Pioneer's Blu-ray disc hits 400GB across 16-layers
16-layers -- that's how many layers it takes to the hit the center of a 400GB Blu-ray disc, pops. That's 25GB per layer just like those dual-layer 50GB discs available for retail. Best of all, the technique used by Pioneer is expected to be backward compatible with existing Blu-ray gear since the specs and lenses required for pickup are identical. The prototype is read-only for the moment but R&D's on it so let's give them some time to work it out.
Update: Now that the English press release is out, it's less clear whether the new media -- whenever it might come to market -- will work in existing players or not. While "it is possible to maintain compatibility between the new 16-layer optical disc and the BD discs," players would seemingly require a modified optical pick-up mechanism to see the data. We'll learn more on July 13th when Pioneer discusses the breakthrough in detail.
[Via Impress]
Update: Now that the English press release is out, it's less clear whether the new media -- whenever it might come to market -- will work in existing players or not. While "it is possible to maintain compatibility between the new 16-layer optical disc and the BD discs," players would seemingly require a modified optical pick-up mechanism to see the data. We'll learn more on July 13th when Pioneer discusses the breakthrough in detail.
[Via Impress]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dave @ Jul 7th 2008 4:13AM
:)
So what were the Toshiba super-duper crap dvd-upsizing plans again?
HAHAHAH!
ChodalBerryWagon @ Jul 7th 2008 5:29AM
omg infinity get over youself.
Digital distribution and the dismissal of optical media is a long way off, 5 or 10 years AT LEAST. Just get used to it - Blu-ray is here for now, and it's not going anywhere that quickly.
And what the hell are you talking about??
"By the time these discs are at all is even usable (meaning you come to pay like $50 per disc and another $500-$1000 per player or drive that can read this) we will have terabytes in devices not bigger then your fingernail.."
are you serious? Those 'devices which fit terabytes on your fingernail' are gonna cost a hell of a lot too dumbass!
Dave @ Jul 7th 2008 5:29AM
Optical media is used and will be used for a long long time pal. Havent you heard that SSD was caught that it actually uses more power than the good old cheap and huge HDDs:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/01/ssds-save-battery-power-right-wrong/
Stop trying to make it look as Blu-ray has no feature. No one believes you anymore...
Mark @ Jul 7th 2008 8:09AM
Everyone recognizes that HDDs have higher storage capacity than optical but thats only one part of the equation. Optical media is comparatively cheap to produce and highly preferred by consumers. It doesn't have much to worry about from digital downloads for a long time.
borland502 (SDF - Macross Ring) @ Jul 7th 2008 8:12AM
From the Nfinity archives: "Time will tell.. but DVD future looks brighter then ever. Imagine the future. HD content at full 1080p and lossless audio on regular DVDs..."**
**Referencing the bright future of 42GB "Optical" DVD Media
So optical media is dead only when it is in a format you have a grudge against? And somehow the referenced product quoted by you will come to market automagically in time whereas this will not?
MrGuru @ Jul 7th 2008 9:35AM
optical media will never go away, beacuse HDD's do fail, you keep a optical disk correctly in its case it will never fail on you. plus they are great for consumer backups. the worst thing in the world is to lose all your media on your HDD, thats happened to me twice.
Truth Teller @ Jul 7th 2008 9:49AM
Optical discs have a finite life-span too.......IIRC one of the producers is currently making & marketing a premium-priced disc with a guaranteed life-span.
Just because they can do this doesn't mean everyone is just aching to buy it and use it.
Note there is not a word about cost in this.
Super Upscaling (just like current upscaling) is for many people all that is needed for the job, it's 'good enough' - especially when they are told the price of the high def kit necessary to experiene all that high def offers.
Naturally the spec-sheet jockys can't get past the numbers game without going all gooey-panted but that does not mean this has any relevance in the retail mass-market.
Just like Blu-ray itself has yet to break into the a/v mass-market as it is, nevermind any far-off potential.
You can get branded reliable HDDs @ 1Tb sizes now for less than £100/$200.
Let's see it beat that.
(and my bet would be that the low volumes this is sure to be produced in means it won't even beat 2 x 1Tb drives - which will only continue to get cheaper - which, in a RAID config, ought to stop any silly reliability quibbles)
DeadPlasmaCell @ Jul 7th 2008 6:16AM
I don't know much about the size of HD content and whatnot, but what could they possibly do with 400GB on a single disc? I mean are HD movies really that compressed that 400GB would be a huge help? Are 50GB Blu-Ray discs already maxed out from the get go? or do I just not know wtf I'm talkin about?
