The HD-DVD and Blu-ray war may be the most talked-about and dramatic, but at CeBIT, the saying “You get what you pay for” isn’t always true.
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| Source: News.softpedia |
At the very least, you will encounter a system that delivers sharp image quality like Sony, but the cost of the player is surprisingly low.
Called the Versatile Multilayer Disc (VMD), this system still employs red laser technology used in current DVD formats. Meanwhile, both HD-DVD and Blu-ray utilize blue lasers.
The color of the laser is crucial because it determines the size of the dots the laser creates on the disc surface, which in turn affects the data storage capacity. Blue lasers have shorter wavelengths than red lasers, resulting in smaller laser dots and allowing more data to be stored in a compact space.
Standard DVDs can hold about 4.7GB of data per side, while HD-DVDs allow for 15GB and Blu-ray discs can hold up to 25GB. As high-definition images require vast amounts of data, the disc capacity plays a vital role. This demand has driven electronics giants like Sony and Toshiba to adopt blue laser technology for their new disc formats.
A New Approach
Without the noise and fanfare surrounding the Blu-ray – HD-DVD battle, New Medium (NME) has chosen a different path and approach. NME decided to increase the number of layers on the DVD to enhance storage capacity without resorting to blue lasers. Currently, the company has developed 10-layer DVDs, equivalent to 50GB of storage in laboratory conditions.
The greatest advantage of this method is that the DVD players needed to enjoy sharp images remain very affordable, costing around $150 compared to the $500 – $1000 range set by Sony and Toshiba. NME plans to launch this type of disc in the third quarter of this year.
“We don’t want to compete with the giants“, said Levich, the CEO of NME. NME will promote the first VMD discs in China and India, followed by Eastern Europe, Russia, and South America. “That’s already more than enough for a small company like ours.”
Levich believes that the demand for high-definition movies at low prices is enormous, and this is the target market for NME. While wealthier nations opt for HD-DVD or Blu-ray as standard high-definition formats, users in developing countries are still willing to pay for similar quality at vastly lower prices.
Fate
