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