Assorted news......
LG Develops High-Definition Video Disc Recorder
nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com
January 5, 2001 (SEOUL) -- LG Electronics Inc. said it has developed a high-definition
video disc recorder, claiming it is the first of its kind in the world.
LG said its VDR images are three times clearer than those of digital versatile discs and
running at a maximum data speed of 24Mbps. The disc recorder can also be accessed to
HDTV or a set-top box.
The Korean company also said it soon plans to complete development of a 18GB optical
disc which is much thinner than conventional CDs.
(Maeil Business Newspaper, Korea)
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Sony Looks to 40GB Phase-Change Disk
nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com
Sony Corp is now defining the 5.25-inch Ultra Density Optical (UDO)
standard for phase-change optical disks, offering 20 Gbytes of recording
capacity per side, for a total of 40 Gbytes. The firm plans to complete
standardization by spring, with productization in the second half of 2002.
It is positioned as the successor to the 9.1-Gbyte (double-side capacity)
5.25-inch magneto-optical (MO) disk to be productized early this year and
will use the same cartridge and disk external dimensions. Areal recording
density was increased by application of some technologies originally
developed for the DVR-blue specification, now being formulated jointly with
Royal Philips Electronics.
The drive will use a 405nm blue-violet laser diode and 0.85 numerical aperture
(NA) object lens. The media will probably be a sandwiched structure, using
disks with 0.1mm thick cover layers.
The firm will prepare both a rewritable specification and an appendable disk
specification using the phase-change film. The track pitch is 0.33micron
(land-groove recording), providing slightly more leeway than the 0.30micron
of DVR-blue. The minimum recording mark length is 0.13micron, the record
encoding is (1, 7) run length limited (RLL), and the data transfer rate from 4 to
8 Mbytes/s.
(January 2001 Issue, Nikkei Electronics Asia)
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DataPlay Adopts Miniature Optical Head
nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com
DataPlay, Inc will use an optical head with dimensions on the millimeter-order
in its compact optical disk drive scheduled to be released this spring. Prism,
object lens and other optical components are the size of conventional chip
components, and all mounted on the same board. The laser diode is also
mounted as a bare chip. The drive uses the same type of seek operation with
arm structure as found in most hard disk drives.
Since the optical head is moved farther inside the optical disk area than
conventional optical pickups, the approach is especially effective for very small
drives.
Normally, the smaller an optical disk is made, the utilization efficiency of the
disk area drops. This is because coils for tracking and focusing are usually
positioned around the object lens, the optical pickup external diameter is
increased, making it difficult for the object lens to approach the center of the
disk. With the arm structure, essentially all the area can be utilized for
recording, except the clamp region needed to link the disk and the rotating
shaft.
(January 2001 Issue, Nikkei Electronics Asia)
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And finally, in an attempt to eclipse the dismal performance of the NASDAQ......
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