NEW DVD COMBINES STANDARD & HD-DVD FORMATS IN ONE DISC

[papibear]

Read the article here.

New DVD Has Dual-Layered Surface

Wed Dec 8, 7:51 AM ET

TOKYO - Two Japanese companies said Tuesday they have developed a DVD that can play on both existing machines and the upcoming high-definition players, raising hopes for a smooth transition as more people dump old TV sets for better screens.

Toshiba Corp. and Memory-Tech Corp. said their disc has a dual-layered surface that can store both types of data on the same side.

For consumers, that would eliminate the potential headache of having to own two types of DVD players: Both will be able to read such discs, though only the newer equipment can take advantage of the higher-resolution technology.

The discs, which took six months to develop, will be able to hold 4.7 GB in the current format and 15 GB in high resolution, Memory-Tech spokesman Masato Otsuka said.

Making the discs won't cost any more than the companies now spend on producing current DVDs, Otsuka said.

The new DVDs rely on the HD-DVD format, which has the backing of the DVD Forum, an international association of electronics makers and movie studios. New DVD players using the format are expected to hit stores by late 2005.

Its competitor, Blu-Ray, is backed by Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites)., its Hollywood studio and News Corp.'s Fox Entertainment Group Inc. Blu-Ray has more storage space, but HD-DVD is expected to be cheaper to produce because its technology closely resembles current DVDs.

It's still unclear which will become the dominant technology.

This looks like a major victory for the HD-DVD format. Stay tuned.

[snipsnapsappy]

Sounds a lot like SACD and its ability to have a CD layer. Very cool news! And this would clearly make HD-DVD the winner if it is actually able to pull this off.

After the DualDisc fiasco currently plaguing DVD-Audio, I am skeptical about whether or not they can pull it off, but we can hope!

[jbat31]

I posted this yesterday and it got moved to soapbox in an existing thread Anyway, yes it would and like I said yesterday, it depends on if the price is the same as current dvd's

[boddah]

Everytime I read the word "combine" now, I think of Half-Life 2...