Hitachi-LG announces 4x Blu-ray drive

Hitachi-LG Data Storage has developed the half-height Blu-ray disc drive GBW-H10N for built-in use in PCs that achieves 4x high-speed recording for the first time in the industry. Production is slated to begin in late July 2006. This product or so-called super-multi Blu-ray disc drive can record and play back Blu-ray format discs BD-R and BD-RE, play back BD-ROM, record and play back all-format DVDs (DVD-RAM/R/RW, +R/RW), as well as CD-R and CD-RW, and play back DVD-ROM and CD-ROM.

The GBW-H10N can record and play back 25GB large-capacity Blu-ray discs BD-R and BD-RE suitable for storing high-quality images. For BD-R in particular, this product achieves quadrupled data transfer speed as fast as 144 Mbps for the first time in the industry. Video data saved on a HDD can be transferred to a disc and a large volume of data backed up in a short time. Moreover, the BD-RE 2x recording speed is realized as the currently highest speed in the industry.

Also for DVD/CD other than Blu-ray discs, the GBW-H10N provides recording and playback functions similar to those of the HLDS conventional super-multi disc drive. Only with this drive can you enjoy 12 types of BD/DVD/CD discs.

By combining the technologies of affiliates, HLDS commercialized the product through comprehensive development starting from key components to the final end product. To support BD/DVD/CD in particular, HLDS newly developed a highly functional optical head and a DSP capable of high-level signal processing in support of various recording formats. In addition to these key components, the LD driver with write strategy, buffer underrun error prevention, and many other technologies accumulated in conventional super-multi drive development were adopted to ensure very stable recording and playback.

The main technologies developed and employed to realize this drive are as follows:

• 4x High-speed Recording (Blu-ray Disc)

Laser driver IC for data transfer speed as fast as 144 Mbps
was developed, with a high-output blue laser to accommodate
the quadrupled speed employed, and the write-strategy
optimized to realize 4x recording on BD-R (SL). Thus, the
recording time is reduced by half of that of 2x recording.

• CAV High-speed Playback Up to 4.8x (Blu-ray Disc)

The adaptive equalization and adaptive Viterbi decoding of
high-speed playback signals achieves low-error playback. As a
result, BD-ROM and BD-R (closed disc) can be played back using
4.8x CAV even faster than recording.

• Highly functional Pickup and DSP

The recording and playback of various discs were realized by
developing a new single-lens 3LD pickup capable of recording
and playing BD, DVD, and CD and a new highly integrated,
highly functional DSP that integrates conventional DVD and CD
signal processing, as well as BD signal processing.

Recording Speed

BD BD-R SL 4x
BD-RE SL 2x
DVD DVD-R SL Max. 12x PCAV
DL 4x
DVD-RW 6x
DVD-RAM 3-5x (PCAV)
+R/RW +R SL Max. 12x PCAV
DL 4x
+RW 8x (ZCLV)
CD CD-R 8x
CD-RW 10x

Reading Speed

BD BD-R SL Max. 4.8x
BD-RE SL 2x
BD-ROM SL Max. 4.8x
DL Max. 4x
DVD DVD-ROM SL Max. 16x
DL Max. 8x
DVD-R SL Max. 10x
DL Max. 8x
DVD-RW Max. 10x
DVD-RAM 3-5x (PCAV)
+R/RW +R SL Max. 10x
DL Max. 8x
+RW Max. 10x
CD CD-ROM/R Max. 40x
CD-RW Max. 40x