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."

Comments

Blu Ray

[CogDissident]

Good thing we all updated early to the blu-ray player, when something is about to come along to blow it out of the water, right at about the time when DVDs are reaching the point where people need more than 2-3 DVDs for games/movies (which is the point at which CDs were phased out, and floppy disks).

Re:Blu Ray

[ergo98]

Good thing we all updated early to the blu-ray player, when something is about to come along to blow it out of the water

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.

Re:Blu Ray

[CastrTroy]

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.

Re:Blu Ray

[sexconker]

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'!

Re:Blu Ray

[halsver]

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.

Re:Blu Ray

[zippthorne]

The advantages of BluRay over upconverted DVD is minimal at best.

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.

Re:Blu Ray

[Lunix Nutcase]

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.

Re:Blu Ray

[sexconker]

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.

Re:Blu Ray

[Ngarrang]

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.

Re:Blu Ray

[8282now]

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.

But as soon as a generous person does, no one else needs to ;)

Re:Blu Ray

[tb()ne]

I wouldn't worry just yet. It looks like the discs may actually be 400 GB Bluray discs that will be compatible with existing players.

Re:Blu Ray

[vux984]

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.

Re:Blu Ray

[Anonymous Coward]

Blu-ray and HD-DVD support the same compression schemes (for video at least). The difference was that some early blu-ray discs were using mpeg2 (the same that DVDs use) while HD-DVD movies often used one of the better codecs like h.264 and VC-1 already in the beginning of the "war".

Re:Blu Ray

[drinkypoo]

Small (say, 1.8") hard drives have VERY high G-shock resistance while turned off. (Shock-G resistance varies.)

Re:Blu Ray

[Comen]

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.
To me the diffence is as drastic as going from VHS to DVD.
Some people just do not care, and that is fine.
My Dad can sit in front of his 15 year old tv and the picture has a red ghosting hue to it, and drives me nuts but when I tell him he should get a HDTV, he just tells me he likes the one he has just fine, this is a guy that watches every sporting event on TV, and that content is mostly shot with HD cameras, so he would really benefit from the upgrade, but would he care? NO

Re:Blu Ray

[EchaniDrgn]

Now all we need is a Station Wagon to transport them in.

Re:Blu Ray

[kabocox]

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.

That's the reason why I'm skipping the entire BlueRay generation. My family can live with DVD quality just fine. (Heck we download youtube quality stuff and are happy with it.) BlueRay just doesn't bring enough to be plate to make it worth it for me. Now if a new 400+GB disc format came out, I and others would love it for buying one disc that has the entire series of DVD quality shows on it. O.k. some will want increased picture quality; I'd like to easily fit my entire DVD collection on 2-3 single discs.

Re:Blu Ray

[TheSync]

I have no clue what "artifacts" you are talking about

I can attest that Hollywood studios are very serious about making their newest Blu-rays "artifact free". We're talking MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 at 25 Mbps, which (speaking as a HDTV guy) is way overkill for most eyes. Consider that terrestrial HDTV is =19 Mbps MPEG-2 and what you see on cable or DBS is probably compressed down from that. I'm pretty happy delivering 14 Mbps H.264 HDTV to stations for high-quality prime-time network use.

In post-production houses, there is now this position called the "compressionist" who uses semi-automated systems to compress each scene 10 or 20 different ways with different parameters to ensure the best compression. There are built in PSNR measurement, MOS estimation, as well as the human eye looking over all this. And it costs a lot of money....

Re:Blu Ray

[Doghouse Riley]

"I've explained HD vs dvd this way. In H. Potter chamber of secrets in the scene where he fights the basilisk. If you can't see how many zits HP has on his face under the makeup then HD would let you."

Golly, why didn't anyone tell me this before?? On my way to Best Buy right n

Re:Blu Ray

[Ngarrang]

... have some sort of predictive system that deletes the less popular movies, keeping them available to download again if you decide to watch it again.

"Howard the Duck", "Ishtar" and the ST:TOS episode "Spock's Brain" would never last under such an algorithm.

Re:Blu Ray

[MMC Monster]

Cost differential is an issue even for some of those with HDTVs.

I have a samsung 50" 1080p TV. Upscaling DVDs look awesome. I have a computer attached to it and it looks awesome as well.

I'll probably buy the HD package from my cable provider once the price comes down.

That being said, I'm not investing in a blu ray player and discs until the price come down for both the player and the discs. At the local store, DVDs sell for $15 for new releases (usually it's a one week promo the week that the disc comes out). Also, there are $5 bins full of older releases.

I'll wait until blu ray is similarly priced.

