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Matsushita Reduces Production Costs of Blue Ray Discs |
Listed in: Blu-Ray, News Tags: ps3 news
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd (owners of the Panasonic brand) have established a new technology which will lower the production costs of next generation Blu-Ray discs (BD) to almost the same level as current DVD production costs.
The new technique improves the use of resin which is applied to form a protective coating on the disc surface, a step in the manufacturing process responsible for Blu-Ray discs’ high production costs. Matsushita will use trial manufacturing lines in their American labs to accumulate manufacturing knowledge, with the prospect that in only one year from now, Blu-Ray disk mass production will be possible at almost the same costs as current DVD mass production.
blu ray disk
The Blu-Ray format is being supported by Sony who plan to ship their next-generation Playstation 3 console with a Blu-Ray disc drive. Image © impress.co.jp
Matsushita and Sony’s efforts with Blu-Ray are in direct competition with the HD-DVD format backed by the Toshiba camp. In comparison with Toshiba’s HD-DVD, Blu-Ray production cost was considered higher, but with Matsushita’s new technology this cost difference may have been eliminated. The competing camps have not yet reached an agreement that could solve the impending multiformat war, but even if both standards coexist in the future, Matsushita believes the Blu-Ray disc may be ahead of the competition.
For optical discs like Blu-Ray, applying the transparent protective coating uniformly on the data layer is the most important aspect of the manufacturing process. When the liquid resin is applied, centrifugal forces cause the layer to become thicker on the outside and thinner on the inside. In the case of Blu-Ray discs, which have a thinner coating than other optical discs, the information could not be read accurately if this method were used. For this reason, until recently, a pre-manufactured resin sheet had to be mounted onto the Blu-Ray disc, resulting in production costs 2 to 3 times higher than those of regular DVDs.
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Comments
Score another for Sony? :)
I'm very suprised that the production cost of BD could even be lowered to that of current-generation DVDs. Pretty amazing stuff.
So yeah, in your face, HD-DVD.
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I love it finally MS fanboys wont be able to talk any trash about blu ray, the only reason they did is because their worried that ps3 games will be way bigger and their only defense was how expensive it was to produce blu ray. Well you got nuttin now just tears of sorrow.
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^-^
Nice!! Now PS3 will own for game cost too!!
In agreeance with you guys
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Wow now that's an old picture. i'd thought they were beyond the cartridge by now....
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12:35, no, thats a blu-ray disk. their alot like UMD's for the PSP.
Now, we just need to lower the price for the drive inside of the PS3 and we will be all set :)
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Well...
now we just need developers who will actually make a game that would use the blu disk to its fullest ability...
and right now...
not many games that are for the ps3 seem like they can...
seeing as not a single was is playable.
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..."it's fullest ability"? What the heck?! It has more capacity you fool, that's it. It's called 1080 freaking p high-resolution video. FMV will take up massive quantities of space (FF13 anyone?....gosh...13...that's a large number).
As for the lower cost of production...this is amazing. The high cost of production was the main reason several companies backed HD-DVD. Well, also because conversion of current DVD production factories to make HD-DVD is much cheaper than conversion to produce Blu-ray. But this lower cost trounces half of the HD-DVD camp's argument. Absolutely amazing. Now they have very little reason to *not* come to a compromise with the Blu-ray camp while adopting the Blu-ray's physical format. Thankyou Matsu****a!!!!
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Sonic i dont think they will make a FF13.
They take luck very seriosly in Japan, Buildings without a 13th floor etc.
Oh and
Lower production costs is good for the consumer
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don't give me a headach Vecha
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Sorry to do this to you guys but there's a slight wrinkle in your plan...
'with the prospect that in only one year from now'
So manufacturers either buy new kit now (at a cost of possibly $20 million per factory), stamp out 2-3x more expensive discs for a year and then upgrade again (at a lower cost though)...
Or just wait a year until this new kit becomes available.
Could mean that until 2007 Blu-ray discs are quite a bit more expensive to produce.