/guessin the latter
benny boy @ Jul 7th 2008 6:49AM
With a disc this size, you could fit a whole box set, a trilogy of movies or even just tons of extra content on one disc and this, im guessing, would dramatically lowering the price.
Mark @ Jul 7th 2008 7:07AM
Even if this tech did ever become a product it would probably be for some kind of "super" blu ray where special players read the extra layers to produce a 1440p/1080p lossless picture and leave the normal layers there for regular player. I don't see it being viable for a very long time if ever. I think it would have more application for vertical applications like digital theatre systems
Jack Chance @ Jul 7th 2008 10:15AM
If this was a writable format, it would be very useful for backing up large quantities of data.
It will also be useful when movie formats go beyond 1080p into the 2K, 4K and 8k space.
SimbaDogg @ Jul 7th 2008 7:34PM
umm...it doesn't take a brain scientist to realize some of the real world applications for this
Star Wars Episodes 1-6...on one disc
Godfather 1-3...again, 1 disc
Died Hard 1-4
LOTR Extended super long directors cut etc...
Not much a movie watcher....how bout tv. Seasons 1-19 of the simpsons, 1.9 of seinfeld, The COMPLETE A-team series...1 disc.
or if you want to do backup (if they ever come out w/ a writable version on the cheap) i could back up all the videos, movies, music videos and music that i have on my 750 GB barracuda.
kinda make sense now?
DeadPlasmaCell @ Jul 7th 2008 11:07PM
@SimbaDogg
The data stuff is obvious, but i'm talkin movies here.. and who really wants to buy their box set collections for a 3rd time?? You already bought the DVD, then you had to buy the Blu-ray version now you have to buy a Super Blu-Ray version? No thanks. I dunno, I just don't think it's going to happen.
SimbaDogg @ Jul 8th 2008 3:54AM
@ deadplamacell...
yeah, again this would still be a steal for people who want movies, as you said, data is obvious, but not everyone would be buying a box set for the 2nd, or even third time (vhs, dvd, blu ray)
i still need back to the future 1-3, die hard 1-4, indiana jones 1-4, rocky 1-6* (eh for this one, but there are still some classics in the series), star wars 1-6...so as you can see, i still have a heft list. and this isn't at all including any of the tv shows out there
*just be glad i didn't list the complete police academy series. though i did like the movies for the most part...except for citizens on patrol
pezman726 @ Jul 7th 2008 7:04AM
LOTR Extended Edition Trilogy + all extras on 1 disk. Sign me up!!!
zargon @ Jul 7th 2008 7:15AM
Profile 3.7?
A1 @ Jul 7th 2008 7:33AM
But whos making these fingernail drives?
The only research being done is into Blu-ray (see above) or solid state drives or such.
Do you not think we'd be hearing about your "finger nail" whatever? of course you would.
TECH HEAD @ Jul 7th 2008 9:35AM
It seems like they've done two things by creating this. Extended the life of blu-ray by at least another ten years i.e 1440p and 2180p and at the same made it backward compatable on all current blu ray players i.e having 1080p on two layers, higher definition on the other layers.
Great
superklye @ Jul 7th 2008 12:41PM
Why does everyone assume there's going to ever be a change in the resolution standard for TV/movies again, let alone sometime in the near future. It took, what, 60 years to get the standard changed from 480i to 720p/1080i/p?
I highly doubt 1080p is going to be eschewed in this life time. It's been such an enormous hassle for a lot of people (how many times has the analog switch-off date been pushed back already?) and doing it again any time soon would have absolutely no impact but a negative one.
People are shelling out thousands and thousands of dollars for new TVs and most aren't tech geeks like us who read and post here.
No one would buy a 1440p TV. Maybe some of us here just for the nerdy factor of having it, but yeah...not gonna happen. Not on a mass-market scale now or likely any time in the next 50 years unless the technology becomes very cheap and not confusing to the average customer.
Truth Teller @ Jul 7th 2008 9:36AM
I guess it's interesting in the same way that 40+gbs on a DVD was interesting.
Neither have a snowflake in hells chance of ever meaning anything to the retail market and no retail market means no economies of scale = way too expensive to be worrying about or wasting time over.
Maybe there's a tiny, (enormously expensive) niche as a bulk data storage method in our surveillance obsessed societies but you aren't getting 1440p anytime soon.
It's decades off (if anyone bothers with it at all).
We don't even have broadcast 1080p yet (and aren't likely to get that either for an age).
