Toshiba’s new 36GB DVD

Toshiba has developed a dual-layer rewritable optical disc for use with the blue-laser-based AOD (Advanced Optical Disc) format that it is developing with NEC.

The disc — which will be introduced at the Optical Storage 2003 conference in Vancouver, Canada, next week — is the same physical size as a CD or DVD and is capable of storing up to 36GB of data. It is one of two rewritable disc types that make up the initial AOD format proposal, the other being a single-sided disc capable of storing 20GB. The AOD format also includes 15GB and 30GB read-only disc types.

That compares to between 4.7GB and 9.2GB on a DVD disc.

The AOD format was proposed by Toshiba and NEC to the DVD Forum earlier this year as a next-generation replacement for the existing DVD format. It will compete in the market with Blu-ray, which is also based on blue-laser technology and is being developed by a consortium of nine consumer electronics companies: Sony, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (Panasonic), Philips Electronics, Pioneer Electronics, Samsung Electronics Co., Sharp, and Thomson Multimedia.