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Optical Storage

20 January 2007

The Japanese newspaper, Shinano Mainichi Shimbun, has reported that Shinanokenshi, Plextor's parent company, plans to exit the CD/DVD drive business. Due to competition from Korean and Taiwanese manufacturers, the company has experienced declining profits. As a result, its optical drive business will be reduced to about 10% of what it was at its peak. Translated from Japanese:

It was announced that Shinanokenshi (Ueda city) assumed that the achievement got depressed due to the earnings deterioration of the disk drive business for the personal computer on the 19th, and reorganized the business including the voluntary retirement recruitment that became the first in this company. This business reduces greatly because the price fell sharply because of the competition of South Korea and a Taiwanese manufacturer. The closing of accounts at the period on February, 2007 is expected to fall to the final deficit at two terms, and strengthens the development of the high-value-added commodity such as motors for the car while the review of a domestic and foreign production base and the staff assignment is advanced.

According to the article, the Plextor brand will continue but will focus on industrial equipment and audio equipment for the visually handicapped.

While this news doesn't surprise me, we have not heard anything from Plextor's American or European subsidiaries yet. It's possible that they may remain in the optical drive business by rebadging drives or focusing on Blu-ray but at this point, we'll have to wait and see. Thanks to WesleyTech.com for pointing out this news. Add a comment

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Optical Storage

17 January 2007

Lite-On recently unveiled their latest Super AllWrite drive, the LH-20A1S. Along with support for Serial ATA, the drive features 20x DVD±R, 8x DVD±R DL and 12x DVD-RAM writing speeds. Here are some of the LH-20A1S's specs:

Writing Speeds: DVD±R: 20x Max DVD±R DL: 8x Max DVD+RW: 8x Max DVD-RW: 6x Max DVD-RAM 12x Max CD-R: 48x Max CD-RW: 32x Max

Read Speeds: DVD-ROM: 16x Max CD-ROM: 48x Max Access Times: DVD-ROM: 160ms CD-ROM: 160ms

No word on pricing or availability yet. As we find out more we'll let you know. Until then, more information can be found on Lite-On's website. Add a comment

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Optical Storage

18 January 2007

Verbatim's parent company, Mitsubishi Chemical, has announced that they be releasing their new HD DVD-R media for PC data on the Japanese market on January 25th. Here's part of their press release, translated from Japanese:

This corporation in 2006 July sold the HD DVD-R disk for video video recording for the first time in the world, hi-vision image such as terrestrial digital broadcast while it was hi-vision picture quality actualized the fact that it leaves to the disk. This time it continues to this, adjusts to the sale of the corresponding equipment and sells the HD DVD-R disk for the PC data. As for this product, we answer the various demands of the customer even in the world of PC where in the future increase of the data quantity is expected more and more the capacity of single sided 1 layer 15GB with, high picture quality including handling the image contents, as the bulk media whose reliability is high.

Mitsubishi has not announced a price. However, according to AV Watch, it is expected to cost about 1500 Yen. If you'd like to read more, the entire press release can be found here. Add a comment

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Optical Storage

16 January 2007

Philips has reportedly filed a complaint with the European Union against the Taiwanese government. According to DigiTimes, the complaint was due to Taiwan granting compulsory licensing of Philips' CD-R patents to local disc manufacturers like GigaStorage.

Royal Philips Electronics Taiwan confirmed that it has filed a complaint with the European Union against the Taiwan government in response to Taiwan's granting compulsory licensing of Philips' CD-R patents to local firms, which is in violation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) TRIPS (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights) agreement.

The case is a result of a July 2004 ruling by the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO), under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), that called for the compulsory licensing of five Philip's CD-R disc patents to Gigastorage, a second-tier optical disc maker in Taiwan. TIPO based its decision on the fact that Philips had refused to renegotiate the CD-R fixed royalty charge rate of US$0.035 per disc, despite the fact that OEM prices had fallen from US$5 in 1997 to US$0.19 in the first half of 2003.

TIPO claimed that under Taiwan patent law, it had to balance the considerations of intellectual property rights with the promotion of domestic Taiwan industrial development, with the perceived unreasonable royalties charges tipping the case in GigaStorage's favor.

It's always amazing to see how far Philips will go to get their licensing fees. Gigastorage probably won't be affected by this anyway, as they no longer export their discs to the US and the European markets, where Philips' patents apply. If you'd like to read more, head on over to DigiTimes. Add a comment