Sony Ushers in Double-Layer DVD Burners

"The company is adding two DVD+R Double Layer (DL) DVD drives to its line of Dual RW burners. An internal DRU-700A drive and an external DRX-700UL drive represent the company's move into double-layer recording.

The new burners and accompanying compatible discs promise to almost double the storage capacity of recordable DVD discs. Users will be able to store four hours of MPEG-2 video or up to 8.5GB of multimedia data on a single disc. Sony officials say the initial burners will have 2.4x DVD+R recording speeds, 40x CD-R speeds, and 24x CD-RW recording speeds.

'Double-layer recording is the next milestone in DVD technology,' says Wolfgang Schlichting, research director for removable storage at the market research firm IDC. 'Sony's double-layer drives put twice the recording power in the hands of the consumer, reducing the need to handle multiple discs.'"

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