The last few days we reported several news items related to the IFA consumer electronics conference held in Berlin, Germany. Today we can read on the German Heise Online that JVC, Samsung and Sony all used the conference to reveal their Blu-Ray recorders.
As most of our readers will know Blu-Ray uses a blue-violet laser (hence the name) which has a much shorter wavelength when compared to today's optical storage media working with a red laser. Because of the shorter wavelenth the capacity of a Blu-Ray disc is around 25 GigaByte, more than five times as much as a recordable DVD:
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The Blu
Ray standard stores approximately 25 GByte on a single Layer
Disc, enough for 2 hours of HDTV audio and video data with a
data rate of maximally 36 MBit/s (MPEG2-Video). The Blu Ray
disk measures 1.2 mm thick and has a 120
mm diameter; the dust defense is accommodated in a
cartridge. Furthest advanced the equipment of Sony appeared to us: The BDZ-S77 was already pointed to the CeBIT 2003 and is to be sold in Japan for scarcely 4000 euro. To an introduction on the market in Europe is not yet meant however for lack of HDTV compatible material. Also Samsung could give still no closer data to us when their drive would be released or the expected sales price of the BD-1000. The prototype nevertheless functioned and showed by a large screen display the jump in quality which can be expected compared with conventional DVD material. JVCs Blu Ray recorder does not even have a name, it does however have the coolest housing of the three studies. A market for such devices in Germany one does not see until 2005. |
Source: Heise Online