Features - Storage Innovations:

RICOH SETS NEW BENCHMARK WITH 8X DVD+R MEDIA

Ricoh Company Ltd, a leading writable DVD drive and media manufacturer, announced its next generation DVD+R media products. Unveiled at the IFA trade show in Berlin, the new 8x speed DVD+R media allows 4.7GB of data to be burned in less than 8 minutes while maintaining backward compatibility with previous generation writers. The company will begin shipping the new media to OEMs and media manufacturers in the United States, Europe and Japan in the fourth quarter.

"Ricoh's 8x DVD+R media allows higher performance write speeds and faster playback with the next-generation 8x DVD+R drives which are expected to hit the market this fall," said Chris Katayama, Ricoh's U.S.-based general manager of DVD+RW/+R OEM Media. "While at the same time, Ricoh engineered this media so it maintains compatibility with today's 1x, 2.4x and 4x speed writers. Consumers can rest assured that they can still use it to read and write on their existing DVD+R drives."

• Ricoh 8x DVD+R media enables stable writing at wide range of 1x-8x speed with high reliability
• Ricoh 8x DVD+R media is ideal for various DVD+RW recorders and DVD+RW drives thanks to extraordinary wide power margin
• Ricoh is the technology leader in the development of DVD+RW/+R technology for both IT and CE markets and continues to support the leading software vendors

Today's computer and consumer electronics applications look to use one, cost-effective medium for home entertainment and PC applications. With Ricoh's core technology, DVD+RW/+R products bridge CD and DVD writing with the convergence of consumer video recording and business storage requirements. Computer users can customize and edit home movies from tapes to DVD discs and then view them in nearly all DVD-ROM drives and DVD movie players. Similarly, DVD+RW consumer recorders are available to record broadcasts that can be edited on a computer with a DVD+RW drive.