Pioneer Corporation has announced that the company developed dual-layer recording technology for DVD-R. The technological foundation has almost been established to commercialize DVD-R discs, where data up to 8.5GBytes can be recorded on one side.

The new dual-layer recording technology, adopts the dye-recording-film layer method, has realized a 9.34% jitter with a 17.3% reflection rate on the first layer (L0) of a disc, and an 8.08% jitter with a 19.5% reflection rate for the second layer (L1). This is almost the same performance as that for dual-layer DVD-ROM discs. In addition, it means that DVD-R discs supporting this technology can be played back on most existing DVD players, and opens the way for easy developing of compatible DVD recorders.

In the rapidly growing DVD recorder market, there has been a strong need from users for longer recording capacities. Pioneer's new technology will allow users to record programs of about 4 hours in the SP mode, or up to 12 hours in the EP.

The company intends to propose this technology as a new disc format to the DVD Forum.