Blu-ray Dimensions

There is an interesting article in CDINFO.COM about Panasonic’s development of 8x BD-R media.  I’m particularly interested in Mr. Hiroyuki Hasegawa, General manager of Technology Group, Media Business Unit, Device Business Group, at Panasonic Corps’s AVC Networks Company views on LTH Blu-ray recordable.  LTH is short for ‘Low to High’ and it uses an organic dye like the dye used in recordable DVDs.  The Panasonic team points out that LTH Blu-ray is only capable of 2x recording.  Panasonic has decided to stick with inorganic because of high capacity, high reliability low cost, light resistance and longevity. According to the article Mr. Hasegawa said “From our environmental acceleration test, Panasonic BD-R shows archival reliability of more than fifty (50) years.” and goes on to point out that organic dye has less light resistance then non-organic. The CDRINFO article goes on to quote Mr. Hasegawa stating “Consequently Panasonic doesn’t think LTH media will become a mainstream product for Blu-ray.”

This comes as somewhat of a relief because LTH Blu-ray is not supported on current North American or European systems.  The confusion to the market is extreme and should be avoided at all costs.  There are several companies that have released LTH recordable Blu-ray media in Japan including Taiyo Yuden. As I understand it there is some hope that the current DVD coating systems could be used for  Blu-ray recordable production (LTH technology) but it has some issues including dye stability, low throughput, low capacity and longevity.  That is not a good mix for archive optical media.