Toshiba Corp. for the first time displayed a next-generation DVD system that Toshiba and NEC Corp. have jointly proposed to the DVD Forum at CEATEC JAPAN 2002, held at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba prefecture. The DVD system displayed at the show was composed of a read-only disk with 15GB of recording capacity on a single side, a single layer and a player. The format of the disk is the same disk technology as current DVDs, which is back-to-back bonding of two 0.6mm-thick disks. The data on the disk can be read out optically by combining a blue laser and an object lens with its numerical aperture (NA) of 0.65.

The next-generation DVD's name has not been decided yet. Toshiba is temporarily calling the DVD an "Advanced Optical Disk."

Toshiba demonstrated replaying of HDTV images stored in the 15GB disk at the exhibition. Images were compressed using a variable encoding speed. Since the encoding rate is low, or 13Mbps on average, more than two hours of HDTV images can be recorded on the 15GB disk. Toshiba said that an optical disk device built into the player on exhibit has been downsized to a size that is almost equal to that of PCs.