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KMP Media has announced their new KODAK Preservation CD-R and DVD-R media. According to their press release, these 24-karat gold discs can store digital data for 80 to 300 years.
New 24-karat gold CD-Rs and DVDs that extend the storage life of data, music and images for many decades are being introduced by KMP Media, LLC of Rochester, NY. Operating under trademark license from Eastman Kodak Company, KMP Media is marketing them as the KODAK Preservation CD-R and the KODAK Preservation DVD (-R).

"The gold Preservation CD-R can safely store digital data for up to 300 years," said Steve Mizelle, President of KMP Media. "The gold Preservation DVD (-R) protects videos and other very large digital files for 80 to 100 years. This is especially important for consumers trying to save precious photos, critical data, music or movies."
KMP Media's KODAK Preservation CD-R and DVD-R media is available now in both jewel cases and spindles. More information can be found here. Add a comment

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Plextor Japan officially announced the PlexWriter Premium2 this morning. Like the original Premium, this new 52/32/52 CD-RW supports many of Plextor's advanced features, including GigaRec, VariRec, Silent-Mode and Q-Check. Most surprising is that the Premium2 supports Yamaha's AudioMASTER technology.


Writing Speeds: 52x, 48x (CAV), 40x, 32x (P-CAV), 20x, 16x, 8x, 4x, 2x (CLV)
ReWriting Speeds: 32x, 24x (P-CAV), 10x, 4x (CLV)
Read Speeds: 50x, 40x, 32x, 24x (CAV), 8x, 4x (CLV)
Supported Formats: CD-DA､ CD-Extra､ CD-ROM Mode-1､ Mix CD､ CD-ROM XA､ Photo-CD､ Video-CD､ CD-I Multi session､ CD TEXT､ UDF
Recording Modes: Track at Once, Disc at Once, Session at Once, Packet Writing, Multi-Session, CD-MRW
Average Access Time: 65ms
Buffer: 8MB
The Premium2 is scheduled to hit the Japanese market at the end of April and will cost about 19,800 Yen ($168US). At this point, we have not heard when the Premium2 will be available in the US. Knowing Plextor America, it will probably be some time before it shows up over here. Additional information, including a full list of specs, can be found on Plextor Japan's website. Add a comment

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The DVD+RW Alliance has announced that version 1.0 of the Double Layer DVD+RW specifications have been finalized and are ready to be distributed to licensees. Here's part of their press release:
The DVD+RW Alliance, a voluntary association of industry-leading personal computer, optical storage and consumer electronics manufacturers that support the Plus format for DVD recording, has announced the release of version 1.0 specifications for 2.4X rewriting on Double Layer DVD+RW media by HP, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media/Verbatim, Royal Philips Electronics, Ricoh, Sony Corporation, Thomson Inc. and Yamaha.

DVD+RW media and writers are designed to rewrite up to a full 8.5 GB DVD+RW. The new 2.4X DVD+RW Double Layer discs will be based on new phase-change materials, which enable writing on both the semi-transparent layer 0 and the more reflective layer 1.

Due to its special characteristics, the new DVD+RW Double Layer media will only be read and write compatible with new specially designed recorders and read out devices. The read out reflectivity on both layers of the new media is very low when compared with traditional single layer DVD+RW media. Red laser reflectivity is specified between 5 and 10 percent for the new media and 15 to 20 percent for traditional single layer media.
The DVD+RW Alliance has not announced when Double Layer DVD+RW media will be available, but now that the specifications have been completed, it will only be a matter of time. If you'd like to read more, the entire press release can be found here. Add a comment

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Bad news for consumers. Digitimes has reported that CMC Magnetics expects the quotes for DVD+R/-R and CD-R discs to increase in the 3Q of this year.
Quotes for DVD+R/-R and CD-R discs will increase slightly in the third quarter, as utilization rates are currently running at 100%, according to Robert Wong, chairman of CMC Magnetics. However, Wong declined to estimate how much prices will rise, as the outcome of an anti-dumping investigation currently being conducted by the European Union (EU) will affect price changes as well.
The article also mentions that quotes will most likely rise again in the 4Q due to a seasonal peak in demand. If you'd like to read more, head on over to DigiTimes. Add a comment

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According to The Boston Globe, a company called Euclid Discoveries has invented a new video-compression technology that can shrink a full-length movie down so that it is only 50MB in size.
As a result, Euclid Discoveries says a full-length movie that requires 700 megabytes of storage when compressed using MPEG-4 would use just 50 megabytes when compressed with EuclidVision. At that size, 14 movies could fit on a standard CD-ROM disk. As for video downloading, it would take an hour for someone with a 1.5 megabit-per-second broadband connection to download a 700-megabyte file. But 50 megabytes would take less than five minutes.
If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
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