Vmedia Announces New Optical Disc Format

Recently, Vmedia Research announced that is has developed a new miniature Vmedia disc. This disc is only 32 mm in diameter, which is just a little bit more than 1.25 inches. This makes the disc approximately one-fourth the size of a standard CD or DVD.

This new optical disc format isn’t likely to make it to your home entertainment center any time soon. Rather, it has been designed to be used with mobile devices like cell phones with multimedia capabilities. Don’t expect HD resolution, however, as these new discs are capable of holding a full-length move with a 576p resolution and utilizes H.264 video compression.

The first generation of the new Vmedia disc is capable of holding 1 GB of data. The company is planning a dual layer version, however, which will be able to hold 2 GB of data. In addition, the company is working on developing a recordable version of its miniature disc.

The reality is that there is likely to be very little use for this new technology. Anymore, you can purchase a SD card capable of holding 2 GB that costs less than $20. These cards are actually smaller than the Vmedia discs and uses a smaller reader. In addition, an SD card does not need moving parts and there is no concern about the media getting scratched or easily damaged. With the help of 32 GB Flash memory devices, a full HD movie can be added to one small card. This makes the card capable of holding more than a single-layer Blu-ray DVD and the SD cards are easy to reuse.

So, is Vmedia really offering something that consumers need? With digital distribution of media being so simple to do and so readily available, the market for read-only permanent media is really limited. So, while developing a smaller optical disc may have been reason for excitement awhile ago, it seems to have little relevance today.

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