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1 Terabyte Optical Storage Disks

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the that's-a-lotta-bit-torrents dept.

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."

30 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Surprise surprise... by Power+Everywhere · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    *sigh*

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    1. Re:Surprise surprise... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  2. Get yours before they're gone! by coupland · · Score: 5, Funny

    >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....

    1. Re:Get yours before they're gone! by Null537 · · Score: 4, Funny

      And their listed release date is Feb. '05

    2. Re:Get yours before they're gone! by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 5, Informative

      What does it have to do with hard drive storage?

      Moore's law is an empirical observation stating, in effect, that at our rate of technological development and advances in the semiconductor industry, the complexity of integrated circuits doubles every 18 months.

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    3. Re:Get yours before they're gone! by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 5, Informative

      Moore's law concerns the number of transistors on a die, although drive capacity does follow an exponent law, but at a different rate.

      It seems that it takes about ten years for hard drive capacity to multiply by ten. That means a doubling of drive capacity approximately every three years. By 2010, there might be 1.6TB drives. By 2015, people might be buying 5TB hard drives. A 1TB optical disc might not be too bad during that time frame.

      The problem is that many of these projects die in their infancy. The last big one I remember was Constellation 3D's FMD, but I really wasn't sure the claimed material science of flourescents / phosphorescence was real on that one, it was hard to distinguish it from a fully vapor project.

  3. wow by diggum · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

  4. Just in time by TrueKonrads · · Score: 4, Funny

    For Duke Nukem Forever release...

    --
    Lone Gunmen crew.
  5. Weaseling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...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...

    1. Re:Weaseling by Mr+Guy · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      --
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  6. Wait till a standards body gets a hold of the tech by havock · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  7. How appropriate by jakuis · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...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!

    1. Re:How appropriate by maxwell+demon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, the article doesn't state that there's a recordable version. Indeed, given that it relies on not just the size, but on fine details of the pits, I could imagine that making a recordable version of that quite hard at the least.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  8. 472 hours of _film_ ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just thought I'd nitpick, but at 10-bit log depth, 4k academy aperture scans of 35mm motion picture film (which is about the standard now for digital postproduction), 1TB will only hold about 13 minutes of footage!
    At 2k, it's a much lengthier 55 minutes or so :)

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

  9. Disc, not Disk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    When you're speaking of a circular optical media, it's called a Disc, not a Disk.

    Hence Compact Disc, Digital Versatile Disc.

    1. Re:Disc, not Disk by maxwell+demon · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  10. measurement units by kirkb · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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    1. Re:measurement units by shut_up_man · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    2. Re:measurement units by mikael · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

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  11. Well, by hartba · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --
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  12. New Format??? Oh No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!!

  13. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  14. Ob Microsoft Putdown by rudy_wayne · · Score: 5, Funny

    So Longorn SP2 will fit on 2 disks!

  15. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  16. Professor predicts product probability? by JUSTONEMORELATTE · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  17. The MPAA cannot allow this. by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 5, Funny
    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.

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  18. What's REALLY next for optical? by swb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've learned to completely discount all the "..researchers announce xxx {giga,tera}bytes on a DVD..." stories I've read here, simply because they've never become products or the timeline is so drawn out (2015???) that it's meaningless.

    The only products that appear likely to actually hit the market for real are Blu-Ray and its competitor, DVD-HD (which seems kind of dead in the water as a data storage standard due to its limited size and growth). Blu Ray appears to have some legs from what I've read, due to its layer growth capability.

    What's after that? Are there any storage standards backed by large consortiums coming after Blu Ray? Or is multi-layer blu ray supposed to be "good enough" until some of this lab stuff makes it to market in 2015?

  19. Longevity by Bios_Hakr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While I'm glad to see advances being made in storage media, I'd prefer to see these guys working to make a '100-year DVD+-R/RW'.

    After all, who wants to spend one week a year doing quality assurance on media. And even if you do QA, what if you find something is bad. While you can re-download your warez and pr0n, the photos and videos of your family vacation will be lost forever.

    --
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  20. Great by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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  21. 472 hours of video on a terabyte by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If we assume the PAL resolution (768x576) using the NV12 pixel format (at an average of 12 bits per pixel), and PAL framerate (25Hz (50Hz when deinterlaced)), we get 16 588 800 bytes per second. At this rate, 1 TB (or 2^40 bytes) would give you 18 hours of video.

    Implying a compression ratio of 1:25 when talking about storage doesn't help the quality of the information.