The Format of the Future for DVD Recorders

The new generation format for DVD recorders is said to be available on the US market at the begining of 2005. It will bring at least one great advantage towards previous formats: recording high definition video data.

The Developers

Since early 2002, discussion upon DVD recorders formats increased around a new technology, based on the use of the 405 nm wavelength blue laser.

The new technology was initially developed by a group of nine companies: Matsushita, Philips, Sony, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp and Thompson. Later on, Zenith, Mitsubishi and TDK joined this newer alliance in the formats issue, that calls itself the Blue-Ray Disc Association. At the begining of 2004, the famous PC manufacturers HP and Dell joined the “blue-ray” group.

As expected, the Blue-Ray Disc Association had to face its competition very soon. Toshiba and NEC came with another DVD format that uses the same wavelength blue laser, only calling their product AOD (Advanced Optical Disc). The AOD format (also referred to as HD-DVD) is now supported by two newcomers, Sanyo and Memory-Tech.

The New Format Features

What does the blue-ray/AOD format stand for? Its main capability is to allow the recording of HDTV signals, a feature that none of the previous recording formats could provide.

The next main-capability of the “new generation” format is its big data storing capacity. The leader here appears to be the format developed by the Blue-Ray Association, with 50GB per dual-layer disc. The AOD discs can store up to 30GB of data on a dual layered disc.

So, it's about a new format that will record high definition video and audio data, but also standard definition A/V data. The manufacturers also assure us that the incompatibility problems will be near inexistent.

The beatiful part about this new format is that you can record about two hours of high-definition video, but when recording SDTV signals, you can store about 5 times more hours of standard video. Moreover, you can edit playlists, rearrange different programs you recorded, and skip to any point of the recorded material, at any time.

As we are speaking, the blue-ray format is only available on the Japanese market: the BDZ-S77 DVD recorder from Sony and the DMR-E700BD model from Panasonic.