Ricoh Announces Hybrid HD-DVD and Blu-ray Player

Only 4 days after Ricoh announced the world’s first hybrid HD-DVD and Blu-ray lens comes another ground-braking announcement from the Japanese company. Ricoh are going to release their own HD-DVD and Blu-ray hybrid player by late 2007/early 2008 onto the electronics market instead of selling their lens to larger manufacturers.

Ricoh’s optical reader/writer that will be installed in the hybrid player works by using a new diffraction plate. The diffraction component adjusts the laser beam with its diffraction grating for each format and passes it to the objective lens. The lens then forms a beam spot at the appropriate depth for each disk format.

Before the announcement of their hybrid optical lens, I didn’t even know who Ricoh were, but now it seems they may become a big player in the digital media market. Originally I thought their optical lens would be sold to established manufacturers such as Sony, Samsung etc and they would make money this way. However, it appears that Ricoh are taking their idea and going for the win by making their own player. They’ll probably sell on the optical lens after the release of their own player to the big guns, giving their own player a head start. Good for them!

Via T3

Only 4 days after Ricoh announced the world’s first hybrid HD-DVD and Blu-ray lens comes another ground-braking announcement from the Japanese company. Ricoh are going to release their own HD-DVD and Blu-ray hybrid player by late 2007/early 2008 onto the electronics market instead of selling their lens to larger manufacturers.

Ricoh’s optical reader/writer that will be installed in the hybrid player works by using a new diffraction plate. The diffraction component adjusts the laser beam with its diffraction grating for each format and passes it to the objective lens. The lens then forms a beam spot at the appropriate depth for each disk format.

Before the announcement of their hybrid optical lens, I didn’t even know who Ricoh were, but now it seems they may become a big player in the digital media market. Originally I thought their optical lens would be sold to established manufacturers such as Sony, Samsung etc and they would make money this way. However, it appears that Ricoh are taking their idea and going for the win by making their own player. They’ll probably sell on the optical lens after the release of their own player to the big guns, giving their own player a head start. Good for them!

Via T3