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Panasonic Begins Blu-Ray Production

Posted by Zonk on from the world-of-tomorrow-yeah-yeah dept.

magicchex writes "Panasonic has announced that they have begun pilot Blu-Ray production of dual-layer 50GB discs in their Torrance, California factory. They claim to already have an 80% success rate in production. Engadget and The Register, among other, have also reported on this." From the Register: "Matsushita's Panasonic subsidiary has retooled its US Blu-ray Disc (BD) production line to offer not only 25GB single-layer discs but also 50GB dual-layer media ... Panasonic's plant, located in Torrance, California, is still in the pilot stage, but the company claimed it is already punching out BDs with a yield of over 80 per cent - so it has to bin fewer than 20 per cent of the discs it produces, which seems rather a lot in the context of a low-cost, mass-market medium."

4 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. A day Late And A Dollar Short by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 3, Interesting


    So....finally in production...it's too bad HVDs are in the process of eating their lunch. Perhaps next time Sony/Phillips and Toshiba will see the benefit in cooperating to get a product out to the consumer quickly enough to avoid having a superior technology render their product irrelevant.

    --
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    ~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey

    1. Re:A day Late And A Dollar Short by Xarius · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Just like the superior Beta Max rendered the VHS irrelevant... oh wait, bad example. Try how the superior Minidisk rendered the CD irrelevant... oh, that's another one.

      Prevalence and superiority are not intrinsically linked you know. The first widespread large-storage High Def thingy will be Blu-Ray because it's in the PS3.

      The same happened with DVD, doesn't matter which is better, the one that invades the homes first and fastest will be the new standard for some time.

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      C17H21NO4
    2. Re:A day Late And A Dollar Short by doctor_no · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, Holographics Media is likely the generaton after Blu-ray/HD-DVD. The HVD alliance does not even have plans to release HVD-Roms until around 2009. It's also very unlikely they can release the players and the media at an affordable cost within this generation.

      http://www.hvd-alliance.org/abouthvd/technology.ht ml

      You might also note that companies that are inveting in holographic media are the same as the ones investing in Blu-ray/HD-DVD, including Sony, Toshiba and Matsushita.

      http://www.manifest-tech.com/media_dvd/dvd_holo.ht m

      Quote from Optoware president (HVD Alliance):

      "Sony and some major Japanese electronics companies are studying holographic storage to replace HD-DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. Sony wants to develop next-next generation storage technologies and we can say that our collinear solution is getting very popular," Kageyama said.

      http://www.pcworldmalta.com/news/2004/Aug/271.htm

  2. Price? by mcraig · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Anyone any ideas how much these discs are going to cost? A large part of who wins is decided by the hit the consumer takes in his pocket. I think DVD-RAM almost died out due to the high cost of discs early on though now they've dropped in price the extra features over DVD-RW seem to be helping it to make a comeback.