Pioneer and Mitsubishi Kagaku Announce Use of Organic Dye Recording Film in Blu-ray Recordable Discs and Technology for Recordable Blu-ray Discs with Metal Nitride Film.

Tokyo, Japan, Oct 23, 2007 - (JCN Newswire) - Pioneer Corporation (TSE: 6773) and Mitsubishi Kagaku media Co., Ltd. have together succeeded in the commercialization of recordable Blu-ray Discs (BD-R) with organic dye in the recording layer, and also in developing technology for multiple layered, high speed recording for BD-R with metal nitride in the recording layer.

Both companies had been collaborating to develop BD-R with dye since 2004. With this development, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media was responsible for improving organic dye recording materials and producing sample discs, while Pioneer was responsible for evaluating the samples, as well as disc structure design based on verification and simulations for compatibility with disc drives. The synergy of these two areas of expertise has led to a successful development of the 2X organic dye BD-R.

Since the announcement[1] of the joint development in 2005, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media and Pioneer have also been promoting the standardization of organic dye recording media, and this spring, a recording format (Low to High Type format) for organic dye BD-R has been adopted into the BD-R Format Ver. 1.2[2].

With this standardization, the mass production of organic dye recording media has now become possible with BD-R. Discs with organic dye do not require large-scale investments in facilities so that the current coating facilities for CD-R and DVD-R can be used for BD production lines with only minor adjustments, making low priced discs a possibility.

Further, the development of high performance BD-R with double to multiple layered and high speed recording capability by using metal nitride has been pursued, and technology required for these multiple layered, high speed recording has been successfully developed.

Pioneer is the holder of the basic patent for the recording film, and has made many presentations at symposium such as ISOM[3] up to 2006. Additionally, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media has commenced the sale of the discs with this recording film as 2X BD-R as of July 2006.

Future Developments

Both companies will continue to improve specifications of BD-R with organic dye and metal nitride, and to contribute to the further development of the Blu-ray system by applying the technology on high speed recording, double layered media, and so on.

The development results were on display at CEATEC JAPAN 2007 in the Pioneer Corporation booth and the BDA[4] booth.

[1] "Successful Development of Next Generation Write-Once Discs Utilizing Organic Dyes in the Recording Layer; Disc Manufacturing using Spin-coating Process", announced June 9, 2005

[2] Adopted from April 2007

[3] Abbreviation of the International Symposium on Optical Memory

[4] Abbreviation of the Blu-ray Disc Association 

* Low to High Type (LTH TYPE): A laser beam causes the chemical and physical changes in the nature of the recording media where it hits when recording data onto optical discs. The data can be read utilizing the difference in optical reflectance between those sections that are changed and those that aren't. The optical reflectance prior to recording is low and that of after recording is high in the media with organic dye.

Additionally, for BD-R using the metal recording media currently in the market, a method is applied which makes the optical reflectance of the recorded section lower than that prior to recording (High to Low Type).

This press release is a translation from the Japanese originally published on September 18. For more information, please visit http://pioneer.jp/index-e.html

About Pioneer Corporation

Pioneer Corporation was founded in 1938 as a speaker manufacturer. Ever since, we have brought to market various revolutionary products based on our founding spirit of creating unprecedented forms of new value. These products include laser discs, car navigation systems, DVD recorders and plasma displays. Pioneer is determined to continue perfecting the myriad possibilities of sound, vision and information to indeed provide products and services that arouse emotion in people. For more information , please visit http://pioneer.jp.

Source: Pioneer Corporation

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Pioneer Corporation
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Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co., Ltd.
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Yukana Yamashita
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