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Vecha:Xbot already in denial
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The technology will not take a year to be implementable, the technology will be refined to its optimum performance in 1 year. Techniques to make CDs (and to a lesser extent, DVDs) have changed numorous times over the years without massive costs to production, in fact, its been rather the oposite. Ever noticed how CDs used to be sold as miracle discs that just DIDNT STOP WORKING? now you just need to rub a feather on them and they are stuffed. WHy? Companies are constantly finding cheaper ways to utilise technology. They will with this technique, that will likely cost more than a DVD, but as it is perfected, it will eventually require less expensive resources, and the costs will lower. Thats what that means.
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To the two above me.
Even though it will take one year for costs to be near the same as current DVDs, its still a huge plus that they will be that cheap to produce. ur acting like since its going to take a year the advantage doesnt exist.
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plus who cares if the bottoms really scratch easily... can you see the picture?
The discs come in their own cases just like UMDs... scratching won't be a problem as long as you're reasonably careful.
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they're supposedly coated with scratch/fingerprint resistant coating on the disc and NO THEY ARE NOT IN A CASE. Look at the latest pictures from the actual organization at blu-ray.com. If they were in a case, this would make it incredibly hard for sony to make the ps3 backwards compatable.
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Remember what happened the last time there was a format war?? Sony's superior product the BetaMax was beaten out by VHS. Im hoping this doesnt happen again. Although the reason BetaMax lost was because VHS was able to hold more on it. Well it seems Bluray has that advantage this time around. Nearly 40% more space. Hopefully this will ultimately decide who wins this battle
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Sony's doing pretty good with the UMD and its not like its the only one developing Blu-ray. Also only BD-R, RW etc will be in cases... I think.
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During the betamax wars, sony
A) Didnt have the power it has in the cinema industry, and
B) Forced companies to get their movies approved through them (like videogames). One example is the exclusion of pornography from Betamax. With blu-ray, this is not the case.
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as has been previously stated in this discussion, the blu-ray discs are not contained within a protective casing. this would make it very hard for sony to make one drive load cased discs and regular discs while still maintaining a smallish form factor.
otherwise though, I think sony has built a rep since betamax for developing media formats that their support will thus put the blu-ray coallition format (it's not a sony propietary format -- they didn't invent it) in the lead
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yeah, sorry... I didn't really think about the loading slot... so I guess they ARENT in cases after all... oh well... it wouldve been kinda cool.
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Hey sonic
i mean fill the disk up and actually have developers to create a game that will actually use the disk
don't call me a fool you ****er.
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and what makes me a Xbox fanboy? what if i'm a nitendo fan boy...or what if i hate consoles all together and stick with comps...seeing as i only deal with idiots when it comes with consoles
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are you a guy though?
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anyways, why stick with computers? Ther're amazingly expansive to keep up a perfect one, and as soon as Next-gen sytems come out, computers will have less power... for awhile. Also PS3's take mouse and keyboard as well if u prefer thouse as controls. And I have to agree w/ Sonic.
And I haven't seen you (Vecha) on many other updates sites...unless ur entering as anonymous... so why only diss Sony and not support another system? After all, sony is packing most power in this war so far =D
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Hey Vecha
Now ps3 can have 8 times more textures( and higher resulution)then PS2. so ps3 games will be around 20GB when it has been out for a while.
There won't be games that use more then 25GB. the first games will be on DVD9. The first PS2 games were on a CD witch has 700mb of space.
Mayby FF13 will be on a 50 blu disc, but it doesn't mean that the game uses 50gb.
Don't come with a BS response you moth3r****3r
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Blu-Ray discs can be accessed more quickly then DVD's, so i see Blu-Ray discs being used for games just for the sake of speed (regardless of if they need the space or not)
It will be a big help for games that stream from the disc constantly, and also to eliminate load times.
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thanks for supporting me, ps3, and blu-ray and not being like those fanboys who pots BS! thanks again guys
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