This year's Media-Tech Expo, the equipment trade show for the optical media industry, will be held May 6-8 in Hall 5.0 of the Messe Frankfurt in Germany, and will be the industry's only live equipment show in 2008 to focus on Blu-ray Disc. Demand for systems and titles is expected to start ramping up this year, with projections of 120 equipment lines required in the next two years to keep up with demand, and at least 80% of major movie studio releases to be on BD 50 (dual layer) disc.

Singulus Technologies and Anwell Precision Technologies have announced plans to demonstrate working BD machines at the show, providing an opportunity to witness realtime dual layer BD manufacturing with media produced right on the show floor.

"Other companies will have working demonstrations of every stage of the Blu-ray Disc manufacturing process from authoring and encoding, through mastering, pressing and printing to quality control and packaging," says Bryan Ekus, managing director of the Media-Tech Association, "and this will be the show that enables anyone with any interest in BD and BD50 production to get up to speed on the technology and market forces behind it."

Full details of the show and how to register for free attendance can be found at: www.media-tech.net