Hitachi announced the succesfull development of a new phase-change material appropriate for 16x DVD-RAM and Blu-Ray based media.

With the new BCM (Bismuth Coupling Material) phase change recording material, the problems of the former phase change recording materials used until now have been overcome, allowing high speed recording on DVD-RAM and blue laser corresponding optical disks.

First measurements on 16x recorded DVD-RAM, gave an approximately 9% jitter, carrier to noise ratio (C/N ratio) lower than 52 dBs, and a low bit error rate.