The international standards authority for DVD technology—which encompasses HD DVD—has reportedly given its formal approval to an extension of the HD DVD format that entails a 51 GB single-sided disc with three layers.

An HD DVD disc with three layers (or enough capacity for up to seven hours of HD content) is reportedly still being refined and tested, according to Toshiba.

Toshiba and Memory-Tech, two firms that have worked on DVD joint ventures in the past, have notched up their TWIN format disc format with their latest innovation : a three-layer, one-sided disc compatible with both standard DVD and next-gen HD DVD players. (The companies' earlier product was a two-layer configuration.

The DVD Forum steering committee has approved version 1.0 of the physical specifications for HD-DVD read-only discs and voted to require that makers of

The DVD+RW Alliance, consisting of many of the biggest names in the consumer electronics industry, recently announced the development of technology for dual-layer DVD+R disks that is compatible with the DVD-ROM standard. Increasing the capacity of a DVD from 4.7 GB to 8.5 GB, the technology can create DVDs that are vie

The dual-layered surface can store both types of data on the same side

Just prior to the announcement this week that Microsoft and Intel have decided to back the HD DVD format over Blu-ray, Toshiba was busy "reconfirming the flexibility and expandability of the HD DVD format" with the technical announcement of a 30 GB dual-layer HD DVD-R (recordable) disc that extends the capacity for

A new triple-layered video disc coming to market in Japan reportedly will hold both standard DVD and Blu-ray content.