Pioneer, Mitsubishi develop LTH BD-R discs

While the HD DVD camp is busy with its 51GB disc, the Blu-ray side has a new creature of its own to talk about. Co-developed by Pioneer and Mitsubishi, the LTH (Low to High) BD-R reportedly utilizes an "organic dye recording layer," and is said to be a recognized format within the Blu-ray Disc Recordable Format v1.2 standard. Additionally, the two companies boast that this disc won't require "large-scale plant investments" to manufacture, which is music to the ears of anyone who enjoys lower costs. Regrettably, it sounds like existing Blu-ray drives won't play nice with the LTH BD-Rs as-is, but here's to hoping that firmware updates could fix that. Click on for a shot of a prototype drive gettin' cozy with one of the new discs.

[Via CDRInfo]

[Zach @ Sep 18th 2007 12:46PM]

I think solid state memory will ultimately render discs obsolete.

[Preston @ Sep 18th 2007 12:57PM]

I would LOVE to see SSD replace disc compeltely. Unfortunately the price point just isn't there... yet. Hopefully it will get there before the "format war" is over and just annihilate both hd-dvd and bd.

[Andy @ Sep 18th 2007 12:58PM]

Ultimately perhaps. But not in the near future. For a high quality HD movie, you need 20-30 GB easily, and we are far from having cheap flash of that size that rivals discs in price.

[Preston @ Sep 18th 2007 12:58PM]

I would LOVE to see SSD replace disc compeltely. Unfortunately the price point just isn't there... yet. Hopefully it will get there before the "format war" is over and just annihilate both hd-dvd and bd.

[Khris @ Sep 18th 2007 12:48PM]

.....and the format war blazes on!

[Bluecentric @ Sep 18th 2007 12:55PM]

Everything will eventually be obsolete.

[Matt @ Sep 18th 2007 3:19PM]

...and your point?

If we take the attitude that "everything will be obsolete" (which it will, don't get me wrong) are we supposed to just sit on our hands watching analog TV until there's something better than HD? listening to cassettes until there's something better than MP3? walking everywhere until there's something better than cars?

Just because something will eventually be obsolete doesn't mean it won't serve a great purpose in the meantime.

[Zach @ Sep 18th 2007 5:10PM]

Not water.

[Bluecentric @ Sep 18th 2007 9:20PM]

I guess I should have expanded a bit more in my response. I agree with you Matt.. My comment was in response to Zach saying "...solid state memory will ultimately render discs obsolete." I definaltely think this technology is useful and I will be one of the first in line to buy a recorder.

[Zach @ Sep 19th 2007 7:12AM]

Doesn't it make more sense to just have a large-capacity SSD than a physical disc? Discs get scratched and broken easily.

Look at it this way. Once Internet speeds get fast enough and widespread enough, physical movie rental stores are going to dwindle. Then, to make a movie portable, load the movie onto a portable SSD. Future TVs could have a port for the SSD, so you can plug the drive in to the TV without having to deal with an external player. This way, one drive can be used many times, which is more efficient than a DVD collection.

That's what I meant when I said SSDs will render DVDs obsolete.

[Brian @ Sep 18th 2007 1:11PM]

You do have to wonder, is this news item, a pro-active strike, when the news hits that all existing HD DVD players won't read the new 51Gb discs. HD DVD owners, can then refer to this handy article, to show that Blu-Ray has also got the same problem. I suspect it is...

However, the big difference here, is this format offers no real advantages, and will thus die and fade away, if existing players are not capable of reading it, if they are however, then it's great news, as it offers Blu-Ray lower manufacturing costs.

Either way, no biggie for Blu-Ray.

[Andy @ Sep 18th 2007 4:09PM]

This means lower cost discs. With lower cost discs we can see something akin to prices of blank DVDs which would sure boost burner sales.

[HineyWipe @ Sep 18th 2007 1:13PM]

Oh, so just because you label it "organic", I'm supposed to buy it?

