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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."

8 of 623 comments (clear)

  1. What about durability? by ElForesto · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've already heard plenty of complaints about a scratch destroying more info on a DVD than a CD due to density. How much would an errant fingernail wipe out on something this dense? I can appreciate the cool factor of cramming so much data on a single disc, but if I have to handle it like a Fabrege (sp?) egg, what's the point?

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    1. Re:What about durability? by Tyler+Eaves · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Why not just mirror the data? If it's a 1TB disk, why not treat it as a 250GB disk, and then have 3 extra duplicate copies.

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    2. Re:What about durability? by cybrthng · · Score: 3, Interesting
      I have to say what the hell would you need that much space for anyway?
      Digital video applications would be great for this type of density. Just think of watching a raw-encoded HDTV .ts stream of a 4 hour show at 1920x1080p on a digital projection system without any lossy compression and not to mention plenty of space for a variable bitrate 384kbps per channel surround sound track.

      Movie theaters could publish entire movies in hi-def on a single 12cm disk rather than a 45lb set of reels that are expensive to ship, bulky to handle as well as expensive to produce.

      Not only would movie markets love this, but anything related to imaging, science and especially seismic & charting companies. Just imagine being able to contain an entire 3d map os seismic data of the earths crust across an entire ocean on a single disk.

  2. Next stop: isolinear chips by cyberchondriac · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't think it'll take us 200 more years before we see this kind of storage.
    http://littrell.doroch.nl/data/engineering/tech/Is olinearChips.htm
    We already have commercial holographic storage now. The disparity in the technological predictions of STtng is miles wide, they were so conservative when it comes to computer technology.
    http://littrell.doroch.nl/data/engineering/tech/Is olinearChips.htm
    How long before we stop using discs all together ? Anyone care to guess ? 5 years ? 10 years ?

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  3. Re:Back in the day by stratjakt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We do have it, did you not RTFA?

    This is an actual physically existing thing, not some theory and buzzwords written in a proposal.

    The technology exists. It just isn't sitting on the shelves at Office Depot yet, but it exists and works. And if you had deep enough pockets, I'm sure you could acquire one.

    It's not vapor. It's just not ready to compete with, say, an array of HDDs or big-ass tapes in terms of price yet.

    This one is big, though. They have a way to write on "normal" media, that is, preformatted optical discs very much like DVD-Rs. So producing the media won't be a problem. The writing technique they came up with sound's like it requires much less engineering than other holographic processes.

    My bucks are on this being the first "holo" tech to market. Probably won't beat BluRay or HD-DVD, but will likely be the tech that makes both of those obsolete.

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  4. This could rule the backup market... by jdbo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...on the consumer end.

    Given the proven nature of tape-based backup (and the anecdotal/proven(?) volatility of optical-disc backup), I figure the enterprise market won't touch these w/ a 10-foot pole - at least not until it's been on the market for many years.

    However, the low-end/consumer-level backup market is mostly using CDs and DVDs these days (due to the cost associated w/ tapes/drives). I see that market segment moving to this more or less instantly, while growing at a VERY rapid pace (similarly to what happened with Zip disks/drives about a decade ago).

    (And yes, I am assuming that this won't hit the market for a few years - however, given that the biggest standard drives are about 250GB now - and uncommon - it seems unlikely that drives will commonly be much larger than 2 TB 4 or 5 years out, such that HVD would be an inconvenient backup solution (compare the inconvenience of backing up a 40GB drive -> 10 DVDs, vs. a 4 TVB drive -> 4 HVDs).

    The above presumes that they can get the tech out there for a market appropriate price - while the article doesn't shed much light on pricing, I can't imagine that new HVD media would cost too much (prob. a similar prive curve to DVD). However, the price-friendliness of the servo-technology they describe is pretty much an unproven quantiy, so who know how much the players/burners will go for...

    Whether the media companies follow-suit and use the media to distribute movies (i.e. create compatible players), I have no idea. However, people will lilely be backing those movies up on these HVDs, even if only to re-burn to MPAA-approved-media-of-the-week later, as I don't see digital distribution of (uncompressed, un-DRM-encumbered) digital HD coming down the pike anytime soon.

  5. FMD Discs by minerat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And in 2002 we were supposed be getting damn close to have Flourscent Multilayered Discs. This was 1TB as well and they had fully functional prototypes. *sniff* *sniff* http://www.zzz.com.ru/index.php?area=articles&acti on=show_article&article_id=135&session_id= 0

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  6. Re:Okay, maybe Mark Cuban was right by jp10558 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But one thing I have to ask is, will this format actually look higher quality on a normal TV? Cause if it doesn't no-one will upgrade till HDTV or whatever becomes far more commonplace.

    Hell, the average person cannot tell the difference on a TV of a DVDShrink transcoded disc to 47% quality and an original DVD disc. It's a limitation of the standard TV's. On a computer screen it looks like crap, but on TV looks the same.

    My point then is that, this may be 1000 times better quality, but if you need the next resolution leap past 1080p to see it, quality will not sell the players and discs.

    And convienience won't either. DVD's were a major step up from VHS. Noticable quality, sound, no reqwinding or wearing out/strectching of the tape, smaller, easier seeking/skipping etc.

    But what do these have over DVD? They are the same size, and presumably will have the same navigation abilities. The quality improvement won't be noticable on the next generation system of audio and video, much less what is in homes now, and for at least 5 yrs to come I would guess. So what makes these attractive?

    All 3 LOTR extended edition movies and appendicies on one disc? Ok there that is a draw, but really - how many movies are just - hollywood homocide - not epic, not a trilogy, no real interesting advances to make it... So no big extras. So what is the draw?

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