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Sony's Blue-Violet Laser the Future Blu-ray?
JoshuaInNippon writes "Japanese researchers from Sony and Tohoku University announced the development of a 'blue-violet ultrafast pulsed semiconductor laser,' which Sony is aiming to use for optical disks. The new technology, with 'a laser wavelength of 405 nanometers in the blue-violet region' and a power out put 'more than a hundred times the world's highest output value for conventional blue-violet pulse semiconductor lasers,' is believed to be capable of holding more than 20 times the information of current Blu-ray technology, while retaining a practical size. Japanese news reports have speculated that one blue-violet disk could be capable of holding more than 50 high-quality movie titles, easily fitting entire seasons of popular TV shows like 24. When the technology may hit markets was not indicated."
Here come some more shark comments. Sheesh!
Of course, as soon as Sony brings this to market, some other company, or group of companies, will unveil a competing product incompatible with Sony's, starting yet another format war. Too bad these guys can't just work together and agree on a common format and save us all time, money, and having to deal with dead formats (e.g. HD-DVD).
We'd already be walking around with 500GB USB sticks.
Or worse, we'd be walking around with 1Gbps wireless connections and we'd be streaming HD movies from YouTube.
So unless they've figured out how to cram like 1PB or even 1EB on an optical disc, they're walking down a blind alley.
The only reason HD-DVD didn't take off was Not enough repeated letters in the name to be catchy. This time they'll try HHDVVDDBVD.
*props to RvB
Oh, wait, I get it. This is a manly laser. It holds manly shows like "24." It will refuse to store shows like "Days of Our Lives" and "The L Word."
I thought we were pretty much done with physical media?
We'd already be walking around with 500GB USB sticks.
Or worse, we'd be walking around with 1Gbps wireless connections and we'd be streaming HD movies from YouTube.
And the "HD" YouTube videos would still look like shit.
Yes, they are trying to kill off blu-ray, 5-10 years from now. I know it can be hard to read them but the summary states that they have announced the development of the laser diode. They haven't released a product, they haven't come up with specs, they haven't even created a single diode yet. This product is years and years off. Stop whining.
According to wikipedia, the light used in a bluray laser is also 405 nm, so that isn't the new part, in case that was confusing for anyone else.
The difference in going from VHS to DVD was far more substantial than going from DVD to Blu-Ray. No more rewinding, easy seeking, a menu system. Blu-Ray does have a higher quality, but doesn't provide enough new features to warrant upgrading my entire DVD collection...especially when a decent upconverter can be purchased for relatively cheap. Some titles I have purchased for Blu-Ray, Casino Royale, and Dark Knight look gorgeous in high definition. Duck Soup and Spaceballs, however will likely stay in my collection as DVDs.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
History is easy to forget. DVD was around on the shelves for almost a decade before it hit mass consumption levels.
No, it wasn't.
DVD came out between late 1996 (Japan) and early 1999, depending on where you lived. Here in the UK it apparently came out in late 1998 (*), and in 3-4 years sharply falling prices were already seriously eroding the VHS market. I got a DVD-ROM drive for UK £40-45 circa 2002, and that wasn't especially cutting edge (nor expensive!) by that time.
(*) Or so Wikipedia claims. However, I remember DVD-ROM drives and decoder cards being offered- albeit it at a notable premium- as a mainstream option when I was choosing a PC in Spring '98.
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There's nothing wrong with physical discs, only that they're being overtaken by thumb-size USB flash drives for data storage, and are no longer an economical method of mass data storage. It's cheaper to buy whole hard drives and use those for archives than to use optical discs now.
If they'd get off their asses and make optical discs that can store 1 or even 10 TB, and make them cheap, then optical discs would be relevant again. Until then, forget it.
Just like current blu-ray, it's just not practical. Why would I pay $25 for 4 25GB discs, when I can pay $100 for a 2TB external hard drive? Even for archiving purposes, it's just not practical unless you use the argument that the discs last longer.
If your storage medium has to explicitly allow your content then someone is doing it terribly, terribly wrong.
50 High quality movie titles had been produced since Blu ray started shipping.
Nullius in verba
If your storage medium has to explicitly allow your content then someone is doing it terribly, terribly wrong.
