British company New Media Enterprises says they’ve made a technical breakthrough to allow multi-layered DVD discs to be produced at only 150% the cost of current generation DVD discs. These multi-layered discs can have both Blu-ray and HD DVD layers on it, rendering the format wars pretty much moot from a media standpoint.
The company says they solved the problem of low yields, which means that of a certain number of discs made, many had to be thrown out. They also say that this patent doesn’t conflict with Warner Bros.’ patent for multiple technologies on a single disc. Warner patented the application, and New Media Enterprises patented the technology.
What does this mean to you? It means what whoever makes the better or cheaper players, Blu-ray or HD DVD, will be the one more consumers purchase.
New technology could nip DVD format war in the bud [Reuters]