"...DVD Forum held its Japan Conference 2001 in Tokyo where a report was made on its recent activities. In it, a reference was made to the next-generation DVD using violet laser as light source, saying that the standardization process was being put off for the time being. The main reason is because lower pricing and stable supply of violet laser diode cannot be anticipated at this moment. In addition, emerge of the HDTV recorder market is slow and there appears to be no other strong applications. Talks over next-generation DVD, which once heated up in year 2000, have slowed down now. On the other hand, rival recording media such as hard disk drives are rapidly building up their capacities. DVD Forum says the timing is difficult because too late a start is not good and so is too early a start.

Studies regarding the next-generation DVD are being conducted at "AH0-8" Ad Hoc Committee under the Technical Coordination Group. In the future, the committee will finalize the direction of the next-generation DVD standard and its product concept by paying attention to new movements in the component arena such as violet laser diode and in the market of HDTV-compliant digital TV receiver unit. AH0-8 will also make adjustments among the different opinions of different companies in such aspect as the thickness of the disk's cover layer or the basic technology. Once the Technical Coordination Committee and the Steering Committee finish their studies, Working Group 5 to finalize the physical format for rewritable optical disk will start drawing up the specifications..." NULL