The DVD+RW Alliance announced the release of the version 1.0 specifications for 2.4X rewriting on Double Layer DVD+RW media by HP, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media/Verbatim, Royal Philips Electronics, Ricoh, Sony Corporation, Thomson Inc. and Yamaha.
With a capacity of up to 8.5 GB at 2.4X speed the new discs are based on new phase-change materials, which enable writing on both the semi-transparent layer 0 and the more reflective layer 1.
Unfortunately, due to special characteristics, the new double layer media will only be read and write compatible with new specially designed recorders and read out devices. The read out reflectivity on both layers of the new media is very low when compared to single layer DVD+RW media. Red laser reflectivity is specified between 5 and 10 percent for the new media and 15 to 20 percent for traditional single layer media.
The new Double Layer DVD+RW specification includes 8cm disc format.
The DVD+R/+RW format is capable of recording up to 8.5 gigabytes of digital video, images or data. This equates to the storage capacity of up to eleven CD discs and the potential to store thousands of digital photographs or nearly doubling digital video recording time, compared to single layer disc.
