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Fujifilm Blu-ray & HD DVD Media Mid 2006
Michael writes to tell us TheTechLounge is reporting that Fuji Film has announced the release of Blu-Ray and HD DVD media by mid 2006. From the article: "Consumers are driving demand for interactive gaming and entertainment applications that require enormous storage capacity," noted Steve Solomon, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Recording Media Division, Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. "Fujifilm coating technology will ensure the precision and quality of signal strength in these new media formats. The success of new recording technologies depends on the availability of affordable, reliable media and our scientists are already working to perfect next-generation storage solutions, long before they hit the market."
http://www.geocities.com/rnseitz/The_Great_Gray_R
"Robert Birge (Syracuse University) who studies the storage of data in proteins, estimated in 1996 that the memory capacity of the brain was between one and ten terabytes, with a most likely value of 3 terabytes. Such estimates are generally based on counting neurons and assuming each neuron holds 1 bit. Bear in mind that the brain has better algorithms for compressing certain types of information than computers do."
"The human brain contains about 50 billion to 200 billion neurons (nobody knows how many for sure), each of which interfaces with 1,000 to 100,000 other neurons through 100 trillion (10 14) to 10 quadrillion (10 16) synaptic junctions. Each synapse possesses a variable firing threshold which is reduced as the neuron is repeatedly activated. If we assume that the firing threshold at each synapse can assume 256 distinguishable levels, and if we suppose that there are 20,000 shared synapses per neuron (10,000 per neuron), then the total information storage capacity of the synapses in the cortex would be of the order of 500 to 1,000 terabytes. (Of course, if the brain's storage of information takes place at a molecular level, then I would be afraid to hazard a guess regarding how many bytes can be stored in the brain. One estimate has placed it at about 3.6 X 10 19 bytes.)"
Both from Google Answers
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The only reason that I would be hesitant to buy some of this new technology is the competing features right now. It would be great to have the highest format available, but if the new players aren't mutually compatible (which really shouldn't be that hard to do) than one is likely to get stuck with the digital Betamax tapes. If there's any new technology that supports both formats, this would be extremely valuable and consumers wouldn't end up getting stiffed in the end. A dual-reading HD DVD reader/writer would sell like hotcakes methinks.
Wait, HD-DVD uses analog recording now? Floating point? How exactly do you make a binary signal more "precise"?
The question though isn't the maximum amount the brain can hold, but how much it can hold in a lifetime. Surely the number they quote could be an estimate of the amount the brain takes in in a lifetime, which you could estimate very roughly by recording all of someone's sensory inputs in a day and finding the size of the part they can recall, then extrapolating.
I'm not saying that 125GB is by any stretch of the imagination accurate, but I don't think it's meant to reflect a maximum capacity.
It's also a bunch of crap from that standpoint, because no part of the brain or body is digital, except maybe the fingers and toes, ha-ha. Seriously though folks, we have no digital inputs. You can't measure our information process in bits or anything based on bits. It doesn't work. We're not based on powers of two, or powers of ten, we're based on analog values.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
As (always) size depends on bitrate. H.264 is supposed to be able to encode at 1/4 the bit rate for equivalent quality. This is theoretical. It depends a lot on the encoder. Also, for some scenes you want higher bitrate. I have heard that HD DVDs (refering to HD, not the standard) might be up to a 40Mbps or more, even though broadcast HDTV is limited to 20Mbps (19.4 in reality, but I'm rounding). BTW, I have not yet heard of an h.264 encoder that will use the full capabilities of the codec yet and 20Mbps is the absolute minimum you need for HD, you really need more.
So, given that, for HD equivalent, we are talking 5 to 10 Mbps for h.264 for HDTV. 10 Mbps = 4.5GB/hour. So a 2 hour movie in h.264 might fit on a standard DVD, but you wouldn't have room for anything but the video track. You still need to get audio on there which is another Gig (assuming you only have one). Extras and everything else will still need to be on a second disk.
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