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Sony & Panasonic Next-Gen Optical Discs Moving Forward

Posted by samzenpus on from the slowly-but-surely dept.

jones_supa writes "From last summer you might remember the Sony & Panasonic plans to bring next generation optical discs with recording capacity of at least 300GB. Various next-gen optical discs from different companies have been proposed, but this joint effort seems to be still moving forward. The disc is called simply Archival Disc and, roadmap and key specifications are out. First-wave ADs are slated to launch in summer of 2015 and will be able to hold up to 300GB of data. Archival Discs will be double-sided, so this works out to 150GB of data per side. Future versions of the technology will improve storage density, increasing to 500GB (or 250GB per side) and 1TB (500GB per side) as the standard matures."

28 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. What are these shiny discs you speak of? by BlazingATrail · · Score: 3, Funny

    whats a disc? I thought our souls were already uploaded to iCloud and Netflix ?

    1. Re:What are these shiny discs you speak of? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Bandwidth isn't cheap in some areas...

    2. Re:What are these shiny discs you speak of? by RogueyWon · · Score: 4, Informative

      Ten years ago, I had a pretty large DVD collection. I still do, I guess, though it's archived in big folders now rather than the original cases, for space reasons. I was in no way unusual in that; almost everybody else I knew at the time had a DVD collection.

      Today, I actually have a relatively large blu-ray collection. But nobody else I know does. In my case, I have the large blu-ray collection because I watch a lot of anime and support for that on streaming services is patchy (Crunchyroll isn't bad, but older shows do vanish from it with no notice sometimes). But if I wasn't interested in niche stuff, there'd be no practical (as opposed to philosophical) reason to continue to collect physical media.

      With a large collection of the movie-buying public having looked at blu-ray and gone "meh", I think the challenge of trying to movies to a new generation of optical media is probably insurmountable.

      And the other uses of optical media?

      The newly launched games consoles have blu-ray drives - but I suspect they're the last generation to support optical discs. More and more sales are shifting online and that proportion will only grow as broadband speeds improve. Even for online-only refuseniks, Vita-style memory-card distribution may prove more convenient in the long run. I honestly cannot remember the last PC game I bought via a physical copy. Probably the Wrath of the Lich King expansion for World of Warcraft - because I guessed that Blizzard's download servers would die on launch day.

      And for data archival? My experience of writable CDs, DVDs and BDs is that they're time-consuming to write to, physically fragile, space-inefficient and unreliable over time. If I want a local backup these days, I pick up an HDD, fill it up and then store it away.

      So yeah, this all feels a bit like nugatory effort...

    3. Re:What are these shiny discs you speak of? by i.r.id10t · · Score: 2

      But, while broadband speeds increase, broadband penetration may not (probably won't).

      So, I have a feeling that Netflix, Gamefly, etc. will still ship physical disks... and console games will too.

      I also think that instead of changing standards to increase data density, or using any extra density a new format brings, we'll see things that are more about control (DRM)

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
    4. Re:What are these shiny discs you speak of? by bob_super · · Score: 2

      Funny that in a civilization where it's all about having more and more stuff, more and more people have no issues about having their stuff ephemeral or dematerialized.

      I'm gonna go build myself a real stone castle and fill it with antique furniture. When you won't be able to get your pictures off Facebook because your bandwidth is capped at 20Mb except for ComcastView and GooglePlusPlus, I'll have my local storage out of reach of marketers and spooks, and they won't remotely disable my books.

    5. Re:What are these shiny discs you speak of? by ProzacPatient · · Score: 2

      But if I wasn't interested in niche stuff, there'd be no practical (as opposed to philosophical) reason to continue to collect physical media.

      I'm the complete opposite. I have some digital stuff but otherwise I continue to collect physical media whenever I can because I'll always have access to it and some big company won't be able to pull the licensing agreement and suddenly the movie/show/game is gone from my collection on Amazon or something because the big company wants more money from Amazon for their 20 year old movie.

      When it comes to physical media the first sale doctrine is king so in addition to the already mentioned benefits of always having my media I can also sell or lend my media without interference or limitation.

    6. Re:What are these shiny discs you speak of? by RogueyWon · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I got my first CD-RW drive in 1999. Some of the discs I wrote on it still work perfectly. Others are completely unreadable. There's no pattern to it - no particular manufacturer's media has fared better than another's. I have cheapo 20-for-a-dollar discs that still work and expensive ones that don't - and vice versa. I also have discs written much more recently which have become unreadable. For all I know, the discrepancies are as much down to which disc was stored on the top of the spindle or in the outer-most pockets in the wallet as to anything in their manufacture.

      Which means that as a long-term archival solution, optical discs are just too erratic.

    7. Re:What are these shiny discs you speak of? by Anubis+IV · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It would be great to get a series on one or two disks instead of these huge boxes.

      Who would use them? Serious question.