The fact that I can't even back up the blu ray discs is another issue. My kids have already destroyed a few DVDs I own.

Re:Blu Ray

[nabsltd]

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.

Re:Blu Ray

[JesseMcDonald]

It is possible to split an HDMI video signal, provided it's not tainted with HDCP. HDCP encodes the signal for a specific receiver, so even though you can split the signal only one screen can decode it. It is true that all (licensed) Blu-Ray players require HDCP on their digital outputs, but one could create an unencrypted, full-HD signal some other way. For example, by applying a cheap DVI-to-HDMI adapter to the output from a PC. The resulting signal could then be distributed to multiple HD screens. Suitable PC-compatible HD video for a simple demo shouldn't be hard to come by.

Re:Blu Ray

[sricetx]

That's the reason why I'm skipping the entire BlueRay generation. My family can live with DVD quality just fine.

The reason I'm skipping BlueRay is that I won't buy ANYTHING with DRM (unless it's easily crackable like DVD). Hollywood can take BlueRay and stuff it. I will reject any technology which limits my free use rights.

Re:Blu Ray

[Sethumme]

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.

The non-consumer, archival focus was the same thing they were saying about the CD (or was it DVD?) when the technology hadn't been perfected yet and when 3.5" floppies were considered more than sufficient for consumer storage. Eventually, consumer media will demand larger-capacity formats then even a 100Gb Blueray can provide. Besides, anything that a library can afford to spend money on will have to be cheap enough that it could also feasibly be marketed to some portion of consumers - archiving isn't an industry that's rolling in venture capital...

More importantly, it's highly likely that a significant market share of home entertainment will be provided via downloads and HD-quality streaming media services within the next several years, which could devastate the physical data storage medium industry, including Blueray.

Anyway, I'm still holding out for consumer holographic storage devices.

Re:Blu Ray

[vux984]

No. I guarantee you everyone is able to see the difference

I didn't say they wouldn't see the difference. I said they wouldn't care, and that it didn't matter.
if they were sitting at the THX recommended distance from their screen.

Big if. Unless you have an actual 'theatre room' and a truly huge TV the THX recommended distance is a joke. Almost nobody sits that close to the TV. To put it into perspective, a 6'2" individual sitting in a recliner in the reclined position with his FEET ON THE TV STAND will still be well beyond the recommended viewing distance of his 42" TV.

If you want a cinema experience in your home as the director intended, bluray is the only way to go.

Don't flatter yourself. Directors are still aiming at a theater experience in a classic movie theater, projected by commercial projectors.

It does make a difference that anyone can see and resolve all 1080 lines and more if you are doing a valid test.

I don't dispute that if you create a test designed to show that people can see the difference that they will be able to see the difference. However, I'm talking regular people in regular situations.

Of course no one is going to see the difference 10 feet away from a 36" tv.

But since that's more or less how most people have it set up. (or 12-15" from a 42-48" set) why should they really care about blu-ray?

If the only way I'm going to realize any value in blu-ray purchase is to push my couch up against the TV, then its not *really* worth it, because that's not how I'm going to use it. Its a status symbol, and if push your couch up closer and look for it, you can see the difference, but it doesn't really matter.

To use a car analgy, its like buying a 911 Turbo instead of the slightly less powerful 911. Oh sure, there's an unmistakable performance difference between them, but really, the average driver will NEVER really experience more than a hint of the 'extra' the Turbo can deliver in normal driving usage. You've pretty much GOT to take it to the track to really experience the difference.

And for most people, the odds of taking their car out to the track on a regular basis to experience that extra is about the same as the odds of setting up a theatre room in their home... people do do it... but not many, not in the big scheme of things.

Re:Blu Ray

[pushing-robot]

It depends on how the monitor is configured; some monitors have poor color curves, so some colors are a bit "farther apart" than others. Worse, some monitors (even ones marketed as 8-bit) show less than 8 bits per channel due to cheap controllers or "dynamic contrast" systems. These displays show distinct banding on many images and should be avoided.

But as long as the display is well designed and capable of outputting a solid 8 bits per channel, it's unlikely that anyone will notice banding outside of special test patterns, even those of us (myself included) who can detect 9-10 bits of color definition per channel. While I wouldn't mind the extra colors, and it's a relatively easy thing for display manufacturers to implement, it's not a feature I'd spend much extra for.

The big advantage to >8 bits per channel color, though, is during the editing process.

When working with raster-based programs like Photoshop, it's pretty normal to create a gradient, then compress or tweak the colors, then mess around some more, then adjust the color levels again, lather, rinse, repeat. What started out as a fine gradient got compressed into a small range of colors, then expanded back again, and you now have very ugly, obvious color bands.

