Toshiba three-layer disc supports DVD and HD DVD

Stan Beer
Monday, 11 September 2006 21:27

Your IT - Home IT

Toshiba and Memory-Tech have jointly announced a new single-sided three-layer disc that is compatible with both DVD and high definition HD DVD players.

• Announcements

The novel discs can have either two layers of HD DVD and one layer of DVD or the reverse. This means that movie companies can package two versions of the same movie in each format if they so desire and the discs can be played on either a standard DVD player as well as an HD DVD player.

Previously, HD DVD discs could not be played on a standard DVD player but a DVD can be played on either an HD DVD player or its rival high definition Blu-ray player

The new discs can support up to 30GB of HD DVD and 4.7GB of DVD. While the capacity of the HD DVD is still lower than the 50GB available with Blu-ray discs, Sony and its partners have yet to come up with an equivalent hybrid Blu-ray and DVD combo disc.