Verbatim to launch Mini Blu-ray discs with Hitachi's camcorder

Now that Hitachi has announced a Blu-ray camcorder to put some of that high-def footage on, you've got to have something to record onto, right? Verbatim will ship 8cm Mini Blu-ray Recordable/Rewritable (BD-R/RE) blank media in August for Japan, with shipments to North America and points beyond in October. The media will hold 7.5GB on a single side, with recording times of one hour for 1920x1080i resolution, and up to two hours at 1440x1080i. The discs come with Verbatim's standard hard-coat finish for protection against scratching and dust, making them pretty reliable for the kinds of stresses you'll see filming your own season of Survivor: Fargo.

[Lennie Medlin @ Aug 2nd 2007 4:34PM]

Maybe this is a dumb question but after you record onto the mini disc can you then put it in your PS3?

[MacGuru @ Aug 2nd 2007 4:36PM]

probably... but you sure can't play them in your Xbox 360... even with the external dead-format DVDHD :)

[melloncollie @ Aug 2nd 2007 5:42PM]

MacGuru:
You're an idiot.

[MacGuru @ Aug 2nd 2007 6:49PM]

The truth hurts doesn't it?
Microsoft is years behind anything anybody else does.

[Mike Lang @ Oct 9th 2007 12:51AM]

You're right, it is a dumb question. You must be blonde.

[Blake @ Aug 2nd 2007 4:40PM]

those look so sexy...

[dcny @ Aug 2nd 2007 4:51PM]

what i dont get is them making a regular version and then a mini version why dont they just drop the regular version and go with the mini version its small it would make players small and etc why couldnt they just up the aount of space and forget the 8in disc everything else is getting smaller why not optical disc

[Chuckles McGee @ Aug 2nd 2007 5:26PM]

Yeah, let's "just up the space" and abandon standard-sized Blu-ray. 7.5 gigs isn't quite up to the 25 gig Blu-ray standard or the 50 gig double layered standard. You'd need to quadruple coat a mini-disc just to get it to the standard capacity, and septuple coat it to reach the double layered standard- a feat which would be difficult, if not impossible to do while still maintaining compatibility. And it would be expensive.

[Bob P. @ Aug 2nd 2007 7:36PM]

In order to increase capacity you either have to expand the recording area( more layers ) or decrease the size of the area needed to record the bit.

For example what Blu-ray did to increase capacity was use a smaller wavelength laser, increase the optics, decreased the distance from the laser to the recording layer within the disk and used a higher grade poly-carbonate on the read/write side of the disk which allowed more light to get through. The optics was what was the most expensive part and the reason it took Blu-ray longer to come out. The optics just weren't being mass produced at the time.

CD, DVD & HD-DVD all you essentially the same optics which are all ready being mass produced. HD-DVD also used the smaller wavelength laser, slightly better optics ( but still in the range that was being mass produced for cd's and dvd's ) and the higher grad poly-carbonate, but they left the distance the same.

So you see that it's the optics which have the most effect, but continually going better gets very expensive. If Blu-ray had tried to use disks this size to serve the HD market which at minimum requires around 20 gb for an HD movie just waiting on the optics necessary would have caused at a minimum another years delay and the price would be a lot more.

[Jason Golden @ Aug 2nd 2007 5:56PM]

As the Engadget HD team is all-too-familiar with, we can only *wish* that the real Survivor was in HD. Looks like we're in for another year of SD. http://www.tvpredictions.com/survivor072507.htm

I'd take Survivor:Fargo in the mean time.

[Castle @ Aug 2nd 2007 7:32PM]

7.5 GB must be single-layer

TDK has already shown a 16.5GB dual-layer 8cm mini-Blu-Ray

http://www.dvguru.com/2006/10/10/tdk-to-produce-8cm-blu-ray-discs/

[Mike @ Aug 2nd 2007 7:49PM]

I bet this will be used in the next PSP

[patsy @ Aug 2nd 2007 7:50PM]

I seriously don't understand these manufacturers that keep coming up with optical media for camcorders, when the best approach is so obvious: flash, for so many reasons. Going for optical because of cheaper media costs is such short term thinking. These 7.5GB discs may only cost $10 or so when they become widely available, versus $70 for an 8GB flash card. But while that BR disc won't drop appreciably in price over the next couple of years, the 8GB flash card will cost less than half that by then. The advantages are almost too numerous to list: power savings and thus longer battery life, much reduced camcorder size, much higher speed (particularly erasing and random access, allowing virtually instant recording after power up), much smaller media, practically endless reusability, and MUCH sturdier media. Fine, you can't just pop the flash card into your DVD player and see it right away (although some players can already do that, though not for BR), and you certainly don't want to just give away that $70 card to a friend or relative. But overall I still think the advantages far outweigh any of these shortcomings.

[emjoi @ Aug 2nd 2007 8:01PM]

As a user of a Sony camera that uses mini-DVDs...
The nice things about the DVDs is that they can be dirt cheap, and just pop into your player at home without any mucking about. The not so nice thing is the 25 minute recording time. Always running out just when something important happens.

So, the nice thing about these BluRay disks is the 2 hour record time... even more if you are happy with a lower rez?
The not so nice thing right now would be the cost of the disks, of course.

[ssuk @ Aug 3rd 2007 6:41AM]

Yeah, mini-DVD is cheap as heck, I can go into a pound shop here in the great isles of britan and get 4 miniDVDs for £1 ($2) I'm sure if I bought in bulk I could get them for pence.

[Ben @ Aug 3rd 2007 5:11AM]

As long as these handhelds are limited to 1/2 HD (1080i), it won't matter what features they have, I'm not interested. When "Full HD" in a consumer camera means full HD (1080p) instead of the interlaced, throttled down data rate of 1080i, I'll be first in line.

And one more thing - if any manufacturer is actually reading these comments, when you call 1080i "full HD", you look like idiots. Same goes for reviews.

1080p is full HD. Anything less - is LESS!

[Solomon @ Aug 3rd 2007 10:45AM]

Hey, Ben, I completely agree.
Those Sony HD camcorders look so nice, but they just aren't full spec yet! They have 1080i on optical disc, tape, and hard disk, but NO ONE has made a 1080p camera for consumers yet... Sony, I'm counting on you to be first!

[ssuk @ Aug 3rd 2007 6:39AM]

Wow... Only 8GB? Bit of a disapointment considering mini-DVD discs were 1.8GB compared to full DVD size of 4.7GB. But it's almost a DVD9 but smaller, so one cannot complain too much. So... When are commercial Bluray burners coming out? I have some hankering to back up my HDD on 2 Bluray discs. =)

[Kastef @ Aug 4th 2007 11:38AM]

Commercial Bluray burners exist. Costly but they exist. HD-DVD... err well.

[Tom @ Aug 5th 2007 9:52AM]

is HD DVD sleeping? No burner , no camcorder! What is going on ?
Is Blu-ray wining?

[Lennie Medlin @ Oct 9th 2007 11:05AM]

Yup I'm blonde alright. And maybe it was dumb question. But your the loser who is up after midnight replying to a thread that was done back in August. Go to bed dickhead and feed yourself with your big ass mouth!

[Mike Lang @ Oct 9th 2007 7:52PM]

It's "you're", blondie, not "your". And actually, I thought it was a good question. I just wanted to screw with you. :P