With higher color depth (16 bits per color channel is the norm for good image editors) you have a ton more headroom, so you can mess with levels to you heart's content without losing any color definition.

But once the editing is complete, it's pretty normal to export the final distribution copy at 8 bits per channel. It saves space, and anything beyond 8 bits per channel is virtually imperceptible.

It's kind of like lossy audio encoding: If you do it once, after the editing is complete, the music will still sound great. But if you compress, expand, and compress again twenty times you'll end up with crap.

The one practical use for high color depth displays right now is for color profiles. With extra overhead, it becomes possible to tweak displays warmer or cooler, compress or expand the color gamut, or even slightly tweak certain patches of the display to compensate for uneven backlighting, all without any loss of definition. It's not something the average person would bother with, but it's a good reason to add a few extra bits per pixel to professional displays.

Also, monitors today can't show extremely vivid or bright colors that the human eye is capable of perceiving. Backlight technology is improving this to some degree, but if there is ever a quantum leap in display technology we may *need* a lot more bits to describe all the new colors we can show. In fact, we would probably need to start using floating point color, which is already used for video editing and HDR video games.

Re:Blu Ray

[vux984]

If you can't tell the difference between SD and HD on the gear you're using, fine, no problem. Enjoy your upconverted DVD's and more power to you. But do not case aspersions on those who do have gear that can show off the difference.

I didn't say you couldn't see the difference, I said it didn't really matter in normal setups. You can see it, it doesn't usually matter.

The way you are framing the situation is almost dishonest.

First you talk about 37" CRTs and agree that there is no difference between SD and HD, and I don't disagree. And then you jump to a 65" HDTV (presumably viewed within 6 feet?) and claim the difference is blindingly obvious. Again I don't disagree.

BUT...

What about 'most people'?

The majority of HDTVs being sold right now are in the 42-50" range. The vast majority of living rooms and even bedrooms are setup such that the TV is 8'-15' away from where its usually viewed from. (Think about it, even if its on a dresser at the end of your bed with just enough space to walk between comfortably, you are still a good 10' away if you are propped up on some pillows at the other end of the bed.

This puts it well out of the "THX recommended viewing distance", and even outside the maximum thx viewing distance.

And in this situation, the situation I'm talking about, viewers -can- see the difference between SDTV and HDTV, but the difference is pretty minor.

Given this is the situation most people are in, should they bother with blu-ray?

But do not case aspersions on those who do have gear that can show off the difference.

I'm not. But unless you've got an honest to god theatre in your house, your probably deceiving yourself. The fact that you can stand 6 feet away from your 65" TV and delight in the picture quality is moot if you are like most people, and sit on a couch 10+ feet away from it, at that distance the difference really isn't that great anymore. I have a 56" myself, and from 5 feet away I can really see the difference, but I sit some 12 feet away when I'm actually watching movies and not 'inspecting the picture quality'. And from 12 feet away, the difference between up-converted DVD and blu-ray isn't nearly so blinding.

Now, if you -do- have a thx compliant theatre in your house, great, more power to you, but don't kid yourself that that most people should buy blu-ray for the blu-ray -you- experience, because most people aren't going to get it.

Remember, when I say blu-ray is only a minor improvement, I am talking about the experience most people will have with it. Not some idealized microcosm inhabited by people with honest-to-god home theatres, with viewing distances THX would certify.

Re:Blu Ray

[vux984]

Then it's my turn to call your assessment dishonest. Would it be fair to say that Linux is far inferior to Windows because "most people" are unable to grasp the intricacies of its foibles?

Yes it would, if it were true. I think at this point though, Windows edge is largely momentum and mindshare. Linux is not far inferior. To put it in terms of blu-ray, though would 'upgrading' from XP to Linux really benefit your average web-app/email/mp3 playing/photo sharing person? Not appreciably. Same with blu-ray... some small set benefit a lot, most gain little. (and in the case of linux, have to potentially give up a lot too.)

Would it be fair to say that a Ferrari Enzo is no better than Honda Civic because "most people" cannot drive a Ferrari hard enough to bring out its pedigree?

It would be fair to say that the average person is not well served by a Ferrari Enzo. They are terrible commuter cars, lousy for grocery shopping, spend far more time in the shop than a Civic, and cost orders of magnitude more to purchase, maintain, fuel up, and insure. If on top of all that you aren't going to have the opportunity to drive it hard enough to 'bring out its pedigree' the only point in owning one would be as part of a dick waving contest with your peers. Is that a good reason to own one? Or buy blu-ray?