      Netflix likely won't adopt any future disc standards for the disc side of their business. Blu-ray is already an additional charge, and they've made it very clear that they view that side of their business as a dying, legacy one, and they even made an effort to divest themselves of it back when they tried to split it off a few years back. Storefront video rentals are nearly extinct, with Redbox and digital distribution displacing them, and Redbox certainly won't be offering whole series anytime soon, since it makes no sense for them to do so. For movies, blu-rays already serve all of their needs. In other words, there's no market for AD rentals.

      I suppose Amazon and other retailers may sell the discs, but who would buy them? Hardcore collectors, sure, but outside that niche? The way I see it, you primarily have two types of folks:
      1) The folks already using blu-ray. Theoretically, AD would draw primarily from this group, since they are the ones who would care about any benefits it has to offer, but it seems to me that its primary benefit is easier distribution than blu-ray, which is something that digital distribution already deals with for most people, and it's already being adopted by this group as the next step beyond blu-ray. As for content availability, most people would prefer to purchase a few extra blu-rays during a transitional period to the digital distribution that they've already started adopting, rather than investing in an entirely new format so that their shelves will be a bit tidier.

      2) The ones who have to be dragged forward. They're the ones still using DVDs and who will only upgrade when they are forced to do so. Since AD players are likely to be backwards compatible with DVDs, these people will see no reason to purchase anything more expensive than DVDs, which, as is the case today with blu-rays already on the market, will keep the market for DVDs alive and healthy. They'll never upgrade to AD, since AD isn't forcing them to upgrade in the same way that DVD forced them to upgrade from VHS.

      Really, the only use I see for these discs is...wait for it...archiving. Assuming they have a decent shelf life, I could see these replacing, or at least supplementing, the backup tapes that are still widely used in business settings.

    8. Re:What are these shiny discs you speak of? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      There is a pattern, you just don't see it. Taiyo Yuden discs stored properly and burned with a good drive (Pioneer or LiteOn in a pinch) will last. There are a few other quality brands like Verbatim and TDK, but none are on a par with Taiyo Yuden for CD-Rs and DVD-R/DVD+R.

      Everything else is hit and miss, even if stored properly.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    9. Re:What are these shiny discs you speak of? by tepples · · Score: 2

      even with disks games still require DRM servers

      Since when do games for any PlayStation, Xbox, Wii, or Nintendo DS product require a server for single-player, split-screen, or LAN play?

    10. Re:What are these shiny discs you speak of? by boristdog · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I live twenty minutes from a high tech city. A city that even hosts a world-reknowned "interactive" conference (along with a movie and music conference) around this time of year.

      The best uncapped bandwidth I can get? About 1.2 Mbps. And it's wireless with intermittent drops in coverage.
      The best capped bandwidth I can get? About 9 Mbps, but I'm limited to 12GB/month.

      Hundreds of thousands of people live near this same city with similar or worse bandwidth availability. Unless I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars or more to start my own ISP and run some fiber for me and my neighbors, that's what we're stuck with.

  2. Amazing! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    More proprietary garbage. Everyone knows they'll try to do the same thing they do with everything else: Infest everything with DRM and secrets to stop 'pirates.'

    1. Re:Amazing! by houstonbofh · · Score: 2

      If it stays just archival storage, something that is desperately needed, then there is no need for DRM, and no barriers to adoption. If they try and make it a video standard and bring content producers on-board, they are doomed. But if not, they stand to make a LOT of money as we are desperately in need of a replacement for tape.

    2. Re:Amazing! by slaker · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The replacement for tape is different tape. Optical media isn't going to catch up to the data densities or transfer rates that tape has to offer any time soon. The (kinda old) LTO4 changer I use for my personal stuff handles 800GB/tape and only needs about three hours per tape. This new disc format isn't even going to be competitive with an eight year old tape spec.

      --
      -- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
    3. Re:Amazing! by houstonbofh · · Score: 2

      The replacement for tape is different tape. Optical media isn't going to catch up to the data densities or transfer rates that tape has to offer any time soon. The (kinda old) LTO4 changer I use for my personal stuff handles 800GB/tape and only needs about three hours per tape. This new disc format isn't even going to be competitive with an eight year old tape spec.

      Tape may be faster to write for now, (They never said the speed...) a single file restore will not be. Especially if it is towards the end of the tape. THis has alwayse been the limiting factor of tape.

  3. Nothing about shelf-life. by 0xG · · Score: 4, Informative

    Bitrot is the enemy, especially when you call it "Archival".

    --
    A pox on web designers who feel that window.innerWidth == screen.availWidth
    1. Re:Nothing about shelf-life. by mcrbids · · Score: 2

      Not only that, but the size advantage of optical media is simply gone.

      When CDs first came out, they easily held several times the capacity of a standard HDD. DVDs were much the same way. Then, a few decades go by, and little changes. BlueRay holds much less than a stock HDD, and was that way when it finally won the format wars.

