1 Terabyte Optical Storage Disks

fenimor writes "Physicists at Imperial College London described a new method for potentially encoding and storing up to one Terabyte of data, or 472 hours of film, on one optical disk the size of a CD or DVD. Maybe it won't be as large, as 100TB holographic optical storage, but still should be enough to fit every episode of The Simpsons on one disk. Dr Török, Lecturer in the Department of Physics, believes that the first disks could be on the shelves between 2010 and 2015."

Comments

Surprise surprise...

[Power Everywhere]

1,000 gigabytes of data and the only application you can think of is the Simpsons?

*sigh*

Re:Surprise surprise...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't wait. I'll finally be able to fit my entire pr0n collection in one suitcase.

Get yours before they're gone!

[coupland]

>the first disks could be on the shelves between 2010 and 2015.

Which means EB Games should start taking pre-orders right about now...

I keed, I keed....

Re:Get yours before they're gone!

[Null537]

And their listed release date is Feb. '05

Re:Get yours before they're gone!

[WPIDalamar]

But they'll have an "Anticipated Ship Date" of next year =/

wow

[diggum]

So with this technology, we could get the complete, directors cut version of each of the Lord of the Rings movies onto 3 disks? Awesome!

Just in time

[TrueKonrads]

For Duke Nukem Forever release...

Re:Just in time

[cdrudge]

Shortly after Doom 3...oh wait. I can't use that one anymore.

Weaseling

[Anonymous Coward]

...storing up to one Terabyte of data, or 472 hours of film, on one optical disk the size of a CD or DVD. Maybe it won't be as large, as 100TB holographic optical storage...

"Maybe"? Really, now - I think you can confidently commit yourself to the proposition that 100 > 1...

Re:Weaseling

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, those are metric TB.

Re:Weaseling

[Mr Guy]

But does it hold up for very large values of 1?

Wait till a standards body gets a hold of the tech

[havock]

Once the physicists give their product to the DVD Forum/Alliance, we can expect uncompatible competing formats to delay wide adoption of this technology for the next 7 years after it is launched.... so goes life.

How appropriate

[jakuis]

...should be enough to fit every episode of The Simpsons on one disk.

How appropriate. I can already hear anti-piracy people say D'oh!

measurement units

[kirkb]

Simpsons episodes? I thought that the accepted unit of measurement for storage devices was "libraries of congress"?

Re:measurement units

[shut_up_man]

I believe the a more practical unit of measurement is the "collected works of Jenna Jameson".

Re:measurement units

[mikael]

You need this handy table of International Units of Measurements:

Height of small objects: Pepsi/Coke cans

Height of medium objects: Two storey family home

Height of large buildings and astronomical objects: Statues of Liberties or Taj Mahal's

Volume of medium-sized objects: Ford pickup truck/Indian bull elephant

Volume of large objects: Superbowl stadium/Oil tanker

Volume of extremely large objects: Planet Earth

Slow speed objects: Garden snail

Medium speed objects: Grand Prix racing car

High speed objects: Artillery shell/Rifle bullet

Most if not all of these objects can be found around or near the typical family dwelling home.

Well,

[hartba]

Would that be every episode of the Simpons from inception to today or until the release date in 2015, and exactly how many epsiodes with that consist of? Would I be able to store deleted scenes and commentaries? What if Matt Groening decides to convert some of the characters from earlier episodes to CGI, with the help of Stephen Speilberg and George Lucas? Could those fit as well? I need to know this or I'm not buying one.

Re:Well,

[Luminari]

• What if Matt Groening decides to convert some of the characters from earlier episodes to CGI, with the help of Stephen Speilberg and George Lucas?

If George Lucas is involved then they will change it so Mr. Burns will have fired the first bullet when Maggie shoots him in the Who shot Mr. Burns episode.

Re:Well,

[hartba]

If Stephen Speilberg is involved, Maggie's gun would be replaced with a walkie-talkie and Mr. Burns would fly away on a bicyle.

New Format??? Oh No

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, I just bought the Star Wars DVD collection and now Lucas is will get me to buy another format of Star Wars. When will it end!!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Simpsons anthologies?

[bgeer]

I'm kind of confused by these nonstandard units they're using here. How many Libraries of Congress can it hold, or better yet what's the unit ratio for Simpsons anthologies per human genome? TIA.

Ob Microsoft Putdown

[rudy_wayne]

So Longorn SP2 will fit on 2 disks!

Re:Ob Microsoft Putdown

[Anonymous Coward]

And one of those will be for the EULA!

Re:472 hours of _film_ ?

[Throtex]

Or one 524288 x 524288 @ 32 bpp frame, uncompressed.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Professor predicts product probability?

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

There was a Dilbert strip long ago in which he returned to college. The professor introduced his class by presenting a complex diagram -- "This diagram explains why I'm an expert in economics, yet dress like a flood victim."

Call me when it's out of the Uni and into a corporation's lab, then we can talk.

The MPAA cannot allow this.

[www.sorehands.com]

If there is that much storange on a disk, it will only be used by movie pirates. And if it gets into the hands of consumers, it will destroy the entire movie industry.

They must get Congress to out law this. At the same time, maybe they should have copyrights extended to 200 years instead of the puny 75 years. 75 years is not enough time for the copyright holders to recoup their investments and 200 years will encourage the creative people to produce more creative works.

Simpsons did it!

[mrshowtime]

Seriously, by the time this mego-optical disk is ready, the Simpsons might actually all finally be released on DVD. They just released season 4 on DVD, and what, we're on season 15 now? Shit, if they did release all the episodes on one MEGA disc, it would cost damn near $1000, and it would be worth every penny. :)

Re:Disc, not Disk

[maxwell demon]

So magnetic disks are spelled with k, optical ones are spelled with c. Now, what about magneto-optical? Disck?

Re:472 hours of _film_ ?

[EvilNTUser]

"Saying things like 472 hours of video is fairly meaningless without saying what KIND of video."

That's why we here at slashdot usually use real units, like Libraries of Congress. The editor must have messed up.

Ideal for Star Wars 50th edition

[mirko]

During the last discussion about Star Wars DVD set sombody mentioned that the original featured a 15000 line resolution, I guess, the final edition which will consist the "shoot before Greedo FPS" will barely occupy one of these discs...

Don't lose it!

[perdu]

Just don't leave one in a cab with all of your pictures on it, as we read in Why You Should Never Lose Your Digital Media

Re:woah! uberporn!

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

PUT not BUT.. Put brain into motion before typing.

Great

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Now I'll have to buy the White album again.

Gmail?

[incuso]

It is time for Google to upgrade to 1 TByte :) M. -- http://incuso.altervista.org

Typical slashdot humor

[Anonymous Coward]

I think whenever an article adresses storage that is X years away, you can expect the following breakdown of jokes:

65% pr0n jokes
10% microsoft jokes
10% star wars jokes
8% duke nukem forever jokes
5% white album jokes
2% slashdot humor jokes

Dr. Torok?

[JPamplin]

I can think of two scenarios:

1. Dr. Torok is vulcan and this is the first seeding of Vulcan technology (apart from the T'Pol grandmother selling velcro to Americans in the 1950's).

2. Isn't Torok that caveman stuck in the futuristic jumping / FPS game? He's certainly progressed.

JP

Re:Disc, not Disk

[iNetRunner]

You can leave that 's' off.. Enough consonants there already. ;)

Re:472 hours of _film_ ?

[Overzeetop]

Yeah, but just think how good the 650MB DiVX rips will be!

*ducks*

No no no

[Anonymous Coward]

It's dsck.

You know, like fsck.