Blu-ray Discs Increasing In Capacity To 128GB [Blu-Ray]

Blu-ray Discs are getting a step-up, after the Blu-ray Disc Association announced two new specs for the format—BDXL, and IH-BD. There's bad news however—you'll need to buy a new player/recorder to use the 128GB discs.

The new BDXL specification describes High Capacity Recordable and Rewritable discs which will write up to 128GB of content on each disc. These are write-once capacities, with the rewritable discs allowing for 100GB of storage. For now it's just for commercial usage, but the BDA will be launching consumer BDXL discs, which will be handy for those of us planning on investing in a Blu-ray recorder in the near future.

The IH-BD format will contain two layers of 25GB capacity each—one for BD-ROM use, and the other a BD-RE layer, designed for viewing but not overwriting data.

While the extra storage capacity for the BDXL discs is welcome, it's not all good news—as the BDA has warned that they won't be compatible with existing hardware. Look out for BDXL and IH-BD supported Blu-ray players and recorders soon.

[Gizmodo via BusinessWire]

Marvell's ARMADA Mobile Chips to Go 1Ghz/1080p [CPUs]

Marvell's ARMADA chips hope to power everything from Blu-ray players to ebooks to smartbooks to digital picture frames, but the most interesting are the 600 series smartphone chips with a strong claimed 3d performance.
Says Sascha Segan:

According to a Marvell press release, the ARMADA 610 can render 45 million 3D triangles per second and control four displays at 2k x 2k pixel resolution each. That makes it more powerful than the PowerVR SGX 530 core used in the Motorola Droid and the Qualcomm graphics core in the QSD8250 Snapdragon, which handle 14m and 22m triangles respectively.

Noted.
[Gizmodo via Anand via PCMag]

3D Blu-ray Specs Officially Confirmed, We Can All Breathe Easy Now [3D]

The Blu-ray Disc Association has issued the official specifications for 3D Blu-ray, thankfully confirming that the discs will be backwards-compatible for when you tire of actors lunging out of the TV at you.
Making it easy for everyone to adopt 3D entertainment, good ol' Sony has worked it so that the PS3 will be able to play 3D Blu-ray discs, and the upcoming 3D players will be able to play 2D discs too. In regards to codecs, these discs will use Multiview Video Coding (or MVC), which is similar to the ITU-T H.264 AVC codec we use now, and will actually take up 50 per cent less space on the discs compared to 2D content.
Again clearing up any questions we may've had about 3D Blu-rays, the content will be full 1080p, so even though you're watching in 3D, the quality of the resolution won't be compromised. Expect to see some massive announcements from manufacturers and movie studios next month, including exactly what LG's going to sell in order to reach that 3.8m 3D TV units sold target.
[Gizmodo via BDA]

Buffalo announces world’s first 12x Blu-ray burner (and it’s USB 3.0, too)

USB 3.0 is just around the corner (kind of), and the first computer hardware manufacturers are getting ready to deliver products supporting the new standard (even though there were some backlashes along the way). Last month, Asus announced the world’s first USB 3.0 + SATA 6.0 PCI-E card. In May, NEC said they’re going to release the first USB 3.0 host controller.

And now Japanese computer hardware company Buffalo has announced [JP] the world’s first 12x Blu-ray burner, which supports USB 3.0 on top of that. The BR-X1216U3 is backward compatible with USB 2.0 but will burn your Blu-rays with “just” 7x speed in that case. You can only use it with a Windows machine (XP/Vista/7).

But actually there are no Blu-ray discs which could be used with a 12x burner and no USB 3.0-equipped computers out there at this point, but Japan is known to be a tad quicker than the rest of the tech world sometimes.

