300 gigabytes in the size of a DVD?

Rollie Hawk writes "Although storage space is no longer the premium it once was, physical backups and external media have been slow to catch up. While recordable DVDs may be fine for backing up a single workstation, large servers are still forced to rely on swappable drives and tape backups. But holographic disc technology could be changing all of that in the very near future. Holographic Versatile Discs (HVDs) have been in the works for some time now by various companies, including InPhase Technologies (formerly part of Lucent) and Japan's Optware (which claimed to have made the first recording of a movie on a holographic disc last year). InPhase's HVDs, scheduled for release in 2006, are said to hold 300GB of data, 60 times that of a conventional DVD with only a slight increase in size. That translates to more than a day's worth of HD-quality video. Not to mention the drives themselves can read and write at ten times the speed a normal DVD drive. One of InPhase's partners in HVD research, Maxell, is working towards even more storage on a 1.6TB disc."

Comments

It Won't see light of day: Thank you Hollywood

[denis-The-menace]

Once the MPAA, RIAA and every other cultural cartel gets a hold of this, it will die like the DAT tape.

They should just release it as a means of backing up data and then figure out the copy protection.
-We get a new storage medium.
-They squable for 5 years.
-Then *MAYBE* they come out with a larger capacity disks with DRM for TVs/movies

Reliability ?

[Wudbaer]

I could imagine that those things would be great for doing backups, but: Will they be reliable ?

When writable DVDs and DVD burners got affordable I was thrilled at first: Finally being able to backup several GB of data to one not too expensive disk instead of on a stack of CD-Rs ! But then reality hit: Compatibility problems between individual brands of burners and brands of media, quality problems with media, even worse durability than CD-Rs; altogether more or less a total gamble if you want to do backups with that stuff. Now my DVD burners collect dust or are mostly used as CD burners only. So what is a high capacity medium good for if it is not reliable besides making expensive coasters and wall clocks ?

Post Office Bandwidth

[goombah99]

Once again, the post-office will become the king of high latency high bandwidth. Hollywood should quake in their boots over this, not on-line file sharing.

  If these things are inexpensive enough ond can imagine peer-to-peer postal networks popping up. Say you record half of something on on DVD, and you send it to someone. They send you back half of something, and then you send the other half and so-on. tit for tat.

The problem with the above concept is that it requires the sender and the receiver to actually haveing something each other actually wanted to exchange. But if the disks get big enough you could easily put many things on them increasing the probability that one or more things on their will be something someone else wants to share. It costs you no extra postage to send 1 thing as 100 things now.

So this might blow that wide open. And sharing 100 to 1000 movies per 32 cent stamp, or sharing every single top 40 song for the last 100 years on a single Disk and it wont take long before everyone has every song and movie.

Man, I was reading about this last decade!

[Fantastic Lad]

I was reading about working models and all the technology being in place for full production of these holographic recording devices. In 1998!

This is moronic. This is annoying. I am beside myself with frustration. (Well, not really. --I don't actually care.)

The fundamental truth of the matter is that the technology which is readily possible, and the technology which is actually made available to the public, are decades apart. After all. . , why nip the spirit of profit in the bud when you can produce and sell entire production runs of stone-age computer tech one incrementally advanced stage after another? Heck, this keeps the economy 'healthy' during peace times, ensures jobs and an appetite for more and more junk technology. "Planned Obsolescence" is reality.

When everybody gets all excited about the big "new" thing, I groan. We're being led on and sold crap because there are miles and miles of money to be made between now and when the really good stuff is released, which of course, only happens when it doesn't matter anymore.

So who cares? Just let me have enough technology to do what I need to do. Those needs were well met about five years ago, so honestly, I don't really care about any new so-called 'advances'.

And the band plays on. . .

-FL