One prohibiting factor in the wider acceptance of the Blu-ray recordable discs (BD-R) is the great expense for the disc manufacturers to add new lines dedicated to the production of the BD-R disc. With the market for BD-R discs slowed by the public’s hesitation to adopt a hi-def disc format between Blu-ray and HD DVD, it’s a significant gamble for a company to invest the funds required to create a BD-R line when the return on investment could be prolonged to say the least.

Recently, a joint venture between Pioneer and Mitsubishi, successfully developed the ability to successfully use an organic dye film to create the BD-R discs. This innovation will help lower the overall cost for media manufacturers to create BD-R lines and in turn lower the cost of BD-R discs to the end user. At an average retail cost of $15 per disc for a single layer 25GB BD-R, it’s much higher than even the DVD9 8.5GB DVD+R which typically retails for $1.50 ~ $2.00.

With this organic dye, media manufacturers can convert their standard DVD-R and CD-R lines to BD-R lines with minor alterations as apposed to major retooling. This is a huge accomplishment for the BD camp by removing one of the most prohibitive factors for media manufacturers to produce BD-R discs. Combine this with the fact that HD DVD still has yet to release a recordable drive and hence has no recordable media on the market, Blu-ray will continue to make bigger waves in the duplication market and smaller production studios. The battle still wages between HD DVD and Blu-ray, but as far as the duplication market is concerned, Blu-ray is widening the gap toward universal acceptance.