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Terabit Fiber (In 2010)

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the sign-me-up dept.

Paul Heavens writes "A Japanese company has developed technology to transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds, the world's fastest speed achieved with fibre-optic cables in the field, it says. Kansai Electric used fibre-optic cables on power-transmitting steel towers to achieve the speed of one terabit per second, which is more than 100 times faster than inter-city data transmissions currently in use, a spokesman says. The company, Japan's second-largest power supplier, has not decided when to put the technology into practical use but says it is possible that it would come in 2010 or later."

2 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. Where's the beef? by timeOday · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That "story" is ridiculously short. What I want to know is, was that over *one* strand of fiber, or a big bundle of fibers with each at a non-record-setting speed?

  2. Re:It's not that much data. by InvalidError · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For a 2h of raw 8bits RGB 30fps video...
    DVD resolution: 720x480 = 220GB of raw video data on 8GB DVDs
    HD-DVD resolution: 1920x1080 = 1.3TB of raw video data on 20-30GB media
    Ultra-HD resolution: 7680x4320 = 22TB of raw video data (in NHK's studios)

    The 1Tbps wire speed probably includes framing bits just like most other serial links do so the actual usable bandwidth will be under 100GB/s with the typical 10bits/byte (4B/5B coding) approximation. Add other wire/link-level protocol details and the real-world usable bandwidth can dip even lower. 1/11 would probably be a more accurate wire-to-bytes approximation.

    This would still place the transfer at around 45GB... a little on the high side even for the upcoming HD-DVDs. The only uncompressed video signal I can think of that would be around 90GB/2h is 12bits/12MSPS sampled standard definition composite. I wonder how many movies are actually stored in this format.