Would it be fair to say Da Vinci's Mona Lisa is no better than an arts & crafts store copy because "most people" aren't art experts and wouldn't know the difference?

Good analagy. If you can't tell the difference between the original and a copy, what is the point of shelling out for the expensive original? Some sort of internal satisfaction of knowing that you have the real thing? Is that a reason to invest in blu-ray? 'I can't tell the difference from my couch, but I get great satisfaction in knowing its better'?? Seems like faulty logic to me. At least the mona lisa original has investment value...your home theatre is obsolete and depreciating fast before you've finished plugging it in.

I think you either give too much credit to those with uber-theaters or take away too much credit from the average consumer.

The 'average consumer' still doesn't even have an HDTV. From that its trivial to conclude that the average consumer doesn't benefit from bluray. The percentage of HDTV consumers who -might- benefit from blu-ray starts off a distinct minority. Even if we were to agree that 100% of HDTV owners would be blinded by the difference blu-ray made to their setup, it would still top out as significantly less than the majority of consumers. And I contend that the percentage of HDTV owners would see blu-ray as more than a minor upgrade to their setup to be FAR LESS than 100%, marginalizing the group even more. Even if it were HALF of HDTV owners that would be 1/6th the population... there is simply no way a 1/6th or smaller minority can represent 'average consumers'.

Burn time?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Anyone care to venture how long it would take to burn such disc, if it is loaded full?

No burning. Less useful than Blu-ray. Lame

[ergo98]

This is one of somewhere closing on quadrillion (give or take a gazillion) super-duper high capacity optical formats that have been prematurely hyped and then disappeared.

Re:No burning. Less useful than Blu-ray. Lame

[sexconker]

Interestingly, many of these formats were bought by SONY and led out to pasture.

FMD (Fluorescent Multi-Layer Disc) being the most promising (back in the day).

Re:No burning. Less useful than Blu-ray. Lame

[somersault]

How is that a bad thing considering SONY have released a useful disk format. You're suggesting that they'd buy a load of companies and then not bother to look into any interesting tech that those companies had been researching? Blu-ray is theoretically capable of holding just as much as these disks if SONY can work out how to do multi-layer work effectively, as Pioneer claim to have done. I'd expect SONY are either close on their heels in R&D terms, or could just license the tech.

The main difference between these 2 formats are that SONYs was out in the market over 2 years ago, and Pioneer has yet to get this tech out of the lab. 2 years ago, a 50GB optical format (dual layer blu-ray) was quite useful, and it still is today. Blu-ray also has rewritable disks in the market.

Really, I don't see what use in the extremely-mild-conspiracy type comment serves.. companies like google and MS always buy out other companies and assimilate their tech. In some cases that can be negative, but in other cases it leads to some great products.

BTW, Wikipedia points out that FMD died because one of their demonstrations was proven to be a hoax. I presume they did have some working tech though because DMD is being developed by a company who acquired Constellation 3D's patents.

I'll believe it when I see it

[jandrese]

Frankly, given the track record of optical formats, I'd be surprised if this ever makes it out of the laboratory, especially given the fact that it has so many layers. With DVD a lot of production companies basically gave up on the dual sided dual layer discs because the yield on 4 layer disks was so bad. Getting a good yield on a 25 layer disc is either an achievement worthy of talking about over the disc, or it's a bunch of lies and marketing hype.

Lifespan?

[s31523]

With so many layers, I wonder if the useful lifespan of the disk is shorter than a conventional DVD. The obvious application for these discs is backing up servers and home storage drives.

Blu-ray hasn't yet come close to catching....

[Doghouse Riley]

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.

That slight scratching sound

[MikeRT]

Was the sound of a single scratch wiping out years of corporate data...

But will it play in my HD-DVD player?

[fodder69]

Will it play in my HDDVD player?

Re:Oh yeah, well I'm promising more

[sexconker]

I don't know what an optical disk is, but an optical disc greater than your already exists in various telescopes and such.

They're very shiny.

Limited time offer

[cazbar]

Now you can order a collection of ALL the pornography on the internet on an easy-to-ship 150 disc set. Pioneer drive required.

Re:Limited time offer

[sexconker]

150 discs?

Surely you mean 150 spindles of discs...

Re:Limited time offer

[RulerOf]

They've compressed it to MPEG-1, transcoded it to FLV, added an Ebaumsworld.com watermark, transcoded it to WMV, added a break.com watermark, and then transcoded it back to FLV, cropped out the watermarks, posted it on youtube, and pressed it to 150 fully DRM compliant disks, for your viewing pleasure.

