Toshiba unveils triple layered DVD

By Steve Malone

Posted on 12 Sep 2006 at 14:28

Undaunted by the blue laser supply problems which are holding back supplies of its HD DVD player, Toshiba has come up with a new triple layer technology for optical discs.

The technology, which is the latest version of Toshiba's DVD TWIN format, will allow players to read discs with two layers of HD DVD and one layer of DVD or vice versa.

This would mean discs to can be pre-recorded with both standard DVD and high definition versions of a film, for example, so that consumers could upgrade their hardware in their own time.

There are already dual-layer DVDs available but are limited to a single layer on either side of a single substrate layer. The trick performed by Toshiba and its partner Memory-Tech has been to make the substrate layer in the centre, which holds the whole thing together, thin enough to allow three layers while remaining within the accepted thickness guidelines.

The DVD layer is closest to the pickup, and the farthest layer is for HD-DVD content. The intermediate layer can be used for either DVD or HD-DVD content.

The increase in capacity is important to Toshiba as the new discs can support up to 30Gb of HD DVD and 4.7GB of DVD or up to 8.5Gb of DVD and 15GB of HD DVD data. While this still leaves the HD DVD format lagging behind the 50GB available with dual-layer Blu-ray discs, it goes some way to making up the difference.