Verbatim produces caddy-free media

EVERY FIRST GENERATION of new optical media comes in a protective plastic casing, or caddy. Even on Computex in Taipei, we have seen the Blu-ray mediums hidden inside the protective casings, but that is no more - users will probably be saved from the whole caddy confusion.

The reason for plastic casing is pretty understandable: to protect first generation recordable surfaces. However, Verbatim has developed its own marchitecture, ScratchGuard. This fancy name with a capital G in the middle because it's traditional, is nothing more but a hard coating which sits on the top of the Blu-ray medium, keeping the recordable layer safe from damage. Hopefully.

Verbatim is currently mass producing both Blu-ray BD-R, BD-RE (Recordable) and HDVD-R media, which are scheduled to hit stores sometime during this month. The capacity of BD-R/RE mediums is 25 gigs, while HDVD-R is set at 15 GB. Verbatim plans to make dual-layer Blu-ray and HD-DVD mediums by the end of the year, effectively doubling the capacity to 50 GB for Blu-ray and 30 gigs for HD-DVD standard.

However, the presence of BD-R, BD-RE and HDDVD-R will be greatly influenced by the price of Blu-ray/HD-DVD recorders. The cads. µ