Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Toshiba, NEC Plan To Create Yet Another Optical Format

Posted by timothy on from the bits-of-light dept.

selderrr writes: "Dow Jones Newswires is reporting today that Toshiba and NEC are planning to propose a new optical disk format to the DVD Forum that will offer four times more storage capacity than current DVDs. In February, a consortium of nine companies, including Sony and Matsushita, announced a new format that would offer 50GB of data storage. While the Toshiba/NEC option is smaller at 40GB, it is cheaper to produce. The two disc formats will not be compatible." Related, coryboehne writes "The New York Times has a great report detailing the history of the DVD. According to the article digital videodiscs and their players have now surpassed the VHS in terms of sales for the first time (In 2001, $10.3 billion was spent on movies, 52% of this on DVD's, now compare this to 2002, $12.4 billion total revenue with 65%, going for DVD's) . Funny considering that DVD's are only in about a third of American homes (about 30 million households, and consider that a quarter of these homes have more than one player), compare that to the unbelievable amount of VHS players (about 90% of homes in the USA have a VHS player) and it quickly shows just how popular the DVD has become."

4 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. 50 GB?!?!? by tps12 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Is this really necessary? With 100GB hard drives becoming more commonplace, I think we're at the limit of what normal users need out of hardware. There is just no use whatsoever for 50GB removable discs. In 10 years, we will all still be using DVD+RW. Drives will be a lot faster, sure, but history has shown that there is just no application that requires more than the ample 4.7GB of removable storage provided by DVD technology.

    --

    Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
    1. Re:50 GB?!?!? by Steve+B · · Score: 4, Funny
      Is this really necessary?

      Of course not. Nobody needs more than 640K.

      --
      /. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
    2. Re:50 GB?!?!? by Ryosen · · Score: 2, Funny

      Gah! Don't you hate it when you hit submit only to find out that a half-dozen other people already posted the same, tired, worn-out cliched joke that you thought was so clever just before the caffeine kicked in?

      I really need to learn how to type faster.

      --

      Ryosen
      One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
  2. lousy pirates by gosand · · Score: 4, Funny
    According to the article digital videodiscs and their players have now surpassed the VHS in terms of sales for the first time

    No doubt because people can easily use their VCRs to pirate movies. I guess Jack Valenti was right after all.

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.