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Toshiba Touts 51GB HD DVD
srizah writes to mention that Toshiba plans to launch a 51 GB HD DVD, with a 1 GB advantage over Sony's Blu-ray disc. From the article: Toshiba has submitted a triple-layer, 51GB HD DVD-ROM disc to the standard's overseer in the hope the technology will be adopted as a standard by the end of the year. If approved, it allow the format to exceed the 50GB storage capacity of rival medium Blu-ray Disc. The HD DVD standard currently defines single- and dual-layer discs capable of holding 15GB and 30GB of data, respectively."
TDK actually has made six-layer 200 GB blu-ray disks, way back in 2006 :)
http://www.tdk.com/procommon/press/article.asp?sit e=con&recid=127
(This article appears to be a dupe, so I might as well repost my comment from last time.)
The HD-DVD spec was finalized a while ago. HD-DVD players can only read two layers, therefore no movie can ever have more than two layers. All this talk about more layers is just PR wanking.
You've got to +5 Informative by giving incorrect information.
HD-DVD is 15GB per layer, in the current shipping product.
1 layer = 15GB
2 layers = 30GB
In this product the capacity per layer has been increased to 17GB.
3 layers = 51GB
Theoretically that will also make 17GB and 34GB HD-DVDs a possibility. However there is a wee slight issue. Current HD-DVD players may not be able to read these new 17GB layers, and quite possibly may not manage 3 layers either. The first may be fixable in the firmware, but the laser is very much hardware - although the laser power might be firmware controllable, and hence make it possible to read with firmware tweaks.
BluRay is 25GB per layer. However in a similar vein 33GB/layer BluRay discs have been done (200GB capacity in 6 layers), but some current players may read them, AFAIK. However if a firmware update would work then 66GB dual-layer BluRay discs are a possibility.
OTOH Hitachi apparently showcased a 25GB x 4 layer BluRay disc recently however: "Hitachi demonstrated reading from a 100 GB Blu Ray disc, comprising four layers of data. It is probably in reaction to the upcoming adoption of triple layer HD-DVD. The good news is that this technology seems close at hand: the device used to read is very close to the LG GBW-H10N that we tested. A firmware modification was all it took to allow all four layers to be read."