Toshiba Follows HD DVD Party Line to Refute Panasonic on 45-GBs Feasibility
Toshiba Fri. followed the HD DVD party line to repudiate Panasonics claims to the major studios -- first reported in Consumer Electronics Daily (CED June 2 p1) -- that no manufacturing feasibility has been established for the replication of triple-layer 45-GB HD DVD ROM discs. But its rebuttal didnt specifically respond to Panasonics allegations that not only does the 45-GB HD DVD require tolerances unheard of in the replication world, its based on manufacturing processes that havent been developed yet.
Panasonic has told the studios the triple-layer 45-GB requires ultra accuracy in production and must be within tolerances of plus or minus one micron. By contrast, Panasonic has said, tolerances of 10-30 microns were demonstrated for DVD manufacturing in the 1990s, and of 3 microns for Blu-ray in the last 5 years. Panasonic was instrumental in developing the 0.6" form factor for the current DVD, but has become perhaps the staunchest pro-ponent of Blu-Rays 0.1" form factor over HD DVDs 0.6.
Toshiba said the central fact of HD DVD is that all such discs share the same basic structure as current DVDs. We have already amply proved the ability to produce HD DVD discs at a reasonable cost and at practical yield rates, Toshiba said. The 45-GB disc in particular shares the same production advantages as other HD DVD discs, and its production process using a soft-stamper is basically the same as for todays process-proven, dual-layer DVD-R discs, Toshiba said. So Blu-rays claim that the 45-GB must be built to tolerances unachievable today is completely misleading as regards the larger picture, Toshiba said. As evidence of the 45-GBs feasibility, Memory-Tech, Japans largest independent replicator, has announced full confidence in the practicality of manufacturing 45-GB discs, based on their abundant expertise and experience in HD DVD production, Toshiba said.
Toshiba said it long has conducted thorough studies into the practicability of 0.1" discs, having announced development of rewritable 0.1 discs and demonstrating them at the Jan. 2002 CES. But from our extensive experiments and studies with our partners, we have since selected the 0.6mm disc structure as the most practical technology for the future, while 0.1mm will remain in a laboratory for a long time, it said. We believe a sincere format argument should be made based on sufficient experiences of both disc structures, or by an objective disc replicator.
The company said it was hard to understand Panasonics claim that Blu-ray is based on technology proven practicable in the last 5 years. If that were the case, BD would surely have established volume production capabilities a long time ago, Toshiba said. Another Panasonic contention was the claim that dual-layer HD DVDs couldnt be produced at costs on par with those of regular dual-layer DVDs. However, manufacturability of dual-layer HD DVD discs has been already proved, Toshiba said. Memory-Tech, for example, has produced over a million discs so far on its HD DVD/DVD compatible lines, at a current production yield of 90-95%, which is almost the same as that of DVD. HD DVD uses the same disc material as DVD, and the current production cycle time of dual-layer HD DVD-ROM disc is 2.8 seconds against DVD's 2.4 to 2.6 seconds.
Toshiba said the production cost of dual-layer HD DVD will be 10-15% higher than for a dual-layer DVD in the beginning, but the disparity will decrease as volume increases. At last months Media-Tech Expo in Las Vegas, Toshiba said, leading replication equipment suppliers such as Singulus, M2 and Unaxis announced they were starting to sell HD DVD-ready, DVD replication machines, and they represented that their machines support dual-layer HD DVD. This is a clear fact to prove the manufacturability of dual-layer HD DVD discs, it said.
