DVD-RW DL and HD DVD-RR new formats on DVD forum's roadmap

DVD forum did a presentation of recent standardization work and future roadmaps for the organization’s formats at a conference held in Tokyo yesterday. On the agenda were of course the HD DVD format but also faster DVD-R DL and DVD-RAM speeds as well as information about the DVD-RW DL format:

HD DVD will get a second rewritable format called HD DVD-RR, as in ReRecordable. The previously announced HD DVD-RW format is more or less like an HD DVD-RAM format while the HD DVD-RR format will share more properties with the HD DVD-R/ROM formats. Supposedly HD DVD-RR will be easier to make in a DL version than HD DVD-RW too. The names are quite confusing though…
Region coding, managed copies and AACS were also topics discussed. Region coding will not be a part of AACS and might not be incorporated to the HD DVD format at all. The specifications for AACS are not final yet so exact details of how managed copies will work were not disclosed.
8x DVD-R DL was approved in September and work on the specifications for 12x speed is expected to start later this year.16x DVD-RAM was also approved in September. The media will only be compatible with 6x and higher speeds and hence not be writable with any of the current DVD-RAM burners.
Draft version 1.9 of DVD-RW DL specifications are under development and the final 2.0 version is expected to be ready in late Q1 or early Q2 next year. The write speed in the basic specifications will be 2x. The presented specifications for DVD-RW DL show however a reflectivity of only 5-10 % which is way below the 18-30 % required for matching the DVD-ROM DL specifications.

You can find more info at the Japanese website AV Watch (Babelfish translation).

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