Toshiba, NEC rally support for HD-DVD

Toshiba and NEC gave members of the press a demonstration of a new and improved version of their proposal at a recent press conference here.

HD-DVD backers at the press event, who also included disc replicators Cinram and Memory-Tech, said the advantages of their format compared to the rival Blu-ray Disc include the use of two bonded discs with a data layer 0.6mm below the surface. This will allow for more cost-effective read/write optics and will enable current manufacturing equipment to be used for HD-DVD.

The HD-DVD discs also will not require caddies to protect the media from fingerprints or scratches. This would enable easy integration with PCs, particularly slim-drives required for notebooks. Blu-ray disc backers also claim that their prerecorded media