HD DVD drive is ready for PC integration

Toshiba Europe Storage Device Division has brought the full audio and visual brilliance of HD DVD to PC users with the launch of the SD-H903A - an internal, full height desktop drive. The new drive will offer outstanding resolution, dynamic contrast and vivid colours and bring the excitement and pleasure of high definition broadcasting to the home computer. For those PC users who demand greater realism and better image quality in visual entertainment, the SD-H903A offers tremendous benefits.

Because HD DVD and current DVD discs share the same physical structure, the drive will support read and write functionality to HD DVD-R discs and high performance, high-speed read and write to all flavours of standard DVD and CD discs.

This includes writing speeds of 3x for DVD-RAM and 16x for CD-R.

In addition, the HD DVD format supports the latest compression technologies used by Windows Media and full native support for HD DVD will be integrated into Microsoft's next generation operating system.

Digital terrestrial broadcasting is becoming increasingly available and consumers are turning to large capacity data storage solutions on which to record high definition video and movie content.

The HD DVD format, the only format approved by the DVD forum, offers single layer capacities of 15Gbyte and dual layer capacity of 30Gbyte.

A 30Gbyte disc can hold up to 8 hours of 1125-line HD images and 48 hours of SD images.

Triple layer discs that will offer further increases in storage capacity are already in development.

Because HD DVD is based on existing DVD manufacturing methods, HD DVD media is more readily available than other competing next generation DVD formats.

The shared manufacturing process will also enable the production of twin-format media, which can store both HD DVD and DVD on each side of the disc.

This will enable consumers to immediately enjoy the standard definition version of the film and to play back the same movie in HD on an HD DVD player at a later date.

'We are delighted to be bringing the full benefits of the HD DVD format to PC owners', explained Martin Larsson, General Manager, Toshiba Europe Storage Device Division.

'With the new HD DVD drive, our PC partners will be able to bring a truly rich and immersive high definition video playback experience to their customers'.

Customer samples are expected to ship in February 2007.

To date, seven of the top ten OEM PC manufacturers are incorporating HD DVD technology into future products.