RSSPioneer now says it can add four more layers to its Blu-ray disc
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published August 6, 2008, 12:49 PM
With the optical disc industry upping the ante last month, raising its goals for optical disc-based storage to a half-terabyte, Pioneer returned to testing a possible multi-layer BD, and now says it can squeeze more capacity onto one disc.
During a symposium on optical storage in Hawaii last month, Pioneer Electronics showed off its latest permutation of multi-layer recording using the DVD form factor, unveiling its draft specifications for a 16-layer Blu-ray Disc with as much as 400 GB capacity. But apparently, the company was surprised to find that the symposium had set forth a little higher goal: 500 GB by no later than 2012.
Late last week, Pioneer gave its response: essentially, "We can do that." The company is now saying it is confident it can add four additional 25 GB layers to its multi-layer specification, enabling a half-terabyte BD.
Pioneer's US patents for multi-layer optical discs date back to 1989, when the company first explained a methodology for laminating multiple layers together, each with a different band of reflectivity. When a layer does not reflect a beam, its transmissivity can be controlled to allow that beam through to the next layer.
Back in 1995, it was believed Pioneer would use its multi-layer technology to help boost the viability of an alternative version of the DVD format, developed with Toshiba and Time Warner. That version was, for a time, competing against the original DVD specification from Philips and Sony, in what was considered the most contentious format war of the time. Time Warner also held own patents for multi-layer optical discs, which included multi-sided discs that were once thought to be capable of bonding a CD-ROM layer to a DVD-ROM layer on the reverse side, and more recently, a Blu-ray layer to an HD DVD layer.
Again, with HD storage so cheap. Discs are meaningless for "in use" storage needs. They are just too risky and slow.
Now for permanent "no use" storage discs are a far better option. So it is good to see increased capacities.
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|Solid State Drives are the way to go now.
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|How does that have anything to do with this?
Two completely different things with different purposes.
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|Yeah, because they need that 500GB for *movies*.
*laughing*
You aren't really that clueless, are you?
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|why limit what movies can be. i always thought movies as is were underperforming. framerates are too low, there could be optional settings for a more panoramic experience so you can catch action from the left or right of you without staring directly ahead. imagine an action sequence that involves a jet flying by where out of the corner of your eye you feel something coming and it shoots past you into view which then pans over a city in a high speed side scrolling way. current movies could never do this because the framerates are choppy and there simply isnt enough screen area.
where do movies go when big screens are paper thin and no longer limited by cost to manufacture or size? tech will evolve and it would be awesome to see more of a 3d experience or a "true vision" experience than just the picture frame image of what a movie is today. it starts in the cinema and ends in your living room. never bet against the tech. the tech makes it possible for the advances that make things awesome.
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|I don't see Hollywood putting 4 new release movies on one disk so I assume this is for data storage. So how long is it going to take to burn that much on a disk? 8 hours? I mean I stopped using DVD's to backup my pictures because I have like 400 DVD's laying around. I now just back them up to external hard drives. It's just easier. Also what happens when that disk gets scratched. Bye Bye 4 GB of information.
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|Even disapointing is that they continue to push this as a tech and yet it still fails in comparison the dvd. The sony fanbois still continue to swear by this tech saying that it took a number of years for dvd to overtake vhs yet do these same ppl realize that the market has grown since then and the rest of us are moving on.
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|I think you and many others expect that it should grow at a much faster rate then it is.
Unlike DVD which was revolutionary, blu-ray is just evolutionary. DVD didn't require new TV's to take advantage of it. Blu-ray does. So its already at a disadvantage with a smaller market.
Regardless, it seems to be doing well enough and on track to continue to grow. It may never pass DVD, but I don't think it needs to.
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|ignore this fembots posts...he is still upset about HD-DVD
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|This is great to see. It is sad that these new high capacity BD discs likely won't be able to be used at their full capacity on existing BD drives, but it is great to see the technology moving forward none the less.
I have heard that their are other, very similar technologies in the works now from companies like Imation that will go well into the TB range, using different colors/frequencies of light. These are based on the same concept of stacking multiple layers of readable material on top of each other inside the disc.
They say that the next generation of BD discs/drives will likely allow you to put up to four HD films all with HD Master Audio, all on one side of one disc. That is just crazy amounts of storage.
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|Think of it. the entire star war series (eps 1-6 plus other related movies) on only 2 disks. Or potentially put a 24 episode HDTV show on only a single disc.
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