AfterDawn: News

JVC introduces a hybrid Blu-Ray/DVD-9 disc

The war between the Blu-Ray camp and the companies supporting the HD-DVD doesn't seem to take holidays. Just recently, the HD-DVD camp introduced a hybrid DVD/HD-DVD disc that could store both, standard "old-fashioned" DVD material (upto 4.38GB) and also 15GB of HD-DVD material on a separate HD-DVD layer and thus could be used also with current generation of DVD players.

Now, JVC has released a similar solution for Blu-Ray discs -- the new hybrid Blu-Ray/DVD disc takes a further step and provides a Blu-Ray layer that can be read with Blu-Ray players, but also two layers (equivalent of 8.5GB) for DVD storage, thus making it possible to store regular dual layer DVD to the DVD layers and a 25GB high-defition version of the movie to the Blu-Ray layer.



So, the fight for the crown of "the next generation DVD" is still heating up -- even when the most of the world doesn't even have HDTV -capable TV sets and only Blu-Ray camp has actual products already on store shelves (and only in Japan). Now, which camp will bring out a quad-layer discs that could store two layers of Blu-Ray or HD-DVD data and two layers of DVD data? And when we will see recordable versions of such discs? As both groups plan to bring out their products to consumers by end of 2005, next year will be very, very interesting in terms of digital video..

Source: JVC press release

Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 26 Dec 2004 3:59

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• 6 comments

• geekster

  This is another Worm storage drive. The data storage
  can never reach hard drive density or cost.
  
  The only optical storage that has infinite read/write
  like a hard drive is Colossal Storage drive.
  
  This is another confusing format that we must contend
  with as users. Investing more money in products that
  look to be obsolete in a few years.

  26.12.2004 07:39 #1

• djscoop

  of course optical storage can never reach the capacity that hard drives are at now...they're two totally different formats!
  
  And I think this blu-ray/DVD-9 combo is awesome. I'm supporting blu-ray over hd-dvd, mainly cause I like Sony alot and think blu-ray is a great optical storage format, but this dual layer dvd and blu-ray will definately help them get an edge over hd-dvd. Way to go JVC! Now you just need to team up with Sony and mass produce it.

  26.12.2004 10:46 #2

• GrayArea

  This Blu-Ray/HD-DVD format war is bad for everybody. Wouldn't plain old greed dictate that one agreed on standard will make consumers more confident and thus make mfgrs more money? Oh... I forgot, it's not just about money, it's power and CONTROL. IMHO, don't buy ANY of it until the dust settles. Let the bastards sit on their incompatable crap.

  28.12.2004 10:48 #3

• Mikiec

  It seems to be that the HD-DVD/BluRay hype is a bit premature purely because they're both not that big a step up from the DVDs we already know and love.
  Surely the big electronics companies can do better than double or triple DVD capacity. Why introduce a new format which is only a bit better than the current one?! We seem to be able to get everything we want on a single DVD disc, and there aren't many people complaining that 4.7Gb is too small, so why not wait until the capacity has reached something A LOT better than DVD? If we're not careful we'll get Blu-ray and HD-DVD and then a year or two later we'll get the much better "HD Blu-ray", or whatever, which is probably in development right now anyway. Or is it just me?!

  30.12.2004 01:51 #4

• daemonzx6

  I for one am supporting Blu-Ray no matter what. It can hold more than HD-DVD and, yeah, I like Sony more than Microsoft, not surprising. One thing they could do, is just make everything compatible with both kinds. But no, that wouldn't let one of them monopolize the whole industry like they want to. Just like VHS vs. Betamax. The lesser format will probably win, just because they will advertise to the general public in a better way. The greater format will slip into obscurity until nobody even remembers it. It seems fairly inevitable that this will happen, but I am still hoping Blu-Ray will become 'the standard.'

  30.12.2004 09:47 #5

• phantom4

  SPAM removed

  10.1.2010 21:43 #6