An Actual Writable Dual Layer DVD +R?????

[sammie]

Just released by Reuters:

Philips Says New Technology Boosts DVD Capacity

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch Philips Electronics said on Friday it had developed a new technology with Japan's Mitsubishi Kagaku Media that nearly doubles the storage capacity of data on recordable DVD discs.



Philips, Europe's largest maker of consumer electronics and lighting, said its new dual-layer technology raised the capacity of recordable DVDs (DVD+R) to 8.5 gigabytes from 4.7 gigabytes for single-layer DVD discs.


The company said in a statement users would be able to record four hours of DVD-quality video or 16 hours of VHS-quality video, without the need to turn over the discs.


Philips said it would demonstrate the new technology at the CEATEC Japan 2003 industry show, which will be held from October 7 to 11 in Makuhari, near Tokyo.


Mitsubishi Kagaku Media is a unit of Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Japan's largest chemical firm.

[jeex]

http://www.dvdrw.com/press/duallayer.htm

[Grant_H]

This sounds very intresting I wonder if our curent dvd+rw drives will write to these disks. I thought I read somewere that the only thing needed is a firmware and software upgrade (with a phillips dvd+rw drive that is).

[jeex]

unlikely.. if it were that easy then HP would have kept the promise to its customers that is dvd+r drive would be able to write dvd-r with a firmware upgrade (maybe it was the other way around)..


i hope dvd+r9 discs going to be a reality... if so, they win the "war".. unless the dvd-r folks can do the same thing.. it should be interesting..

[Gil T Pleasure]

I wonder if our curent dvd+rw drives will write to these disks.

Although the DVD+R9 discs will be compatible with existing DVD players and DVD-ROM drives, none of the current DVD+RW recorders/burners will write to them.

And Philips isn't about to make the same mistake twice by promising that our DVD+RW drives will support writing to the new discs via firmware upgrades. (Btw, the original promise was that the first gen DVD+RW drives would be capable of burning DVD+R disc via firmware upgrade)