TDK Announces 8cm Blu-ray Discs at CEATEC

by John Neely
Published on Oct 9, 2006 9:15 AM



October 9, 2006 - At the CEATEC electronics show near Tokyo last week, TDK announced its development of single-layer 8cm Blu-ray discs that will be compatible with Blu-ray format camcorders such as the prototype shown by Hitachi at CEATEC.  This new Blu-ray disc matches the dimensions of the mini DVD discs that are used widely in consumer DVD camcorders such as the Sony DCR-DVD505 (Review, Specs, $664) and Panasonic VDR-D300 (Review, Specs, $534.89).  TDK’s new discs will take advantage of the significantly higher storage capacity offered by Blu-ray technology. 

While standard single-layer mini DVD discs have a capacity of 1.4 GB, the discs announced by TDK will have a capacity of 16.5 GB – a more than ten-fold increase over current technology.  12cm Blu-ray discs are already available, and support a single-layer capacity of 25 GB and a dual-layer capacity of 50 GB. 

Earlier at CEATEC, Hitachi announced it is developing a Blu-ray camcorder that will be ready for release within two years.  Currently, AVCHD is the only high definition video format available in consumer camcorders that can be recorded to DVD media.  AVCHD video can be recorded to standard 1.4 GB single-layer or 2.8 GB dual-layer mini DVD discs. At present, Sony’s HDR-UX1 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $729.95) is the only consumer camcorder available that uses the technology.

In addition to the single-layer Blu-ray disc in development, TDK says the groundwork has been laid for dual-layer 8cm Blu-ray discs that will hold up to 33 GB of data, or 3 hours of high definition video encoded at 24Mbps.