Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. has announced the development of a proprietary "Extended Deep Ultraviolet Mastering System" that manufactures read-only Blu-ray master discs known as BD-ROM for the same cost as DVD master discs. BD-ROM and Blu-ray discs can store over 2 hours of high-definition video.

JVC's new system works by shining a laser beam corresponding to the formatted content signal on a spinning glass disc coated with photoresist made of photosensitive polymer resin. This optically activates the photoresist to create a small pit or depression that stores the signal.

In the DVD mass replication process, the glass master is what stampers are in turn made from. The final stamped disc is what is standard in any retail DVD software or music product.

Until now, manufacturing high-capacity BD-ROM glass masters required an expensive electron beam system with a beam finer than a laser beam, as well as special optics and photoresist material created in a vacuum. The manufacturing cost of BD-ROM master discs was therefore significantly higher than DVD master discs.

JVC's newly developed Extended Deep Ultraviolet Mastering System uses a deep ultraviolet laser beam to manufacture BD-ROM masters with just a small modification to a conventional DVD master recording system which uses blue violet to ultraviolet rays. For this reason it produces BD-ROM master discs for the same cost as DVD master discs.


Source : JCNN