DVD-9

[Blacksmith]

I just read that Imation is gonna start making Dual-Layered dvds or 9.4 gig dvd's. Will they run most DVD burners or are we gonna have to go and buy a whole new burner that supports DVD-9.

[sammie]

Love to see the article............ but almost certainly would require a new burner.

[hothandiman]

There's no such thing, there's no such thing, there's no such thing! Do a forum search!

[sammie]

Actually, after reading how most companies weren't going to try dual layer and were going directly to blu(pick a flavor) disks. I've read a couple of articles lately about companies working on dual layer DVD9's. Nothing about anything close or ready to release mind you, so I presumed vapor ware as well, but if there is an article we'd love to see it.

[Blacksmith]

http://www.imation.com/en_US/product.jhtml?Id=IM_FAM111


although the link above dosen't say much all I can say besides that is I saw imations upcoming catalog and they had Dual-layered dvds in it. Of course it had no price but they were their. And of course I dont know when they will be coming out.

[sammie]

ah, that's probably a flipper not a dual layer.

[Blacksmith]

so what is a flipper?

[solarfox]

A "flipper" is a disc which has a single 4.7Gb-capacity recording layer on each side of the disc (and, thus, no "label" side as such). See here for examples of such media currently available.

Dual-layer recordable DVD's -- as opposed to dual-sided discs -- do not currently exist, and I don't know of any companies pursuing such at the present time. If it ever is developed, then based on what I know of the physical and optical differences between commercially-pressed discs and burned recordables, I can see no way that a true, dual-layer DVD-9 recordable could possibly be made to be backwards-compatible with the current crop of DVD-R burners... Frankly, I'd be surprised if dual-layer recording is possible at all. (Though I admit that I'm no Ph.D when it comes to exotic phase-change materials technology, so I wouldn't at all mind being proved wrong!)

[sammie]

Most of what I had read matched what solarfox was saying. Not worth the effort, uncertain compatability, not enough space for HDTV, etc. But I have read a couple of articles lately about companies that realized that Bluwhichever was a year or two away and that replacing a substantial portion of the standalone players installed base was 4 to 5 years beyond that. They realized that if the could get to market with a disk compatible with standalone players, they might have a good chunk of market for a while.

Unfortunately, I didn't save the articles and I haven't seen much since. My recollection was that it was probably only going to work on +RW and +RW compatible standalones. But it did have time frame of something like this summer or fall. No technical details so I can't shed any light on why someone suddenly things it is feasible.

Frankly, I could see this being the same deal as 2.8 meg floppies. The only way I see it not being is that there really is fair compatibility with standalone players and the media isn't outrageous. For instance if the media even costs twice as much as regular, good quality bulks then I don't see a lot of adopters. But if past history with things like this play out the disks will be 3x - 5x the price of individual jewl cased disks and it will be 2 or more years before we see bulks.

Love to see it, looks like it might happen, not holding my breath.

[Cornucopia]

I just did a thorough search of that Imation site, and what I found was that the ONLY DVD-type recordable disc they sell (or will soon be selling) is the 9.4GB DUAL-SIDED DVD-RAM, the kind that has to be used in a cartridge. This isn't even close to the Holy Grail that you're looking for.

As solarfox and hothandiman were saying: NO SUCH THING as a dual-layered recordable. Only recordables of that size are flipper discs.

Oh, and READ THESE ARTICLES MORE CAREFULLY! Too many false hopes are being raised with these threads.

Scott

[sammie]

Read closely, I did say it doesn't exist now. I doubt it will happen or even if it does it will probably be a marginal technology. But there is some noise that some companies are looking into it again. Why? I dunno beyond what I said. One possibility is as someone pointed out under my Blue laser thread, Sony's new recorder won't be compatible with +RW. If it's a technology limitation that could exclude +RW from backward compatibility with Blu whichever disks, I could see some of the +RW companies at least taking a look at dual layer 9's.