Panasonic To Ship Form Factor-Standard Blu-ray Drive

Lucas123 writes "Panasonic plans to unveil the thinnest Blu-ray Disc drive made yet at the upcoming CES show. The drive is 9.5mm high, which allows it to fit into standard laptop form factors instead of requiring manufacturers to redesign systems to fit high-def DVD players as they've been doing. 'Panasonic has already begun offering samples of the drives to laptop makers with the hope that the companies will build it into new PCs.'"

Re:Speed

[timeOday]

So what data rate is 1x for Blu-Ray? I'd assume "x" is different than for, say, CDROM.

Re:Speed

[Guspaz]

While the media itself limited the recording speed in the past

The media itself limited recording speed in the past because the discs would shatter if you spun them too fast. It'd be nice if they let us know what has changed with BluRay that means that discs won't tear themselves apart at high rotational speeds. Are they not made of the same polycarbonate materials as HD-DVD/DVD/CD are?

Except coating trumps that

[SuperKendall]

He's talking about the distance from the surface of the disk to the recordable medium

While that distance is shorter, the medium in between is far less fragile [youtube.com] than CD/DVD.

Would you (could you!) do that with a DVD?

Why Does "Thin" Override All other Concerns?

[CodeBuster]

Is it just me or does anybody else find this extreme thin fetishism to be a little bit out of control? I can see how thin, in the absence of other considerations, can be desirable from the standpoint of it takes up less space in my pocket or on my desk. However, we see device manufacturers producing products which overheat and die because they wanted that last 2mm of thinness instead of a long lasting and stable product or they put a really small battery in the device, substantially reducing uptime when running on battery, simply to save that few millimeters again. I wouldn't even mind so much except that it is becoming difficult for people like me, who value other qualities besides just "thinness", to find the electronics that we want at a reasonable price instead of planned obsolescence consumer grade junk that sacrifices the functional characteristics of the device for the physical looks and dimensions of the device (among the least important characteristics in my opinion).

now give me a combo drive

[amigabill]

Now, combine this with HD-DVD and standard CD/DVD* in a single drive and I'll consider it. Make me choose one or the other and I decline them all.