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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

Burn time?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

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

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?

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

[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.

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.