Yeah, they were very stupid about licensing, and that's why, even with, what a year+ lead, HD-DVD died an embarassing death. This is one case where the market really DID decide.
Is there such a thing as "compatibility" with fiber? I mean, I know that optic fiber's frequency-transmission characteristics aren't perfectly flat, which probably yields more or less signal attenuation, but it's not like photons come in different 'formats'.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
It might have to do with the fact that optical discs the pits and lands don't exactly correspond to binary 1's and 0's.
CDs use EFM Encoding to store their data, DVD's use EFMPlus and BD's use 17PP.
Having a faster switching laser may allow for the run lengths to be different. But that's just my best guess.
Hoo brother, you have no idea how many libraries of congress this thing outputs.
Paying video stores to only carry your format is not really letting the market decide. The whole things was a weasel-fest, and the more expensive format, with a non-finalized spec and forced DRM (or so I'm let to believe) won. I'm still dreaming the day consumers get together and start asking "in that an open, non-patent encumbered format", and not using it if the answer is "no". In my defence, I do realise it is dreaming.
The limit on drive capacity is not switching speed, but focal spot diameter. If this is a 405nm laser, its minimum focus spot will be exactly the same size as the spot of existing Blu-Ray lasers (they're 405nm, too). What am I missing?
That somebody somewhere along the line hasn't thought about the implications of what they're talking about?
The laser described is a _100W_ laser. Because of the short pulse length, I'm not sure if this makes it a class 3B or class 4 laser, but in either case safety equipment including a failsafe keyswitch is legally required. This is not consumer equipment. It is not going to be built into a consumer-grade optical disc player. Ever.
But if it were, which is of course theoretically possible, then the original Sony press release has more technical details that I can't claim to entirely understand, but which do suggest some rationale for the claims.
HD DVD was an open format available to anyone who wanted to implement it. As far as content went, it was the more open of the two - you didn't need, for example, to license AACS to press a disc.
HD DVD's failure had nothing to do with licensing, it was a straightforward case in which Hollywood picked the winner. Hollywood, as a whole, didn't like the fact HD DVD didn't require access controls (making it harder to trace pirates), and lacked snake-oil solutions like BD+. Added to the fact Sony is a studio, Blu-ray had the studio support.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
... the cost of 20PK of 25GB discs (500GB) is the same as a 750GB-1GB hard disk, with 2TB hard disks going for $99. The media for blu-ray is not cost competitive with hard disks any longer they better hurry up since by the time blu-ray discs become cost competitive so hard disks no longer offer more bang for the buck there will be new Hard drives out.
These can hold 20x the capacity, but you'll still have to buy the theatrical and extended special editions of LOTR separately
So really, Hollywood execs will render these discs moot, at lest as far as home entertainment purposes go.
The reason HD-DVD didn't take off was because they didn't allow porn.
HD-DVD was supported by Warner Brothers and Universal.
Blu-Ray had Disney.
In home video, that is all you need to know to predict a winner.
Disney was the rocket that launched the ABC television network into orbit in the mid 1950s.
When Disney moved to NBC and all-color programming, the big screen B&W set was on the fast track to oblivion.
The big screen HDTV is family entertainment -
and Disney has 87 years of product to meet that demand.
one benefit tho is that a fried drive do not lead to lost data.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
This is one case where the market really DID decide.
Really? As I remember it a bunch of companies got together and decided to pull the plug on HD-DVD right after christmas one year when player prices had been cut.. think that timing was an accident? I also seem to remember that there was a rather large payout involved in the deal as well between said companies.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
It was my understanding that the industry as a whole was avoiding any media that would allow all of Uwe Boll's movies to ever be placed on one disc. Looks like sony's betrayed us.
HD-DVD had a massive lead over blu-ray. It took a good 18 months of sales post HD-DVD death for blu-ray to even catch up to be on equal footing. The market had nothing to do with the decision, if it was left up to the market it was far more likely blu-ray would have died, it was Sony's cheque book that finally won the war, they paid off the other studios and the consumer in general are worse off for it.
The only reason HD-DVD didn't take off was Not enough repeated letters in the name to be catchy. This time they'll try HHDVVDDBVD.
The reason HD-DVD didn't take off was because they didn't allow porn.
ya got that backwards. HD-DVD did allow porn, initially Blu-ray did not.