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Pioneer Promises 400GB Optical Discs
schliz writes "Pioneer has developed a 16-layer read-only optical disc which it claims can store 400GB of data. The per-layer capacity is 25GB, the same as that of a Blu-ray Disc, and the multilayer technology will also be applicable to multilayer recordable discs."
There's always something better coming along. In this case it's pretty much just a research paper, not an actual product, so not all that exciting.
And Blu-ray had burnable 4-layer (100GB) discs two years ago.
From the article:
"The huge capacity of these discs means that the new technology will be best suited for applications such large volume data archiving, rather than consumer use."
The tech they are using to read so many layers of information is impressive. However as the article states, this format is in no way intended for consumers.
Your BluRay hardware is probably safe for another five years or so.
Roughly half my comments are never submitted. You may be reading the better half...
Artifacts which I would not have noticed on DVD are readily apparent on BluRay disk.
Unless you are talking about film grain, I have no clue what "artifacts" you are talking about as Blu-Ray, outside of the early Mpeg-2 releases, and HD DVD both use more efficient compression codecs than DVD does. If you are talking about film grain, yes it is more apparent now due to the higher resolution which is able to resolve such detail now, but it is supposed to be there.
Call me a snob if you like, that does not change the fact I can tell the difference very quicly on my 56" HDTV between HD content and DVD content, especialy when the HD content was recorded with a HD camera, not upconverted from film.
This statement basically says you don't know what you are talking about, as conversion from film to HD formats (1920x1080 or 1280x720) involves a loss of resolution, sometimes massive depending on exactly how the image is stored on the film.
Film easily has a resolution of 4000x4000, so even using a film format where black bars are stored on the film, you end up with about 4000x2200 at the 16:9 HDTV aspect ratio. Film is then telecined to whatever HD resolution is required, which results in a loss in resolution, but you still have at least full HD quality at that point. Now, special effects aren't always rendered at full film resolution, so some movies (or TV shows) will not have the full film resolution in all scenes, but generally the lowest rendering these days is 2K, which is more than enough for 1920x1080.
What's probably confusing you is that HDTV cameras have more depth of field than most lens/film combinations on 35mm film cameras. This gives the scene a much more "in focus" look for more of the image, and gives the illusion that it is sharper. Film can do this, but it is more difficult due to the complex interaction between the type of lens, the film speed, and the lighting for the scene.