"NEC is demonstrating at the CeBit trade show in Germany this week a recently developed optical disc drive that can write to HD-DVD media.
HD-DVD is a disc format that uses blue lasers to achieve a storage capacity of about three times that of DVD. A single-sided HD-DVD disc can accommodate 15GB of data compared to 4.7GB on a DVD. It's one of two soon-to-be-launched formats that uses blue lasers. The second, Blu-ray Disc, can store 25GB on a single-sided disc but requires a more complex drive mechanism because the disc's physical structure is different than that of DVD and CD.
NEC is demonstrating the drive with media from Mitsubishi, which is best known
by its Verbatim brand name. The company is shooting high-definition video each morning at the show and burning it onto a disc for playback during the day, said Ryoichi Hayatsu, an NEC storage product division manager, in an interview.
The blank media, which became available only days before CeBit began, is single-sided so it can store up to 15GB of data. The drive is also compatible with dual-layer discs, which can store 30GB. In addition, the drive, called HD-1100, writes to DVD and CD discs.
NEC is also working on support for rewriteable HD-DVD media although the standardisation for HD-DVD-RW is yet to be completed. That's expected to be finalised in May or June this year, said Hayatsu."
Friday 10th at 16:56 
Friday 10th at 16:56 
