Europe's first independent replicator to install HD DVD pressing lines, QOL is also now the first French company to have a Blu-ray Disc replication line up and running.

QOL and its R&D subsidiary QOL TECH have invested over €8 million to set up the BD mastering, testing and replication line. The equipment, from Singulus, arrived at the Vernouillet plant, near Paris, last month. The new replication line gives the company a pressing capacity of 400,000 Blu-ray discs a month.

Some ten days after becoming operational, QOL produced Taxi 4, the first Blu-ray title on its own line. The company had already made a first batch of BD titles in collaboration with Sony DADC, include The Chorists, Renaissance, Arthur et les Minimoys, Terminateur 2 and Ne le Dis à Personne.

Content publishers are yet to make full use of the 50GB capability of the dual-layer Blu-ray Disc. According to CEO Laurent Villaume, out of the initial dozen BD titles QOL is producing, only one requires capacity greater than the 25GB offered by a single-layer BD disc.

The company already manufactures 1,5 million HD DVD disc a month. As for planning, the turnaround for BD testing from a hard disc drive is eight days whereas HD DVD testing takes three days. Manufacturing, packaging and delivery add five days to a process "100 percent European-originated," says Villaume. Last year, QOL produced the first HD DVD in Europe, the movie 2046, as well as the first 'Certified THX' HD DVD in the world – Pan's Labyrinth.

Europe’s first independent BD replicator fully operational was Germany's Infodisc that installed a Oerlikon line.

Story filed 10.12.07