      Now, they have a format that doesn't even come close to a stock HD. (My laptop has a 250 GB SSD, my desktop computer has twin 2 TB drives) This new format would just *barely* cover my laptop, and would be a pain to archive my desktop on.

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    2. Re:Nothing about shelf-life. by Anubis+IV · · Score: 3, Informative

      Bit rot actually does mean what he thinks it means. And it means what you think it means too. Both uses for the term are correct.

  4. Here come the flippers by meerling · · Score: 3, Informative

    People hate flippers, and if you 'double-side' the drives to avoid that, you'll be about doubling their costs, and that's not popular either.

  5. Re:Compared to 4TB? by Reapman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Glad you weren't making the decision back when floppy disks were 1.44M and my Hard Drive was 250M...

    Without knowing the specifics, this could be a great form of backup, which judging by the name, is exactly what this is for.

  6. Re:Compared to 4TB? by Snuusnuu · · Score: 2

    Because optical media fares better for long term storage compared to mechanical drives.

  7. Re:Compared to 4TB? by Ichijo · · Score: 2

    When you've used up the 4TB, you'll be able to get a 40TB drive and copy over your old data so you won't need to have two drives always on.

    --
    Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
  8. Re:Compared to 4TB? by bobbied · · Score: 2

    So, what do I need a 300GB, when I can go to Fry's and get 4TB drive and just plug it in?

    And when you run out of space, you just buy another unit and plug it in? Why have a unit always on just for an archive? Sucking up power just for a day that you might need the archive.

    Most drives can easily spin down when not in use. Then there is a small delay as the platters spin back up but the power consumed when a drive is not spinning is quite minimal.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  9. Re:Compared to 4TB? by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Pretty much.
    CD-Roms first became popular when 80 meg hard drives were considered large.
    Now, you can buy few terabytes of space for $100--$200. Parceling out your data in 25 GB chunks, at a dollar a disk doesn't seem all that thrifty, unless you distribute large amounts of data to people who don't have high speed connections.

    I know, it's slightly cheaper as a backup option-- if your time isn't worth much.

  10. Re:it's dirty cheap actually by scuzzlebutt · · Score: 2

    just only for greedy tele-cos who like to rape the masses

    FTFY: just only for greedy tele-cos who like to rape them asses

    --
    In C++, your friends can see your privates.
  11. Two possible uses... by pla · · Score: 2

    I see two possible uses for this.

    First, taking the name as indicative of the intended purpose, for backups. In that regard, I consider these DOA, since anyone who can fit their entire life in 300GB can use the cloud easily enough, and those of us who rip everthing we own to a home file server would already require literally dozens of these to store a complete backup. Sorry, boys, but even Grandma has a 2TB drive these days (whether or not she's used more than 2% of it).

    Second, and more likely - 4k video. I don't really know where I stand on that one, because on the one hand, even BluRay has more or less flopped (it has made good ground in "replacing" DVDs, but for the most part people won't pay more for BD content); on the other hand, 4k finally represents a serious increase in quality over 480p. I still don't know if people would pay more for it, but having seen a few examples of 4k content on a 4k monitor... Just wow.

    Still, if the blanks don't cost $5 each and if the DRM doesn't make these virtually worthless for anything but playing in a standalone player, I suppose these count as a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, with Sony involved, we can pretty much take it as given that they'll blow both those constraints without hesitation.

  12. Re:Dead on Arrival by sexconker · · Score: 2

    You got a hand-me-down DVD player and it glitched out, what a shocker

    Buy yourself a decent BluRay player that has LAN access and the ability to either decode video itself or can pick up an XBMC server and then boosh you have all your videos on your TV

    I bought an LG a few years ago that can play most of my videos right off a network share or use my Plex Media Server and it still does BluRay and DVD

    So yeah, disc media may be declared dying but having a cheap ($200) cross media player in your living room is pretty goddamn handy

    Do not count on using your BluRay player as a player for any ripped content.
    They all have (or will soon have) Cinavia DRM built in, which will trigger on any ripped content that has that watermark. There is currently no known way to detect and remove the Cinavia watermark.

    I rip all my shit and play it via an old Windows box using CCCP http://cccp-project.net/ (and it all works even in Windows Media Player if you disable the media foundation thing). All HD audio formats are bitstreamed to my receiver, and you get full control over whateverthefuck you want. A PC is the ONLY true solution to playing content, because it's the only one you have any real control over. The only real drawback is the space / power requirements. You're not going to compete with those small media player boxes or the shit built into your TV, but they're come with DRM, compatibility issues (or future compatibility issues), and more often tan not a shitty interface.

  13. Re:Cost? by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 2

    I can buy a 2TB disk which is rewriteable for $69 including the interface.

    No, you can't. Spot pricing on pricewatch or google shopping or whatever, the lowest prices are $80 for a drive from a company that will hold your order forever as "pending" because they never had any is stock to begin with. You will pay $100 at least after shipping

    --

    "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson