Slashdot Mirror
Movie Playback From 1TB Holographic Disc
qorkfiend writes "Optware Corp. has announced successful playback of digital movies on a new holographic recording disc with a reflective layer. Known as the Collinear Holographic Data Storage System, the disc has a one terabyte storage capacity and one gigabyte transfer speed. The disc size is 12cm, comparable to that of a DVD and a CD."
...but you can call me when these things are an actual PRODUCT. Many companies have been claiming massive data storage abilities, some in the range of hundreds of terrabytes! Yet not one has provided a realistic product. Problems include:
- Too costly to manufacture at a profit
- Holographics are too susceptible to damage from scratches or normal wear
- Lasers are difficult to keep calibrated
- whole bunch of stuff I'm not aware of
I really would love to see a format that could play hundreds of hours of uncompressed HDTV video. Despite all the press releases, the reality is that it's just not here yet.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
RTFA: They're only doing this to make a buck.
Hang on a minute, isn't that the only reason any company develops any product?
A DVD has 4.7Gb right? But people trade quality for size, and rip it to 700Mb files. How about Telesync?
There's FLAC, but a lot of people just use 128kbps Mp3.
Big file format IS NOT a solution to piracy.
Present drives won't read these new discs, but will the new discs require a carrying or storage device that has different dimensions than a common CD/DVD jewel case? If so, that sounds like a pain to deal with to me.
Digital Citizen
No, but it is a solution to increasing the value of the product. And value is the reason people buy things.
I mean, there are lots of people who buy DVDs of content freely available on the internet. Atom films and many of the Flash animation sites generate healthy profit from DVD sales and I'm surely gonna buy that Strong Bad's 100th Email DVD when it comes out, even though I have all 111 flash files on a DVD already...
Why? Because the quality is better and the format is more attractive and convenient. Making the assumption that it is going to be rather difficult to stop piracy, one way for the industry to encourage people to buy films is to create formats that have even HIGHER quality with even MORE convenience and to release them SOONER in even nicer packages.
DVD is a first good step towards that goal...tape sales used to be sort of an afterthought, just another use for movies that were intended to make money during their theatre run. Now, DVD sales might bring in a substantial percentage of a film's take, and some media (especially TV series and indie films) make MORE money on DVD then they did first run. As a result, the industry is releasing movies earlier and with more extras than you'll find in a 700 meg XVid file.
There will always be people who are satisfied with shite quality willing to pirate. The goal of the industry should be to fight the pirates the only way they can (through lawsuits) while simultaneously making it easier and more worthwhile for people not to become pirates in the first damned place.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Shit man, you ever try carrying a 2 liter bottle around NYC? You wind up looking like this guy ! It's worth paying an extra $.11 and getting half as much to not look like an idiot. If it weren't, we'd all buy our clothes at Wal-Mart. Value is not simply a matter of material per dollar...there's the quality of the material and its applicability to your needs that must be considered.
Heck, most of the time generalizing something -- adding more material and/or features to it -- DECREASES its overall value. You hope to make it up in volume, but it's entirely possible that the generalization process will kill your product. If you've got X hours to spend on the creation of set of features, and you increase the size of the set, you decrease the time per feature. If a person only cares about three of the features -- and somebody spent their X hours on only those features -- your product will probably be inferior for their needs. Or soda in a machine -- $1.25 for 16 oz of Coke seems like a really big rip off until it's 2am and you're in the middle of nowhere, thirsty as hell.
Back to DVDs: the goal of the motion picture industry should be concentrating on what people WANT from a movie. It seems -- based completely unscientifically on what my friends tell me when THEY get new DVDS -- that people want high quality pictures with accurate multichannel sound, tons of interesting content (e.g. deleted scenes and backstage videos of the stars goofing off), attractive packaging (I know four guys who bought the Two Towers Ultimate set just because it came with a Gollum bookend) and early release, while the movie's still in the back of your mind. So-called copy protection isn't selling DVDs, isn't stopping illegal copies and isn't making it easier to pursue damages from infringement, so why bother?
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Liquid measure is an unusual thing in the States, we're sort of schizophrenic about it. Milk, paint, gasoline and blood are all measured in "English" -- gallons, pints, quarts, ounces and the like. Soda pop, cooking oil and liquor are generally measured in metric. I say generally, because it's not so easy. Soda comes in 12oz, 16 oz, 1 litre, 32 oz (which is a bit less than a liter), 2 liter and 3 liter containers. Beer comes in 12 and 16oz bottles but hard liquor generally comes in 750 ml, 1 liter, 1.5 liter bottles.
I believe the schizophrenia stems from a desire for package uniformity in beverages that are also marketted overseas. But it does create wierd situations like going out for a gallon of milk and 2 liters of coke, or drinking 2 ounces of whiskey from a 750 ml bottle.
Incidentally, how many mililiters are there in a swig? Or, let's say, a metric shotglass? Do you get more liquor from a 2 oz shot or the metric equivalent -- and does the variance explain US policy with reference to the rest of the world?
Hey freaks: now you're ju