DVDs). But the Blu-ray will
> use a blue laser to burn codes on to the disc instead of red -- multiplying
> the maximum data capacity of a single density, one-sided disc by five, to 27
> gigabytes. A DVD can only store 4.7 gigabytes of information. The new format
> is capable of recording over two hours of digital high definition video and 13
> hours of standard television broadcasting, the firms said. The current DVD can
> record just 133 minutes of regular TV broadcasts. The companies also plan a
> double density disc with a 50-gigabyte capacity that will increase the
> capacity by twice as much again. Aside from Sony, other technology giants
> involved in the venture include South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and
> France's Thomson Multimedia. Licensing to other industry groups to develop
> products for the technology will begin in the next few months. But the firms
> said they would head in their own directions in developing products for the
> format, and none were prepared to name a date for when their versions would
> hit the store shelves. The executive corporate engineering adviser to Pioneer
> Corp, Masao Sugimoto, said the format would be able to take advantage of the
> spread of high-definition television, which had reached some 2.3 million
> Japanese households by the end of 2001. "(The Blu-ray) is of great
> significance in terms of the further development of the electronics industry
> and the high definition broadcasting sector," Sugimoto said. However the
> companies, wary of alienating DVD fans, said the new technological products
> could be made to be compatible with DVDs. "It is possible," Sugimoto said.
> "These discs are based on a major base of infrastructure (to support DVDs) and
> the spread of high-definition television may not be all that sudden. We cannot
> simply disregard that." But he said each company would decide individually
> whether to make the Blu-ray compatible with DVDs. "This is a technological
> format and product planning is up to each company," he said. Some 25.5 million
> DVD players are expected to be in consumers' hands by March 2002, according to
> Sony's estimates, a significant market penetration since the gadgets were only
> hit the market in 1996. Jan Oosterveld, representing Dutch partner Royal
> Philips Electronics from the Netherlands, said the companies wanted to avoid
> the struggle over standards that plagued DVDs. "You all know the struggle we
> had to come to one format in DVD. We wanted to avoid that right away," he
> said. The other companies cooperating on the technology are Japan's Hitachi
> Ltd, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd, and Sharp Corp as well as South
> Korea's LG Electronics Inc. AFP
>
> http://www.smh.com.au/news/0202/20/biztech/biztech101.html
> (c) 2002 smh.com.au
>
>
>
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