discs

Small discs for camcorders get the blue light

News A Japanese group promoting blue-laser optical discs is developing a smaller version of the technology for devices such as camcorders in an effort to make the format more widely accepted. The Blu-ray Disc Association announced last week that the...

13 April 2005, 14:21

TDK boasts 200GB Blu-ray discs

News In an announcement on Thursday, the company also said it would start shipping 50GB recordable and rewritable Blu-ray discs next week. Previously, TDK's Blu-ray discs had a capacity of 25GB per layer, but it has now managed to raise this to 33GB.

4 September 2006, 10:16

Blu-ray trounces HD DVD in US

News Blu-ray high-definition movie discs outsold films on the rival HD DVD format by 2-to-1 in the United States in the first half of 2007, Home Media Research said on Tuesday. The division of Home Media Magazine said total sales of Blu-ray discs, using...

16 August 2007, 9:14

iPods to support copy-protected music

News As controversy swirls over Sony BMG's copy-protected discs, Apple is moving towards supporting a different variant of CD copy-protected music with its popular iPod digital music player. For more than a year, the anti-copying technology loaded on...

18 November 2005, 8:56

A hi-def DVD combo? Don't bank on it

News For consumers, a device that could play both HD DVDs and Blu-ray discs would take much of the risk out of adopting the new video players -- but one may not arrive for a long time. In the second half of 2006, the Dutch electronics giant plans to...

11 January 2006, 10:22

New DVDs spark copy-protection chaos

News When the first high-definition DVDs finally hit shelves this spring, a mad scramble may ensue -- not for the discs themselves, but to figure out what computers and devices are actually able to play them in their full glory.

17 February 2006, 12:09

Writable HD DVDs due in 2006

News Hitachi Maxell and a unit of Mitsubishi Chemical said on Wednesday they will launch HD DVD-based write-once discs next year, a move marking the latest development in the DVD format battle. At stake is pole position in the multibillion dollar...

9 June 2005, 10:41

Iomega looking to make 800GB DVDs

News Storage company Iomega is looking to increase the capacity of DVDs up to 100 times, meaning it could, conceivably, create 800GB discs. Increased capacity on discs is significant as the entertainment and broadcast industries move toward high...

27 May 2005, 10:06

Ricoh could be peacemaker in hi-def war

News Ricoh, the Japanese electronics giant, has come up with a component that will let manufacturers build drives that read and record both HD DVD discs and Blu-ray discs, potentially bringing some peace to the disc wars.

11 July 2006, 11:22

Photos: Nintendo Wii swings into action

News Nintendo says its newly named Wii console is about the width of three stacked DVD cases and will play single- or double-layered 120mm optical discs, as well as 80mm Nintendo GameCube discs. The Wii system comes with 512MB of internal flash memory...

10 May 2006, 11:38

One-third of CDs sold are pirated, say music labels

News Illegally sold copies of music discs are a $4.6bn market, with legitimate sales in some countries shrinking by as much as a third in just a few years, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said.

24 June 2005, 10:42

Toshiba may give up HD DVD war

News Investors cheered an impending end to a format war for next-generation DVDs on Monday, pushing up shares of both Toshiba, on the verge of abandoning its HD DVD discs, and Sony, the leader of the rival Blu-ray camp.

Tags: war, consumers, electronics, blu ray

18 February 2008, 8:48

HD DVD and Blu-ray unite for movie rollout

News Sonic Solutions has managed to unite companies representing the warring disc technologies, HD DVD and Blu-ray, in an effort to ensure the smooth rollout of the next generation of movie discs. Companies that support both Blu-ray and HD DVD have...

Tags: definition, hd, high definition, solutions

20 April 2006, 10:05

Sony tests technology to limit CD burning

News As part of its mounting US rollout of content-enhanced and copy-protected CDs, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is testing technology solutions that bar consumers from making additional copies of burned CD-R discs.

1 June 2005, 10:35

Microsoft makes Xbox U-turn

News Microsoft has backtracked on an earlier pledge not to use its Xbox Live online gaming service to crack down on modified chips which enable the console to run copied game discs and unlicensed software.

6 September 2002, 9:50