Storage > Blu-ray & DVDEssentials

It is rumoured that Sony plans to drop the price of its standalone Blu-Ray players by US$100 next month.

Toshiba, which lost out to Sony in the battle for the next-generation DVD format, has announced a new technology that could help extend the life of current DVD libraries.

Pioneer has developed an optical disc that can hold up to 400G bytes of data easily surpassing previously announced prototypes.

The high-definition movie disc battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc can be traced all the way back to 2000, when companies began experimenting with using new blue lasers in optical disc systems.

TDK Life on Record has expanded its range of Blu-ray removable media with the release of 8cm, single-sided, 7.5GB capacity camcorder media in both recordable and re-writable formats offering up to 60 minutes of full HD recording.

Toshiba conceded the HD video disc battle this week and announced its HD-DVD formatted products were no longer going to be manufactured. It had little choice after a string of defeats, started by Warner choosing to go with Blu-Ray exclusively and concluding when the US's biggest retailer, Wal Mart, backed out of the HD DVD format.