JVC develops 25GB Blu-ray/8.5 GB DVD combo disk technology
Posted on 25/12/04 10:12 by Herbert                             
JVC develops 25GB Blu-ray/8.5 GB DVD combo disk technology

A few weeks ago we reported that Toshiba & Memory Tech has developed a DVD/HD-DVD Hybrid Disk, a disk that offers 4.7 GB DVD and 15 GB HD-DVD storage capacity. Many of us thought that this was the final step for HD-DVD to become the next standard for movies.

But today we can report from another real improvement around Blu-ray which can probably change the opinions of the Hollywood studios, especially from the studios which haven't made their choice.

JVC was able to develop a Blu-ray/DVD combo disk that combines BD-ROM and DVD-DL, the disk offers a storage capacity of 25 GB for Blu-ray and 8.5 GB for DVD. The development of a new proprietary high-performance reflective film that reflects the blue laser used for Blu-ray, but is transparent to the red laser used for DVDs and the difference in the disk structure (BD 1.1mm + 0.1mm protective layer, DVD 0.6 mm + 0.6 mm protective layer) made it possible to use a triple layer structure for the development of such a 33.5 GB combo disk.

The company is also working on a combo disk that offers 58.5 GB (50 GB BD-ROM and 8.5 GB DVD) capacity.

Main Features

1. World's First Combined Storage Media for Blu-ray and DVD Content

  • World's first Blu-ray/ DVD combo ROM disc uses advanced positioning and bonding technology to produce a one-side readout, read-only disc comprised of an outer BD layer is capable of storing high definition video signals, while the inner DVD dual layer is capable of storing standard definition video signals.
  • JVC has developed a proprietary, high performance reflective film that reflects blue laser light but is transparent to red laser light. The reflective film is applied to the BD layer to enable DVD reproduction using red laser through the BD layer.
  • The inner layer uses an 8.5GB DVD dual layer structure, the current mainstream structure for commercially available DVD video and software releases. Combined with the 25GB capacity of the BD layer, the new media format has a total storage capacity of 33.5GB.

2. Triple layer structure using double-faced substrate molding

The fabrication technology used for the new Blu-ray/ DVD combo ROM disc brings together JVC's ultra-fine nanotechnology developed for Blu-ray disc fabrication and the company's experience with DVD fabrication. By using double-faced substrate molding featuring a BD layer on one side and one of the DVD layers on the other side, JVC has found a way to make it possible to fabricate Blu-ray/ DVD combo ROM discs with approximately the same efficiency as conventional Blu-ray ROMs.

The option to store high defenition and the todays DVD content incl. all the extras on a single disk is an improvement that is for sure of interest for the movie studios which haven't made their choice.  

Those that are interested can read the full press release over at JVC

Source: JVC

Reactions
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By hardgiant, Saturday 25 December 2004 11:25
And the war continues. Seriously whoever has the cheapest burners with the cheapest media will get my vote.
By thyfleshconsumed, Saturday 25 December 2004 18:48
I'd hate to see this thing "win". Just because it's convenient for movie studios to combine HD-DVD with lower resolution DVD, doesn't mean it will be convenient for me.... :x
By psychoace, Saturday 25 December 2004 18:51
well then your sol because is a rom which means is not writable. So it's more for in store sales then writable dvd's
By cynicalbastard, Sunday 26 December 2004 03:41
somebody wake me when they start talking cheap high-capacity writes. All this new format talk makes me think these guys know they need something compelling that they haven't offered yet, and we are far from seeing it in its final form, despite all this talk of standards. The "we must make it backward compatible with DVD" thing underlines just how important and pervasive DVD has become, and I don't see it dying off anytime soon, much like CD. I don't care if a killer rewritable computer format for the masses is not made compatible with the latest hollywood ROM disc, as long as we get one. Right now the best the masses have is DVD for 'lots' of data, which simply isn't enough for a growing number of Joe Shmoes.
By jef195, Sunday 26 December 2004 19:42
In Doing Research i Stumbled upon an"Excellent" Site that has Good resources on "Blu-Ray" it's a Forum(I have nothing to do with but have commented on)Check it out and Post(No Registration required)Thanks Smilie http://blu-raytalk.com/forums/
By SupremeCheddar, Monday 27 December 2004 07:14
Wait a second...If we can do this then that means we can also make HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Hybrids.....think of the possibilites...think of the uses...oh wait there are none.
By Alexandre, Tuesday 28 December 2004 08:44
With so many possibilities at our disposal how will we be able to buy anything? It seems to me that with this hyper-speed evolution in "cd freaks business" all possibilities will dissolve into the NEXT technology that will never stay around long enough to satisfy us with complacency. Perhaps in the not too distant future we'll have 5/50/100/200 GB cheap flash cards...who knows... and we'd all prefer that to a disk that needs to revolve to be accessed.
By Tyreksionibus, Tuesday 28 December 2004 16:11
TyreksionibusSo what's next ? In 2006 we'll have 10 disk formats: CD-R, CD-RW, CD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-ROM, BD-RW and BD-ROM. Wow! I will have trouble choosing where to backup my data. I think CD will never die, because it is the ideal format for audio: can you find a band that can make so many songs to fill a 4.38GB DVD ? The entire Elvis Presley's discography can be written onto ONE of these disks. Also, DVD (regardless of the +/- format) is the ideal format for end users' needs and programmers: again, how long would it take to make a game which would fit onto a 25GB Blu-ray disk ? Embarrassment I think HD-DVD and Blu-ray (I don't know any differences between the two...) will be the format for MOVIES! Yes, because so far even a movie on a 8.5 DL disk is compressed with the MPEG algorithm. With 25 or 50 GB of disk space, an entire 120min movie could be completely UNCOMPRESSED - both video and audio (so bye bye DTS and Dolby Digital). Which is what I call perfection devil
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