Yeah, companies have been trumpeting their ability to crank out discs that will last long after Martians come and evaporate our minds here on Earth for some time, but for archive junkies out there, more is always better. On deck today is Mitsubishi's ARLEDIA DVD-Rs, which reportedly feature corrosion-resistant coatings made from gold and silver. 'Course, you can only write to these at 8x, but they are expected to last about twice as long as traditional recordable discs. Not like you'll be around to prove 'em wrong, though.

[Via Impress]

We've already seen Verbatim crank out a few new pieces of HD DVD media, so it's only fair that red's rival gets a little updating, too. Among the newcomers are 4x BD-R, single-sided double-layer 2x BD-R / BD-RE, Mini BD-R / BD-RE and 1 - 2x BD-R LTH discs. Not a lot to say beyond that -- you know, considering the dearth of pricing information -- but you can expect 'em all to ship sometime during the first half of 2008.

Inventing the dual layer DVD-RW standard may seem like an extreme example of too little too late in the days of 15GB+ HD DVD and 25GB+ Blu-ray, but JVC has gone ahead and done it anyway. Hitting up the same 8.5GB capacity as regular double layer DVD-RWs and dual layer DVD-RWs, the JVC discs come with a specially hardened coating which is apparently "150 times" more effective than the coating on plain old DVDs. Unfortunately, the new format requires entirely new burners, is only available at 2x write speeds, and no shipping dates or details are available. Sounds like JVC's got a winner on its hands ... yeah.

If you've already laid down your order for one of the HD DVD writers announced at CES, you're probably in need of just two things: HD DVD-R media and more cash. While we can't exactly help with the latter, Verbatim has just announced that it plans to start shipping 30GB HD DVD-R media to the North American market "when HD DVD writers become available." Considering those drives are now finding their way to shelves, we'd guess these writeable discs won't be too far behind. Parent company Mitsubishi Kagaku Media has been shipping these discs for months to Japan, and Memorex has likely been holding down the blank HD DVD market thus far in the US, but we're not complaining with a little head-to-head competition.

Hot on the heels of all this last minute, pre-CES HD DVD-related action is the SD-H903A, which Toshiba touts as "the world's first dedicated PC-based HD DVD burner" that writes "to all main optical discs." Aside from the obvious (albeit expected) hand-to-the-face to BD-Rs in that last claim, the burner does manage to write nicely to HD DVD-R (single and dual-layer at a measly 1x), DVD +/- R, DVD-RAM, DVD +/- RW, CD-R, and CD-RW. Additionally, it'll include an 8MB buffer, and if all goes well, should play back all your precious HD DVD titles without complication. While we've no idea how much coinage will be required to pick this (admittedly sluggish) drive up, sample shipments are scheduled to take off this month, and we should get a good look at just what it's capable of at next week's CES.

Even though HD DVD burners are still off in the distance, you can make a DVD that will play back 720p or 1080i content on your HD-A1 or HD-XA1 with your existing DVD-Rs. The guys over at AVSForum have been working on this since the the Toshiba HD-A1 player launched, and they've pretty much got it down to a science. Particularly given the lack of content available so far on the format, many people have .ts files, HDV content, or mariposaHD episodes  they'd love to play back from a single shiny platter. They've boiled the process down to a few steps that anyone familiar with DVD burning should be able to follow.

Basic Steps for Creating HD DVDs:

1. Capture a high definition MPEG2 video to your computer.
2. Convert the video file from .ts, .tp or .m2t transport stream format to program stream format using Womble MPEG2VCR.
3. Create an HD DVD folder on your computer using Ulead Movie Factory 5.
4. Burn the HD DVD disc using Nero Burning ROM.

For more details and list of necessary software check out the thread, currently this walkthrough is PC-only, although WiFiSpy also notes he is working on a Mac version so that shouldn't be too far off. With a guide like this, all you need is a DVD-R, a sharpie and a Qosmio laptop to recreate the Sony Blu-ray incident. Or you can take that old rip of The Fifth Element you've got laying around and see if you can do a better job at a lower bitrate. The possibilities are endless.


[Thanks for the tip WiFiSpy!]