6 replies to this topic

[BuffaloHelp]

Back in July Pioneer announced that they have achieved perfect, signal loss free among multi-layers in Blue-Ray technology disc. This means that a single Blue-Ray disc can hold up to 400 GB of data.

In the past, multi-layered discs were hard to manage due to layers beyond 0 would return with weak signal, or the fact that the receiver was not able to hold onto the weak signal returned. Pioneer achieved the perfect signal return from layer 0 to layer 15 by developing a laser receiver that is sensitive to weak signal even in the noisy environment (in terms of interference) like multiple layers.

This figure demonstrates the strength of signal returned by each sample layer.

To enhance the sensitivity on the pickup part, the laser fired was also redesigned to spread widely instead of the traditional uni-direction. The disc technology is reported with conflicting reports on the internet. Although there are reports of the new Blue-Ray disc pass the reading with new receptacle there are report of the new 16 layer Blue-Ray disc is also compatible with current Blue-Ray drives.

Whatever the current state is, Pioneer only has this new 16 layer as a ROM format only. They are anticipating a writing/rewriting disc around the year 2010~2012. And indications of technology that can hold 1 TB disc by the year 2013.

[Saint_Michael]

As amazing as that is, I think they should be concerned more about making the technology more affordable since the players are still very expensive regardless of the holiday markdown prices. Besides who wants CD's and DVD's since that technology is slowly being replaced by external hard drives and TV/Movie internet services? It wouldn't make much sense to start developing large DVD's such as this one and even then odds are one of those disc would rival the price tage of the player itself and the fact your basic home user doesn't blow through 400GBs of data to require a disc like that.

[jlhaslip]

I agree with your thoughts about the cost, but this would be an ideal application for Data Storage of Commercial Data for business when or if the Write capable drives are available.
Until then, how about a season worth of your favourite TV shows on a single disc? Or a set of Movies by the same author all together on a BluRay drive disc? Lord of the Rings for example...

[Angelis]

That's an impressive amount of space, there doesnt seem to be much point for data storing and the prices for external hard drives are dropping alot at the moment, i could see them maybe using it for some future games and series releases

[rayzoredge]

It would be nice to be able to throw 400GB of data onto a medium the same size of a CD. Artists could offer lossless quality versions of their albums. Movies can fit even more special features and offer even higher-quality video quality, or, as Jhaslip said, offer multiple HD-quality movies on a single disc instead of having to purchase a 10-disc set. And of course, this throws a viable, possibly cheaper backup solution for PCs considering that once the hardware has been purchased, only the Blu-Ray discs need to be bought for 400GB a pop as opposed to hundreds of dollars for a hard drive of the same size. (The cost per GB would ideally be less than purchasing a hard drive solution, I would think.)

SM is on the ball with our inclination towards streamed media and hard drive solutions. Heck, I'm more opt to snag a hard drive over a compact disc just because it eliminates the potential of scratching it. Also, with data transfer technologies, it's much faster to move GBs of data to a hard drive than it is to burn a DVD movie... and I can only imagine how the first-generation Blu-Ray burners are doing at 1X-2X. The form factor of a CD easily beats a portable hard drive, but pales in comparison to the USB sticks that we love to hang on our keychains and wash in the laundry before realizing that they were carelessly left in our pockets...

Until Blu-Ray becomes more mainstream and affordable, not to mention become a viable replacement for DVDs, I'm sure that Pioneer's left with just being able to flex the tech muscle.

[buxgoddess]

The Blue-ray war has now gone to a new dimension. The capacity is simply growing without any barrier as so far seen. However the cost of each such DVD will take some time to come down as the commercial viability is a bit difficult. I am sure that there will now be other vendors who come up with 10-20% more space packed in the same size. A pioneer in its area Pioneer has this on a total of 16 layers (2 to the power 4) and the laser itself is very very sensitive to the refracted light. The technology of the super multilayer read-only disc is based on Blu-ray disc with a breakthrough in material of reflective layers. The read only feature is just acheived. But a full fledged commercial writer is for common people is not a near reality.
As said by the topic starter, 1TB is on the card by 2013, five years down the line, I think it will take double or more time to have a 1TB disk.
Anyways according to Pioneer High Fidelity Taiwan the possiblity is on track. God luck to all.

[asdftheking]

Yay! Now the government can put all the information collected about my life on one disc if they want to!