[SupaflyDaddyC @ Sep 18th 2007 1:55PM]

Yes, and then you're supposed to go to your local supermarket and pay $.50/lb. more for bananas because everyone is b-a-n-a-n-a-s over organic things.

[Dias @ Sep 18th 2007 1:42PM]

Another one? C'mon, you must be joking...

[Adam Daniel @ Sep 18th 2007 1:58PM]

It's amazing the situation Blu-ray is in WRT recordable media. In contrast to HD DVD, the format's design origin was recordable media, so they should be in a position to tout advantages in this regard. Instead, it turns out there is no way to make any one piece of recordable media playable on all available Blu-ray players! (Check your information carefully if tempted to condradict this). Meanwhile, folks can currently make short-duration HD media playable on all available HD DVD players using DVD-5 and DVD-9 media, and longer stuff on recordable 15 GB HD DVD media that is again compatible with all HD DVD players. Quite a turnabout.

[Ari @ Sep 18th 2007 2:13PM]

Stop spreading half truths. BD-R BDAV (no menu) should play back fine in all but one player and BD-R BDMV (with menus) should playback in all but two players and one of the players has it disabled in firmware as an anti-piracy measure.

It is not known if the playback problem with the one standalone is caused by incompatibility with the recordable media or if it is caused by problems with the authoring software output not meeting the spec.

There were similar problems with DVD-R/RW in the early days too and even to this day, some home movies on DVD-R will not playback properly on some DVD players.

You should be happy to know that the PS3 should playback most burned BD-Rs.

[Adam Daniel @ Sep 18th 2007 3:10PM]

Ari,

"Stop spreading half truths. BD-R BDAV (no menu) should play back fine in all but one player and BD-R BDMV (with menus) should playback in all but two players and one of the players has it disabled in firmware as an anti-piracy measure."

Alright, I belive you. But is that with the v3.0 AACS-enabled media? And which players support which scenarios? I honestly don't know, and I honestly am not trying to spread half-truths. I do know for sure that using DVD-5 and DVD-9 recordable media is out of the question with Blu-ray, and that that is a shame for my home video purposes. I also know, in contrast to the situation during the early days of recordable DVD media, Blu-ray has competition on its hands while it works through these compatibility issues, and it would have been beneficial for them to capitalize on what could have been a bullet point in their favor.

[Rick wilson @ Sep 18th 2007 3:50PM]

Wait... say again why blu-ray has competition on its hands? I mean, HD DVD has what 15GB of space for burning right now? no computer backup abilities, and no duplicator or data archiving abilities? Blu-ray had finished their 100GB disc way before HD's 51GB disc was even alluded to. I guess I don't get it. I can burn 50GB of movie data to my Blu-ray drive, while you are trying to fit a few minutes of High def content on a 4.7GB disc? huh?? Why does blu-ray have competition?

[Adam Daniel @ Sep 18th 2007 4:03PM]

Rick wilson,

I agree. Blu-ray should not have competition when it comes to recordable media since it was designed as a recording format first. My point was that the shine is taken off when you add non-universal playability and confusion about LtH/HtL/v2/v3/AACS-enabled etc. In the larger scheme, even polishing this bullet point with perfect execution would have had a limited impact since the HDD industry's advances have taken so much wind out of recordable optical market's sales in the years since Blu-ray was first introduced in Japan. (Even the more avid and wealthy among us are generally not inclined to purchase those $35 50GB disks.)

[pablo m @ Sep 18th 2007 2:17PM]

@Ari

You just raped these comments with knowledge.

[Ghen @ Sep 18th 2007 3:29PM]

Noone's explained what LTH is though. What does Low to High mean?

[Jeebus @ Sep 19th 2007 2:53PM]

Who's Noone? Or do you mean "no one"?

[Ghen @ Sep 21st 2007 7:33AM]

Wow, thanks for clarifying that jeebus.

[Goldberg365 @ Sep 18th 2007 9:30PM]

More space makes me happy.