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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."
Well DVD Audio and SACD never really caught on, because CDs are good enough quality for 99% of the population. The advantages of BluRay over upconverted DVD is minimal at best. Even if BluRay catches on, I can't see anybody wanting to move to yet another format. Especially since we don't even have TVs that go beyond 1080p, which BluRay already supports.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
We had SDTV for nearly a century, and we had VHS for what, decades?
DVD's reign will be about 2 decades.
BluRay will be what, 1 decade?
HDTV will soon be replaced with SHDTV and other such nonsense.
Keep 'em spendin'!
the cost/GB of HDD's. I can buy 750 GB of SATA storage now for the cost of 125 GB worth of BD-RW blanks, and plug it in to any USB2 port I want. For the same cost, I can get a 250 GB USB laptop drive in a self powered enclosure that fits in a shirt pocket. I can only imagine what these 400 GB disks will cost when they hit the market, and what HDD's will cost by then.
Was the sound of a single scratch wiping out years of corporate data...
Yeah, but not for the reason you're suggesting. The extra sharpness on the BluRay disk far surpasses your vaunted "upconverted" dvd.
The downside, though, is that they're not using the right compression scheme. Artifacts which I would not have noticed on DVD are readily apparent on BluRay disk. Either they need a better algorithm or a lot more bits.
Which is why many of us believed that HD-DVD was the better option: it was ostensibly cheaper than blu-ray, and both are really transition formats: just enough capacity to make the digital/HD TV revolution possible, but not quite enough to be the end-all storage media for the long haul.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
A 500 GB HDD costs less than a single one of these discs, is reliable, rewritable a million times, lasts decades if properly stored, is already available, is faster, and requires no fancy hardware.
And there's always tape for true archiving.
A 500 GB HDD costs less than a single one of these discs, is reliable, rewritable a million times, lasts decades if properly stored, is already available, is faster, and requires no fancy hardware.
And there's always tape for true archiving.
But you can't go out and buy ST:TNG seasons 1-7 on HDD.
Bearded Dragon
You must have a shitty tv or are blind to make such a stupid statement.
No. The only people who really care whether they are watching an up-converted DVD or a blu-ray are are videophile snobs looking to justify the expense, who pause the movie to point at some intricate pattern in the corner of the screen and gloat.
The average person can tell them apart side by side. The average person, once instructed what to look for, can see the up-conversion artifacts.
But when actually watching a movie, it just doesn't really matter, and most people can't tell the difference in a blind test, where they get to watch a few seconds of a random scene movie in just one format and then decide. I've done this with a number of people with a few movies I have in both formats, on a number of different TVs from plasma to DLP.
Bluray is the better picture (and sound), there is no question, but the difference is incremental, and ultimately pretty minor. Especially when compared with the transition from VHS to DVD. --THAT-- is a transition the average person can tell apart easily, and then you factor in all the extra convenience of the DVD format in terms of form factor and features. DVDs were worth re-buying much of ones collection in, blu-ray? There's maybe a dozen movies I would consider re-purchasing, and even when buying new, I'll take the usually significantly cheaper DVD version 9 times out of 10.