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Overall PC market growth, driven by portable PCs, will give the worldwide CD/DVD market a moderately positive outlook in 2008 and lead to increased demand for slim drives. Despite the ramp of Blu-ray drives, DVD burners will continue to be the leading volume product until 2012. However, as the PC market's adoption of DVD burners becomes saturated and increasingly commoditized, Blu-ray adoption will accelerate in 2009 and Blu-ray drives will become the majority of the total market value in 2012.If you'd like to read more, the IDC's entire press release can be found here. Add a comment
"DVD burners will remain the bread-and-butter business for ODD vendors," said Wolfgang Schlichting, research director, Removable Storage at IDC. "Despite Blu-ray's win over HDD in the format war, Blu-ray drive adoption will be limited in 2008 because of their high price and only moderate consumer interest."
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Falcon Technologies International (FTI), the leading manufacturer of optical data storage discs for professional and archival applications, today introduced a complete line of FalconMedia Pro Century Gold CD-R and DVD-R media with specially-optimized 24k Gold reflective layer designs and formulations that offer ultra-long 300 and 100 year archival lifespans, respectively, based on accelerated aging tests.FalconMedia Pro Century discs are available now in spindles of 10 or 25, with optional inkjet and thermal printable surfaces. Full details can be found here. Add a comment
Like all FTI media, the discs deliver best-in-class recording performance and reliability. The discs' long archival capabilities make them the ideal solutions for a wide variety of applications, including the preservation of important documents such as company and government records, photographs and video files.
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Royal Philips Electronics on May 12 requested a local court in the Taipei area to place legal attachment on a Prodisc Technology factory located near Taipei to protect its claims on unpaid royalties, an extension of the provisional seizure of Prodisc's bank deposits that was earlier requested by Philips and approved by the court, according to industry sources in Taiwan.The article also mentions that Prodisc has proposed a solution to Philips in the hopes that they can settle the dispute and lift the provisional seizure. If you'd like to read more, head on over to DigiTimes. Add a comment
Philips' request for attachment on Prodisc's factory property was made mainly because Prodisc on May 9 placed an announcement in local Chinese language-language newspapers stating that Philips' royalty charge rates are unreasonably high and that the entire Philips royalty system is unfair due to Philips' being unable to impose charges on makers of blank CD-R discs in China and India, the sources pointed.
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No word yet on pricing or availability. As we find out more, we'll let you know. In the mean time, ASUS's entire press release can be found here. Add a comment
Catering to users that demand increased data storage, ASUS, a leading provider of high-performance optical storage devices, today announced the new DRW-20B1S/B1ST - an industry leading DVD rewriter that supports 12X DVD-RAM write, 20X DVD+/-R and 12X DVD+/-R double layer media sources. It also features Optimal Tuning Strategy - a technology that automatically adjusts burning for optimum disc backups; and E-Green Engine for great energy savings.
The ASUS DRW-20B1S/B1ST is equipped with an innovative feature - Optimal Tuning Strategy (OTS) that provides users with improved disc burning for better total write quality. With OTS, the drive will perform a test burning before really burning the disc, and OTS is intelligent enough to encompass both media and drive variations, as well as operating temperatures into its calculations - allowing it to provide the optimal write speeds to produce the optimal burning strategy for the new disc. After the disc is burnt, OTS memorizes the particular type of disc, and will utilize the same burning strategy when the same type of disc is used. This not only reduces the possibility to burn unplayable discs, it also provides high quality backups and improves compatibility so that the disc can more easily be read by other drives; as well as extends the lifetime of drives.