There are no displays or content.
No HD TVs for it (besides an occasional lab device, a commercial display or perhaps a handful for the ridiculously rich types as a wang totem) and no-one broadcasts or encodes movies to it.
WebDev511 @ Jul 7th 2008 10:22AM
+1
For that matter, who is 1440p good for? People can start to see the difference between 720p and 1080p starting at 50", but at what size can the human eye detect the difference between 1080p and 1440p?
Anyway you slice it, 400GB is a LOT of room to work with. Lossless audio in every language and plenty of room for extras in HD (that I'm told no one really wants, but hey, the studios continue to pile them on anyway).
This does highlight one of the benefits of solid state which is so long as the form factor doesn't change, there isn't really a huge barrier (apart from cost) on size.
Affordable 400GB solid state devices are probably farther off than 400GB optical discs. If they can pull it off utilizing existing BD replication lines, maintain backwards compatibly with current players and keep prices in check, why not?
squiggleslash @ Jul 7th 2008 10:10AM
Interesting, but if anyone was interested in using this kind of technology, then HD-VMD would stand more than a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding given it's exactly the same principle, only using DVD layers, thus providing Blu-ray type capacity at DVD prices.
I believe the major issue is cost per disc and yield. More layers = more bad copies. And an 8 layer disc costs takes 8x as long to make as a single layer disc. There's the secondary, if frequently over-stated, issue that if you want to make use of the extra capacity - increasing content quality for instance - you need to spin the disc faster. Such spinning requires slightly more expense when building the drives to incorporate noise dampening technology. Sure, you could use it as a way to squeeze, say, every episode of Everyone Loves Raymond onto a single disc in HD, but the minor cost savings from packaging are hardly likely to make this worth the lower yields and customer frustration.
This isn't going to take off, but it's a nice idea. Multilayer technology is obvious but has real world practical limitations. Realistically, I suspect the real successor to dual-layer Blu-ray storage will be flash, and the successor to dual-layer Blu-ray media distribution will be the Internet.
Bluemanrule @ Jul 7th 2008 10:40AM
This is a great finding! Imagine the storage capabilities. 400GB could amount to an entire season of Family Guy, The Unit, Pscyh, or any number of shows. I hope Pioneer finds a way to make this work with existing players.
mntwister @ Jul 7th 2008 10:50AM
I don't think there will be an end to optical media for at least 10 years. The game systems use it, the movie players (blu-ray and dvd) use it, I know many people using it for computer file storage. Not everyone prefers external hard drives or flash. Those can have drive problems and suddenly your files and storage or movies are gone. With the hard optical disc, your information is safe. I havn't had one dvd go bad since inception and it will be the same for blu-ray. But I do wonder how many people have lost information on computers, external hard drives and flash and smaller USB drives? Now that's a percentage I would love to see.
I store all my backup on optical disc, usually dual layer dvd's. Soon it will be blu. And I havn't lost a single file since I started using dvd+r years ago. On the other hand, I have lost an entire drive of movies for my Dish DVR (external drive) and several flash drives have gone bad and can't be repaired. I think the public knows what is most safe for their important information.
Bluemanrule @ Jul 7th 2008 10:51AM
Truthteller,
You have great points but which market are you referring to? Do you think end consumers will buy this or.......just guessing, do you think media production companies will buy this. I vote for the latter.
Do you know how many movie studios will salivate over the capability to re-offer an entire catalog older movies on one disc and charge collectable-edition prices for? Come on man. If you're looking for economies of scale, you have them then.
Furthermore, you assume that it will cost significantly more to produce this disc. While I admit to not having read the press release, this is clear. This is an expansion on a sunk-cost technology. More money doesn't need to go into R&D to create this. Granted, more money may be required to utilize but the bulk of this investment is done.
I can see it now, "Own the entire George Clooney movie collection for a low price of $129.95. See George Clooney's 'dreamy' goodness in glorious High Defintion."
Truth Teller @ Jul 7th 2008 8:00PM
@ Bluemanrule
I think the current $100+ price tag for Blu-ray series releases (see Band of Brothers news on EngadgetHD) already invalidates any idea that these could possibly be produced cheaply enough to benefit from any serious economy of scale.
Sure it would mean less physical discs if done that way but these discs themselves are bound to be much more expensive than the already expensive (and still subsidised?) BD 50 dual layer disc.
I can see a niche role in Government or corporate bulk data storage (which is afterall Blu-ray's forté) if these ever were to escape the lab
(which is still hugely open to question - look at how long just 2 layers took to become reality......and there are still large questions over the yields/reliability in production of those).
