Panasonic unveils 4X, dual-layer Blu-Ray burner

Panasonic today announced that it had developed the world's first Blu-Ray drive that can write at 4X on a dual-layer disc, outpacing the 2X record of previous drives. A more stable and refined laser lets the unnamed drive burn the full 50GB of information in about 46 minutes, or more than 1GB per minute; a regular single-layer drive will take exactly half as long at the same speed, Panasonic says. The technique has the side benefit of quieting the drive by eliminating the vibration that has slowed down earlier drives.

Although the Japanese firm has yet to announce a formal product of its own, it hopes to produce a drive for computers in the near future and notes that 4X dual-layer discs will be available on September 25th, indicating that a compatible drive may follow relatively soon afterwards. Single-layer 4X media is due to ship earlier, on July 25th. [via Impress]