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With Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics having already launched 22x DVD burners, Sony and BenQ plan to launch competing products in July and the third quarter of 2008, respectively, according to industry sources in Taiwan.If history repeats itself, Sony's 22x DVD writer will most likely be based on a Samsung design. As far as the BenQ drive goes, this is probably a good indication that Lite-On will be introducing their own 22x DVD writer later this year. If you'd like to read more, the entire article is available at DigiTimes. Add a comment
BenQ will have Lite-On IT, the largest Taiwan-based maker of half-height optical disc drives, undertake ODM production of its 22x DVD burners, while Sony's will be produced by either Sony NEC Optiarc, a joint venture of Sony and NEC, or an ODM/OEM maker in Taiwan or South Korea, the sources indicated.
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To give you an idea of what to expect from Memorex's SimpleSave DVD media, I've put together a short article showing how to backup and restore your files using this technology. If you have any comments or questions, please leave them in the forum. Add a comment
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With the initial Veeza blank CD-R disc royalty contracts Royal Philips Electronics signed with Taiwan-based makers having expired in the second half of 2007, the company has been negotiating a renewal of the licensing with Taiwan makers and last week Daxon Technology was the first company to renew its license, according to industry sources in Taiwan.If you check Philips' Licensee Database, it appears that CMC, Ritek and Prodisc are not licensed for any recordable media. Could this mean that they have lost their licensing with Philips? I'm sure we'll find out eventually. If you'd like to read more, head on over to DigiTimes. Add a comment
Philips Intellectual Property & Standards in Taiwan has also confirmed the report.
The renewed licensed does not use the name Veeza, but conditions and licensing fees remain unchanged, with US$0.025 charged for a CD-R disc, the sources indicated.
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PC vendors are forecasting a price drop of 7-10% a quarter, with the price level for the fourth quarter of 2008 expected to be 30% lower than current prices, the sources noted. For example, international vendors expect ODM/OEM quotes for half-height BD-ROM drives to drop from US$95-100 currently to US$70 in the fourth quarter of 2008, the sources pointed out.While a price drop is inevitable, it may be worth waiting to see how things shake out. If you'd like to read more, head on over to DigiTimes. Add a comment
However, the cost of PUHs and other components of BD drives have risen a few times since the second half of 2007 and price hikes of another 5-10% are possible in the near-term, mainly due to price increases for materials, the sources explained.
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Falcon Technologies International (FTI), a leading manufacturer of optical data storage discs for professional and archival applications, today officially entered the U.S. market with the introduction of a complete line of superior quality optical recording media solutions, including CD-R, DVD-R single and dual layer, and Blu-ray BD-R and BD-RE Discs. FTI is dedicated to providing the best and most complete optical recording media solutions, developing and employing the most innovative recording media technologies, manufacturing processes and quality assurance procedures. The complete line of FTI’s FalconMedia Pro media products is available now from the company’s distribution center in Fremont, California.No word yet on pricing or availability. As we find out more, we'll let you know. In the mean time, FTI's entire press release can be found here. Add a comment
“Recognizing the demand for professional- and archival-use optical recording media that can outperform and outlast other products on the market, we have built our organization with an unyielding commitment to achieving industry-leading quality and consistency in every aspect of our business operations,” said Mr. Adel Michael, co-founder and CEO of Falcon Technologies International (FTI). “This dedication to quality is evident in the groundbreaking features and superb performance, durability and reliability of our professional optical disc recording media.”
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Lite-On IT is developing built-in Blu-ray Disc-(BD) ROM drives for the Microsoft Xbox 360 game console, according to industry sources. Lite-On declined to comment, citing client confidentiality.While Microsoft has denied that they will offer support for Blu-ray, the continuous stream of rumors indicate that an addon player is probably coming in time for the holidays. If you'd like to read more, head on over to DigiTimes. Add a comment
Lite-On's shipments of the BD ROMs to Microsoft will start in the second half of 2008, the sources added. Lite-On is currently one of the suppliers of Xbox 360-use internal DVD-ROM drives.
Microsoft has decided to switch to BD for its Xbox 360 game consoles after Toshiba announced to discontinue HD DVD, the sources said. The BD-ROM drives that Lite-On is developing for Microsoft are for the next-generation Xbox 360 game consoles, the sources said.
