The International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage met recently in Hawaii for their annual island kegger, err, annual conference.

Toshiba presented data on a prototype dual-layer HD DVD-R disc. The new DL format capacity is 30GB, and they apparently had issues adding the 2nd layer to the mix. Conventional dyes didn’t dissipate heat well enough, so they developed a new dye.

Not to be outdone, Philips showed the results of their Blu-Ray media testing. The research team has successfully test-burned on single-layer 25GB BD-R media. They have found that the quickest method of burning the 25GB disc is to spin it at 10800 rpm. At that speed, 25GB of data is burned in 14 minutes. Not bad.