I would not be holding my breath for a series of anything coming out on these.
.......and what for anyways?
Everyone knows that the public love 'special edition' multi-disc releases, they think they are getting something beyond the ordinary with them.
Miguelitosd @ Jul 7th 2008 8:45PM
"I think the current $100+ price tag for Blu-ray series releases (see Band of Brothers news on EngadgetHD) already invalidates any idea that these could possibly be produced cheaply enough to benefit from any serious economy of scale."
That's such a dumb statement. When the series first came out on DVD a couple years ago, it was selling for >$80 most places (I bought it right when it came out and remember paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $85 for it). So BR is still a little higher... it's still not being produced in the numbers that kick in better economies of scale yet. It will likely come down over the next months. One release of a pretty well known and well selling box set does not prove the point for the entire format.
mntwister @ Jul 7th 2008 10:55AM
And, I can also see, as BluManRule says, an entire season of a tv series on one disc. Oh yes, there ARE uses for a disc like this. And it will play on current players....many points to Pioneer for this, as storage space need increases, it's good to know blu-ray is expanding with the market needs. I think it would be great to have an entire tv series season on one disc, or a series of films like the 4 Psycho films or 5 Planet of the Apes films, this would still include space for several lossless tracks, all extras and more. Hmmmm...can't get alot of that in a download at all, at least lossless and extras. Plus the compression, YUK!
Sean @ Jul 7th 2008 11:54AM
This wont even leve the lab. 50GB media is outragously over priced, so dont expect this disc to come to market on top of being affordable.
LA26 @ Jul 7th 2008 2:06PM
Haven't seen anyone advocate storage media back-ups for corporations.
The expansion to 400GB per disk could replace back up AIT tapes and push them out and bring Blu-Ray in.
Imagine backing up your sites workload for the month one maybe five 400GB disks instead of 40 AIT tapes.
I believe there is a market available for this technology.Not sure if it would best suit consumer,corporation, or both best though.
BradleyAbercrombie @ Jul 7th 2008 2:37PM
Im surprised none of you mentions Ultra High Def, I think Pioneer might be planning ahead as Ultra High def is going to need allot more space, liek this 16 layer BRD is offering.
Gary @ Jul 7th 2008 8:03PM
Nfinity has like zero credibility left... Its obvious to anyone who reads up on the format war or continuing blu-ray coverage that he is still sore HD-DVD lost. His comments now that optical media will be destroyed by insanely large flash memory are just pathetic. Funny you never said that when you were supporting HD-DVD. I dont know what universe you are living in but there is no way in the next 10 years that there will ever be portable flash memory that is above 400 gb in storage and just as fast.
3dpenguin @ Jul 7th 2008 11:20PM
Ok, boneheads.
First off about this disc, if it works kudos to them, but even Sony back in the 90's determined that optical disc media exceeding 10 layers would become unreliable due to the laser defuse rate, and we're talking about a laser format which requires the data layer to be closer to the optical diode than previous formats, we're talking about a new diode type all together to even read this disc. What about layer cross talk, this was caused from the defuse of the laser picking up data from previous layers on the way back to the read optics. There is a reason why DVD Forum never approved a DVD over 2 layers with red laser, and it took over a year to get approval for the tri-layered HD DVD. Have they even tried writing to this thing, or did they just figure out how to sandwich more layers closer to the diode?
Secondly, don't start touting this will extend the life of Blu-ray, without new hardware and new standards Blu-ray will never exceed 1080p, the format was standardized at this, and no equipment, including the PS3 has the video out capabilities of doing QuadHD, which is the next jump in HDTV, even though 1440p is a listed resolution. Were also talking about a resolution format that requires 2k and 4k to even be used to full potential, for those who don't know these are the media formats sent to digital theaters now. Six of one half dozen another you’re talking about a new formatting standard which would make old equipment useless for new discs.
Eugene Gekhter @ Jul 8th 2008 12:58AM
Penguin is right, the Blu-ray standard ratified supports 1080P max, any higher resolution would be a totally new standard, a new technology, a new marketing initiative on the parts of manufacturers pushing higher resolution optical disc formats. Furthermore, Blu-ray has a maximum video bitrate of 40 Mbps. Considering Red @ 4K compressed has a datarate of 250 Mbpps, using a highly efficient optimized codec, anything noticeably higher in resolution than HD would need to have the bandwidth to take advantage of the increased resolution without introducing any objectionable compression artifacts.