ECMA relaesed the 3r dedition of the ECMA-364 standard which specifies the mechanical, physical and optical characteristics of DVD+R DL discs for recording at up to 16X. The standard specifies the quality of the recorded and unrecorded signals, the format of the data and the recording method, thereby allowing for information interchange by means of such disks. These disks are identified as DVD+R DL.

This Ecma Standard also specifies 80 mm disks with capacities of 2,66 Gbytes and 5,32 Gbytes. These disks shall have the same characteristics as the 120 mm disks, except for some parameters related to the smaller dimensions. All parameters unique for the 80 mm disks are specified in the ECMA-364 document.

This Ecma Standard specifies:

- Two related but different Types of this disk
- The conditions for conformance,
- The environments in which the disk is to be tested, operated and stored,
- The mechanical, physical and dimensional characteristics of the disk, so as to provide mechanical interchange between data processing systems,
- The format of the information on the disk, including the physical disposition of the tracks and sectors, the error correcting codes and the coding method,
- The characteristics of the signals recorded on the disk, thus enabling data processing systems to read the data from the disk.

Together with a standard for volume and file structure, ECMA-364 Standard provides for full data interchange between data processing systems. The file can be downloaded at http://www.ecma-international.org.

In related news, ECMA also released today the ECMA-380 "Data Interchange on 130 mm Rewritable and Write Once Read Many Ultra Density Optical (UDO) Disk Cartridges ? Capacity: 60 Gbytes per Cartridge ? Second Generation" standard.