Mitsubishi Chemicals/Verbatim
Mitsubishi Chemicals/Verbatim were present at Cebit 2004 in
the DVD+R Alliance booth. The company has declared that it has already started
the
mass production of Dual Layer DVD+R media. They are the first manufacturer
who has managed to start production of this format. Conversely, the various
Taiwanese manufacturers have suffered delays in the production of
this format due to the difficulties faced in production line changes required
for this type
of media.
Furthermore, Mitsubishi spent a lot of resources in developing a special
spacer material used between the two layers.
The company will not produce 12x DVD+R media since this speed
is not in the official specifications and with there are few drives supporting
this speed, but will instead go straight to 16x. 12x drives will use
existing 8x DVD+R media
pushing the tolerances to their limits. For 16x media,
new dyes and technology will be used in the production process.
At present the company is awaiting for approval of the double
layer format for DVD-R from the DVD forum before proceeding with the production
of the respective media. There is no real difference between the manufacturing
process between DVD+R9 and double layer DVD-R. The real difference lies
in the logical and not the physical addressing scheme employed.
Also available is
DVD-/+R media which allows speeds of 8x. Verbatim is also continuing to
innovate in the field of DVD+RW media with the announcement that they have
created the technology behind 8x DVD+RW media.
CMC Magnetics
CMC Magnetics was also at the exhibition. Some of its new products
are illustrated below:
DVD-R media capable of 12x recording. 12x DVD recording is not officially in
the standard, consequently they have been included for marketing purposes.
CMC
Magnetics has declared that it will support 16x speed for DVD-R media.This
is a rewritable DVD-RW media
capable of 8x recording. But we will have to wait for the first drives
due somewhere around June.
PRINCO
