"Panasonic Disc Manufacturing of America has added the ability to produce dual-layer Blu-ray Discs to a test production line the company is operating at its factory in California, Panasonic said this week.

The company, which is owned by Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., expects to offer its first sample dual-layer discs by the end of December. The capability was made possible by the addition of a dual-layer replication module to an existing line that is currently producing samples of single-layer discs, the company said.

Single-layer Blu-ray Discs have a capacity of 25GB and dual layer discs offer 50GB. In contrast, an existing dual-layer DVD disc has 8.5GB of recording space.

Blu-ray Disc is one of two formats currently engaged in a public relations battle to win the support of movie studios and content producers in a bid to become the de-facto replacement for DVD for high-definition content. The other format is HD-DVD." [more]