Ricoh to show new DVD writers and media at CeBIT

March 16, 2004

Ricoh has announced that it will introduce two new DVD writers, the MP5308D and the RW8165A, at the upcoming CeBIT fair. The MP5308D is a half-height 8x dual format DVD burner and RW8165A is a slim 4x DVD+R/RW writer. Both drives will be available in external versions too. Under the banner 'Future technologies" Ricoh will also show a 'first glimpse of forthcoming developments such as DVD+R Double Layer 8.5 Gbyte drive and media, as well as DVD+R 16x and DVD+RW 8x media".

HANNOVER, Germany (March 18, 2004) '“ Ricoh Company, Ltd, a co-technology developer of
the CD-RW and DVD+R/DVD+RW formats, announced its next generation DVD
writable media. The new DVD+R DL media increases the maximum recording
capacity to 8.5GB and is compatible with legacy playback devices. In
addition, a DVD+R/+RW drive which can record on DVD+R DL media has also
been developed. For high speed recordable media technology, 16X speed
DVD+R and 8X DVD+RW media will offer greater convenience for CE and IT
users. Ricoh will continue developing similar technologies in the near
future.

Double recording layer technology has already proved itself. It is now in the pre-production stage. With its long experience producing CD-R/RW to DVD+R/+RW media, Ricoh is now developing a unique system for achieving high volume production. The double layer related products should be available in summer 2004.

**New Ricoh DVD writers at CeBIT**
Specs.	MP5308D(-EX)	RW8165A/P
Write speed
DVD+R/RW	8x/4x	4x/2.4x
DVD-R/RW	8x/4x	-
CD-R/RW	32x/16x	16x/8x
Read speed
CD/DVD-ROM	40x/12x	24x/8x
Buffer size	2 MB	8 MB
Interface	ATAPI / USB2.0 & Firewire	ATAPI / USB2.0 & Firewire

It looks like the MP5308D/MP5308-EX DVD writers are OEM NEC ND-2500A drives so it will be interesting to see if this means that Ricoh will only make slim type drives now or if the coming double layer writer will be designed by Ricoh. The complete press releases from Ricoh are available here.

Source: just now press