For an extra 15 dollars/disk, they'll even sync up the audio for you.

Re:Limited time offer

[Blimey85]

My heart skipped a beat when I read this.

Thick

[GottliebPins]

Its amazing how much data you can cram on a 12" thick disc.

That slight humming sound

[aristotle-dude]

Was that the sound of an electromagnet or disruptor wiping out years of corporate data? The prudent thing would be to not put all your eggs in one basket. Magnetic tape backup is vulnerable to electromagnetic radiation.

Where have I heard this before?

[hyades1]

Let me guess, it's going to be used to ship the next version of Duke Nukem.

Re:Read Only?

[ColdWetDog]

So essentially these are high-capacity coasters?

No, Laserdisks are (were) high capacity coasters. You could put an entire six-pack on them. These will just hold one drink, like all the other AOL disks.

rerun

[ILuvRamen]

Too bad InPhase already has had a holographic disk of that capacity for a while now plus a write speed that blows this media away.

Long term data storage

[DragonHawk]

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.

I'm curious as to on what you base your statement that a 500 GB HDD will last decades. Can you cite a study on the long-term storage reliability of modern hard disk designs? In my personal experience, disks which have sat unused for several years sometimes don't spin up. They're not designed for that.

I'll also point out that the equipment needed to read an ST-506 hard disk -- introduced circa 1980, thus "decades" -- would likely be somewhat hard to find and integrate into a modern operation. It might not be "fancy hardware", but the end result (high cost) is the same.

I'm not dismissing the use of hard disks for archiving in general; I just find some of your claims dubious.

One thing that seems to be true is that storage is getting cheaper and bigger all the time. Thus for some applications, it may actually be cost-effective to keep all your archives online (disks spinning), with redundancy, and simply upgrade to newer, larger drives as old ones fail. Capacity keeps growing for new data, and old data keeps getting copied to new media. That eliminates the concerns about keeping equipment around to read old media. As an added bonus, everything is online all the time.

Re:Long term data storage

[mitgib]

One thing that seems to be true is that storage is getting cheaper and bigger all the time.

How about faster? That is my desire, and hardware SAS and SATA raid arrays are just not fast enough for what I am interested in. I saw a new device recently that was mentioned here, the Fusion IO, that is 1000 times faster, but is cost prohibitive yet, and small in size still, like 320gb is as large as offered. At $30/GB it has a long way to go before it is really mainstream and I don't see that happening for quite some time since they have their production sold out for months on end. At least that was what I was told after contacting their sales department. It is supported in the CentOS 5.2 kernel though, so that was a major plus to me, and no Windows support yet either, another major plus to me.

Rubbish

[encoderer]

This, frankly, is rubbish.

No matter how good the upscaling chipset is, it cannot divine information that's not on the disc.

It's like taking a 640x480 picture, stretching it to to 1920x1280 and calling it "nearly as good."

All this talk of "bluray not catching" is just a matter of time. I never gave bluray a second thought until I bought an HDTV. Soon after, I bought a bluray.

And before long, everybody will be buying HDTV's. Many will wait until their existing set bites the dust, but it will happen, just as everybody eventually switched to Color, then to Stereo.

Amazing seek times

[Joe Snipe]

Essentially wouldn't this be the same as having an 8 platter HD (aside from the slower moving read head)? This could easily outperfom a 2-4 platter Hard drive, no?

Fools!

[nko321]

It's read only! How are they going to get 400 GB onto something onto which they can't write?

Do they mean WORM? (Is there some marketing problem with that acronym, maybe?)

Re:They don't "stretch" the image

[NeMon'ess]

Joce640k didn't say upconverting a DVD achieves BluRay quality. You don't need to apply other's comments to Joce. What Joce said was "it's not really as good, it's somewhere in between. But at best HD is only twice as good as DVD so being 50% better is pretty close."

I agree with the first sentence. I disagree with the second sentence. Don't make straw men arguments.

Here's where your wrong if my memory is correct. HD movies are stored on Blu-ray WITH the black bars. They are NOT stored anamorphically. DVDs do that. Therefore a movie like Blade Runner on DVD has 720x480=345600 pixels. On Blu-ray it's stored as 1920x803=1541760 pixels. So that's 4.46 times as many pixels. Not 6x.

What upconverting does for the Blade Runner DVD is show all 345,600 pixels. When not upconverted, the 640x480 picture only shows 640x272=174080 pixels. That is 50% of the data stored.

So upconverting a wide screen DVD displays twice as much detail than the SD output. The Blu-ray version has 4.5x more detail than the upconverted DVD.