Pioneer Eyes 510GB Optical Discs / merged with Sony Blu-ray 200GB Thread

[Evi]

"Pioneer has developed a technology that could allow it to cram 510GB of data onto a disc the size of a DVD, a company representative says.

The technology uses an electron beam to make templates from which optical discs can be stamped, says Michiko Kadoi, a company spokesperson.

While Pioneer has no immediate plans to commercialize the technology, it believes it could be used to make both recordable and read-only discs with more than 100 times the capacity of today\'s 4.7-inch DVDs.

"We successfully recorded 348GB, 424GB, and 510GB on [4.7-inch] discs," Kadoi says.

As with other recent advances in optical disc technology, Pioneer\'s method relies on cramming data closer together to achieve a higher capacity.

Today\'s standard DVDs have a capacity of 4.7GB. The data is stored as "pits" in the disc which can be read as ones and zeros. The pits today are spaced 740 nanometers apart, Kadoi says. (A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.)

A newer disc technology that came to market recently uses a blue laser, which has a shorter wavelength, to achieve about five or six times the capacity of DVDs. The shorter wavelength means the size of the pits, and the spacing between them, can be made smaller.

Hitting a Higher Capacity

Pioneer\'s electron beam allows the spacing between the pits to be made even smaller--as little as 70 nanometers--allowing the company to make discs with a capacity of up to 510GB.

That amount of disc storage may be overkill for the consumer market, but it could be useful for the enterprise market, according to Yasusuke Suzuki, a research manager for storage at IDC Japan.

"It\'s very interesting, especially if they can make it available in 2006 or 2007, and the market impact could be significant," he says.

In fact, even 250GB should be enough to make the technology competitive, he says.

Pioneer\'s technology is more advanced than the laser technology used for newer types of optical disc formats, including HD-DVD (High Definition/High Density-DVD), Blu-ray Disc, and UDO (Ultra Density Optical), the company says.

Single-layer versions of these discs can store between 20GB and 30GB of data, while dual-layer versions store about 50GB. Several companies have roadmaps to take the technologies out to 200GB discs by adding more storage layers.

If Pioneer brings its electron-beam technology to market it will compete with Plasmon, among others, which has used blue lasers to develop UDO discs a little larger than a DVD that can store up to 30GB of data. It should be able to increase the capacity of those discs to 60GB in mid-2006, and a 120GB version could be on the market by the end of 2008, Plasmon has said."

The Article

[Evi]

"Sony will announce next month that it developed an 8-layer version of the Blu-ray Disc that is capable of storing 200GB of data, according to a company spokesperson.

The announcement will be made at the International Symposium on Optical Memory 2004, which takes from October 11 to October 15, in Jeju Island, South Korea, according to Sony. The company further plans to commercialize a 4-layer 100GB version in 2007, says Sony spokesperson Taro Takamine.

"The advantage of Blu-ray over DVD is definitely capacity, and we are extending our multilayer performance. The 8-layer is a technology demonstration. We haven\'t decided when we are going to commercialize it yet," Takamine says.

The development is the fourth recent boost for the format as it competes with high-deifinition DVD to replace conventional DVDs in coming years. Both Sony and Matsushita Electric Industrial, better known for its Panasonic brand, sell Blu-ray players.

But the players are expensive. A mass market will not develop for either of the new formats until major Hollywood studios are convinced that they can protect their content against piracy, according to analysts and industry watchers.

Making Headway

At the beginning of September, Blu-ray Disc backers announced that they added the MPEG4 and VC1 video codecs to the format, making for more efficient compression, meaning longer movies and more data can be stored on the same disc. VC1 is based on Microsoft\'s Windows Media 9 codec, and was previously called VC9. MPEG4.AVC is based on the H.264 codec.

Last week, Sony announced that it bought Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, potentially gaining access to and control of that studio\'s movie library. This week, Sony Computer Entertainment said it would adopt Blu-ray for its PlayStation 3 games console. The PlayStation 3 should reach the market by mid-2006, according to industry watchers.

The adoption of Blu-ray Disc for PlayStation 3 is seen as a major advancement for the format by Sony, because of the success of PlayStation and PlayStation 2 in promoting the adoption of DVD, Takamine says. PlayStation 3 will probably have compatibility with the 54GB version of the Blu-ray Disc, which can store about six times more data than a current DVD, according to Sony. The PlayStation 3 could be compatible with smaller-capacity Blu-ray Discs, according to Sony.

The 8-layer, 200GB capacity also shows the difference in approach that is developing between Blu-ray Disc, promoted as a very high storage medium by its backers, and high-definition DVD, which is supported by NEC and Toshiba.

Competing Format

HD-DVD is marketed as an easily made and low-cost, higher-capacity storage format by NEC and Toshiba. While HD-DVD hardware won\'t be on sale until 2005, Sanyo Electric said at the end of August that it decided to produce both components and players for the format, citing HD-DVD\'s ease of manufacturing.

Memory-Tech, one of Japan\'s largest optical disc makers, recently demonstrated HD-DVD discs production at a rate that meant it could be producing the discs at near-DVD prices in about one year from now.

Current HD-DVD discs have 30GB of storage. HD-DVD supporters say it is possible to convert a DVD line to an HD-DVD line within five minutes. The HD-DVD camp has not announced advanced plans to add more capacity to the discs because it wants HD-DVD makers to produce the discs at nearly the same price as current DVDs."


The Article

Sorry...I wanted to post both articles...and they were both huge, so I made different threads. Anyway...if Sony implements this technology into the PS3...well...that\'s just going to kick some @ss

[GmanJoe]

Man, imagine a 200 gigabyte re-writable disc! That\'s a lot of movies!

[Evi]

^^^^^


Yeah, no crappola. The future is looking bright

200 gigs of porn... whee!

[Evi]

^^^^^

Somehow...I just knew you were going to say that...:rolleyes:

Well, actually I read about this a while ago, and it\'s certainly very cool. Although Sony only did 8 layers (200 gigs) to show it\'s possible.

[Evi]

^^^^^

I know they did it just to test it out, but they may eventually be able to produce these types of discs.

My current computer has 4 gigs *vomits* But I\'m getting a new lappie toppie for college, and that\'s gonna have 100 gigs, which will be nice for a change.

Technology is going way too fast, especially when you\'re poor like me.

[videoholic]

Actually I just went to a seminar a couple of days ago and we will be over a terabyte in \'07 per disc with holographic discs.  It\'s pretty cool.

[videoholic]

Actually what this will be able to do is allow us to watch UNCOMPRESSED HD movies.  How freaking cool is that?

And do we really need two threads?

[Evi]

Originally posted by videoholic
Actually I just went to a seminar a couple of days ago and we will be over a terabyte in \'07 per disc with holographic discs.  It\'s pretty cool.

Yeah...I wouldn\'t doubt it. If you ever get a link...please post it.

[Evi]

Originally posted by videoholic
Actually what this will be able to do is allow us to watch UNCOMPRESSED HD movies.  How freaking cool is that?

And do we really need two threads?

Sorry...I just thought the articles were friggin HUGE, so I just made them separate. PLus, they\'re 2 different companies. I dunno why I did *kicks myself*

Uncompressed HD movies are going to look awful...pshh :rolleyes:  *not really*

[videoholic]

I will look.  It was a presentation from Maxell.

[Evi]

^^^^

Ok cool...thanks =)

[nO-One]

Two threads but basically the same thing going on, so I decided to merge them.

Whatevah I do what I want!!!