Buffalo says they will roll out the burner at the beginning of next month. Japanese street price: $460. The company hasn’t said anything yet about international sales.
[CrunchGear]

Pioneer Churns Out the World's First 12x Blu-ray Burner [Blu-Ray]

The BDR-205 is pretty much like any other mainstream 5.25-inch internal Blu-ray writer, in terms of looks and features, except for the fact that it, get this, spins slightly faster than the current crop of 8x writers. Slightly!
I was tempted to try to find a late-90s press release for Pioneer's first 12x CD burner to see how closely the language matched this one—let's just assume "very"—but a) I couldn't find one, and b) I didn't want to diminish Pioneer's achievement here too much—any device that cuts into the atrociously long Blu-ray burn times we've become slowly and begrudgingly accustomed to is a categorically good thing. The BDR-205 is due in October for $250. [Gizmodo via Crunchgear]

Panasonic develops 50-inch full HD 3D plasma TV for Blu-ray movies

Panasonic has been toying with the idea of bringing 3D TVs to our homes for quite a while now, and today the company announced they will be showcasing a 50-inch full HD plasma TV [press release in English] that’s capable of producing high-quality 3D pictures. End consumers will have the chance to test the TV out during next week’s CEATEC 2009.
Panasonic says the TV is the result of tests they did with a 103-inch 3D TV prototype presented last year (it’s pictured above). The company also says it went for 50 inches because it expects this size to be the standard for TV screens in homes. You’ll need to get a Blu-ray player and discs that support the 3D format though. And shutter glasses are a must.

The 3D TVs from Panasonic will hit stores in the US, Europe and Japan as early as next year. [TechCrunch]

Only the suits stand between you and 100GB Blu-ray discs

Sharp (yes Sharp, I was surprised too) has developed an improved version of the current technology used to read and write Blu-ray discs. By changing the way the discs are made and improving the laser, Sharp has been able to increase the maximum capacity of the Blu-ray disc to 75GB and 100GB, from the current standard of 50GB.
What they’re doing is actually really complicated, but the gist of it is that they are changing the laser used to read the disc, and replacing the coating with a new aluminum oxynitride one instead of the old dielectric film. This will allow for the use of discs with three and four layers, as opposed to the standard two.
When will we see this new tech? It’s still unclear at this time. Sharp is currently working to get their upgrades approved by the Blu-ray Disc Association. We’ll let you know when we know more, but at this point there’s no ETA.
[via Blu-ray.com and Engadget]

Sony Gets 3D Fever: 3D Bravia TV Next Year, PlayStation 3 Support Planned [Sony]

Sony has confirmed yesterday's leak that it's working on a 3D Bravia LCD HDTV, and will also develop 3D-compatibility into its PlayStation 3, Vaio computer, and Blu-ray products. Silly 3D glasses and cheesy promo video? You betcha. See for yourself:
While many TV makers are using polarized glasses in their 3D concepts, Sony's plans involve high-definition active shutter glasses that alternate the image for the left and right eye. Hopefully they won't make me cross-eyed like my old 3DFX Voodoo shutters did. [Sony]

Prime Note Cresion NA, DosPara latest ION Based Netbook with BD Drive

Here you are the Prime Note Cresion NA from DosPara, a 12.1” Netbook with a 1366x768 resolution, and a Blu-Ray Drive (Read only). Our Prime Note Cresion NA is powered by an Atom 330 and use Nvidia ION Platform, as well as featuring 2GB of RAM, 320GB of HDD (5400rpm), HDMI out, WiFI BGN, Bluetooth V2.1 +EDR and weight 1.92kg…

 This Prime Note Cresion NA will be sold in Japan at around 70 000 JPY (525€)

דיסק Blu-Ray בנפח 400 ג"ב מפיוניר

רק לפני חודש פורסם DVD בעל נפח של 42 ג"ב ועכשיו המעבדות של פיוניר מדווחות על דיסק Blu-Ray חדש בעל נפח של 400 ג"ב. לדיסק יד 16 שכבות והקורא האופטי של סמסונג מסוגל לקרוא את כל שבירות האור הנוצרות מ-16 השכבות.

כרגע לא ניתן נגן המדיה רק קורא מן הדיסק ולא מקליט אך הוא קורא גם דיסקים של Blu-Ray רגיל. בעתיד הלא רחוק נוכל גם להקליט על הדיסק 400 ג"ב שזו כמות מידע מטורפת.