TDK undresses Blu-ray discs

Because of the higher data density, Blu-ray discs needed to be protected with cartridges. Heise reports, that by joining the Blu-ray Disc Founders, TDK have given their Hard Coating Technology to this group, allowing to build Blu-ray discs without cartridges

With the new Hard-Coating, Blu-ray discs are even more resistant against scratches or dirt than DVDs. The new TDK-coating consists of a 98 µm thick cover layer and a 2 µm thick hardcoat that is applied with a spin-coating. Until now expensive adhesive film had to be used that was applied by hand. According to TDK the automatic production process is ready, so mass production could start anytime now. Not only the movie industry, but also Sony welcomed the new technique, so it's very probable, that future Blu-ray recorders from Sony will work without cartridges. It's not clear wether all three Blu-ray formats (BD-ROM, BD-R and BD-RE) will be available without cartridges. Possibly the rewritable BD-RE will continue to stay inside of a cartridge.

Many manufacturers plan to start the introduction with the soccer championships in 2006 because of the expected demand for HDTV.

I was already surprised, that these discs should be enclosed in cartridges. With this progress manufacturers can continue to use the current case designs for their new drives.

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Source: Heise.de