Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Sony & Panasonic Plan Next-Gen 300 GB Optical Discs By the End of 2015

Posted by samzenpus on from the building-it-better dept.

SmartAboutThings writes "If you think optical discs are dead and are a sign of the past, maybe you need to take this into consideration – Sony and Panasonic have just announced in Tokyo that they have signed a basic agreement with the objective of developing the next-generation optical discs that are said to have a recording capacity of at least 300GB. The two companies have even set a deadline for this ambitious project: before the end of 2015."

11 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Great by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Another year another multi-100s GB optical disc announced. So is this one going to actually come to market this time?

    Will there be any optical drives left in the wild by the time such a beast makes it out of the lab?

  2. That's fine and dandy by Sparticus789 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But what are they going to do about the I/O? It takes me about 20-30 minutes to write a single 5 GB DVD and verify the data on the disc. Now with a 300 GB disc, it will take me a full day to write a disc?

    I hope they have a plan to address the bandwidth limitation of these discs, and not just focus on "EHRMAGAWD BIG DISC!" for the consumer shock value.

    --
    sudo make me a sandwich
    1. Re:That's fine and dandy by CastrTroy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Speaking of I/O, there's the problem of the actual HDMI/Displayport connection. Many 4k TVs only have a 30 Hz refresh rate at full resolution. Basically, the bandwidth of existing cables isn't enough to handle a 4k movie at a higher refresh rate. They're going to have to come up with a whole to cable standard just to deal with the increased resolution.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  3. Capacity ain't everything. by danaris · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Capacity's all very good, but what about speed?

    Current-gen optical disks are, as I understand it, dramatically slower than SSDs, which is where a lot of storage is moving these days.

    If these new ones aren't significantly faster than the old, I don't really see them catching on in the mainstream.

    Dan Aris

    --
    Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
    1. Re:Capacity ain't everything. by Kjella · · Score: 5, Insightful

      SSDs aren't really what killed home-burned optical media, it was USB sticks in multi-GB size at reasonable cost. For storage a 4TB HDD for $179 beats a stack of optical discs by miles and makes discs unfeasible even as backup, the reason to burn discs was portability but USB sticks mopped up that market. Today either you copy to your stick and bring it (push) or your buddy visits with his stick to bring home (pull), either way you don't need any one-time discs. Or using any online service instead, that too.

      The downside to HDDs (and for that matter SSDs) is that they need babysitting, the one thing I'd like optical media for is if they can promise me high-capacity discs I can put in a drawer (or more likely a safety deposit box), forget for 20-100 years and still read fine. Wouldn't even need to be a home burner, as long as I could have a home reader - I'd upload a disc image to some burning service, they'd ship the finished disc in the mail. There's a lot of static data I'd like to keep without having to copy from HDD to HDD regularly in order to keep it alive.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  4. Too little, too late by swilver · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Wake me when optical disc capacity exceeds harddisk capacity again... like it used to when the CD was released.

  5. Non-connected users by davidwr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are people who don't have fast internet.

    There are people who PREFER to view content on non-Internet-connected devices to avoid tracking.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:Non-connected users by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 5, Informative

      BluRay players require "updates" for DRM, and those are typically done via being Internet Connected (optionally USB Stick). The new DRM will most likely require Connectivity at some point as well. Some of my older BluRay discs no longer work in new players, even with updates. Broken ... by design.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    2. Re:Non-connected users by poetmatt · · Score: 5, Informative

      welcome to the definition of why people torrent. Torrent a bluray/rip it, and you'll never have to deal with random restrictions of rights which exist on Bluray players, etc. #1 cause of alleged piracy aka copyright infringement right there.

  6. Re:Who'll bet against... by nabsltd · · Score: 5, Informative

    I would actually be interested in Blu-Ray if it were open and not DRM'ed to death. 50 GB per disk with a $1 cost per disk in an unlocked format would have its followers but instead they would rather keep it locked up.

    Writable Blu-Ray discs don't have any kind of DRM. If you have a Blu-Ray writer and software, you can write whatever you want on the disc. There is free and libre software available that runs on a variety of operating systems.

  7. Re:Check out my optical dick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's all marketing. We slashdotters know it's only 279.4 gibacocks. All the geek-girls are unimpressed.