TDK and Primera announce European availability of Inkjet Printable Blu-ray Disc media

Co-development with Primera widens duplication opportunities for vertical markets

CeBIT, Hannover, Germany, March 15th 2007 — TDK, a world leader in digital recording solutions and Primera Technology Inc., a leading manufacturer of CD/DVD/Blu-ray Disc publishing solutions, today announced the European availability of new inkjet printable BD-R Blu-ray Disc media. The new discs, which incorporate TDK's advanced DURABIS 2 hard coating technology for enhanced performance and durability, will be available to the European market at the beginning of April. The discs are on display at the Primera stand no. D77/1, Hall1, and at the TDK stand no. H100, Hall1 (Inside the stand of Incom storage GmbH), at CeBIT, Germany.

TDK has partnered with Primera to optimise the printable surface of its BD-R media for use with Primera's world renowned line of inkjet BD-R disc publishing and duplication products. In an extension of the existing close partnership between the two companies, TDK is delivering increased flexibility in printable media by broadening customisation options for the European duplication industry.

We are delighted to be a part of making printable BD-R Blu-ray Disc media available in Europe for the first time, said Andreas Hoffmann, Managing Director of Primera Technology Europe. This development provides our customers who use high-capacity BD-R media for applications including backup and archival, data storage, high-definition video with a greater degree of flexibility when it comes to duplication.

Direct-to-disc printing enables a host of new applications for publishing and duplication professionals. For example, users of the BD-R inkjet printable media can now print text and graphics directly onto the disc's label-side surface, creating the potential for more visually vibrant designs in Blu-ray entertainment. In addition, the new BD formats allow the printing of high quality custom text and graphics directly onto a wide printable area ranging from 24 mm to 118 mm in diameter.

Extending our partnership with Primera into Europe enables us to offer customers in the region the ideal solution for inkjet printable BD-R media to help power their business, continued (first part is missing) Fumio Wada. We remain closely aligned with our goal of pioneering new quality benchmarks in media technology. We see the opportunities presented by the availability of our media as integral to the growth and continuing evolution of markets such as game developing and movie authoring where visual imagery is synonymous with the end product.

Professional Quality Surface Printing

TDK Printable BD-R has been optimised for use with Primera Technology's range of BD-R disc publishing and duplication products including the award-winning Disc Publisher II and Disc Publisher PRO and Disc Publisher XR Series as well as Signature® Z6 CD/DVD Printer. TDK BD-R media has true WORM (Write Once Read Many) characteristics, making it ideal for backup use in mission critical applications such as medical imaging, digital photography and financial record archiving and publishing.

The media is coated with a special inkjet-optimised surface that not only delivers extremely bright, high-resolution full colour images and text, but also prevents warping — a potential problem with standard inkjet surfaces. The printable surface extends from the outside edge of the media all the way to the centre hub for a fully produced, highly professional appearance. Wide sputtering and the absence of a stacking ring make printing quality consistent across the entire disc surface, from edge to edge.

Robust Durability, Superior Reliability

Hard coating technology pioneered by TDK is part of the Blu-ray specification, but only TDK Blu-ray Discs have DURABIS 2, the industry's most advanced hard coating technology. DURABIS 2 increases the scratch resistance of

Blu-ray Disc media by a factor of 100, as demonstrated in rigorous testing. DURABIS 2 also resists fingerprints to help eliminate errors caused by recording surface smudges.