Neowin.net - Pioneer promises 400GB optical discs

Pioneer promises 400GB optical discs

Posted by Daniel Fleshbourne on 07 July 2008 - 17:00 · 23 comments & 5785 views

Pioneer has developed a 16-layer read-only optical disc which it claims can store 400GB of data. The per-layer capacity is 25GB, the same as that of a Blu-ray Disc, and the multilayer technology will also be applicable to multilayer recordable discs. Multi-layered discs have been difficult to develop because 'crosstalk' from adjacent layers and transmission loss mean that getting a stable signal from the disc is often nearly impossible.

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(2 replies) #1 Posted by Mr Spoon on 07 Jul 2008 - 17:07: Well, that's just great now isn't it.
The first thing I can think of when I see 400GB is that it will be great to store my entire music collection on, or photo collection without having to split it up on to two or three DVDs. But wait a minute - read only? I guess that means games can get bigger, operating systems can get bigger to, but with all this storage, I'd still prefer to write my stuff to a disc thanks.

(1 reply) #2 Posted by +Sethos on 07 Jul 2008 - 17:29: That's a lot of porn

(1 reply) #3 Posted by +BigCheese on 07 Jul 2008 - 17:29: Seems useless. Its incompatible with blu-ray and its inferior to holographic discs.

#4 Posted by +Orange on 07 Jul 2008 - 17:37: Lol porn lol

(3 replies) #5 Posted by HalcyonX12 on 07 Jul 2008 - 17:51: I don't understand the point of creating another format. Blu-ray can be scaled to include more layers, and there are already technologes to get it to scale to 250GB: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5656

Yes, it requires new hardware, but we can extend the same applications and APIs, as well as make use of blu-ray extensions that may not be available on the new format. Backward compatibility will be maintained, which is a bonus compared to an alternative format which may require more complex hardware and software support to maintain backward compatibility with blu-ray and its extensions.

This will make it difficult for Pioneer to break into the market with its format, if someone can already do the same type of thing with Blu-Ray, even possibly matching and exceeding the capacity of Pioneer's format.

(3 replies) #6 Posted by Dave on 07 Jul 2008 - 18:34: Optical drives as a delivery medium are dying. Downloading games/video/audio/whatever is becoming more the norm by the day. Broadband is becoming wider spread and bandwidth is becoming cheaper and more accessible.

The only advantage of optical drives is their back-up function, and that is cumbersome and the backups themselves are unreliable. Anything important enough to be backed-up shouldn't rely on errant scratch.

#7 Posted by bluarash on 07 Jul 2008 - 19:57: We really do need a format to be able to provide local archived versions of important software and documents. At the present moment DVDs (4.3 or 8.5) are simply not enough space. Extra hard disk are nice, but not a realistic way to archive unless you want to vacuum pack a whole bunch of drives. Offsite storage is nice but relies on an internet connection. At the very least, maybe this will drive down the price of blu-ray.

#8 Posted by Runelord on 07 Jul 2008 - 20:01: Bandwidth is becoming cheaper? Tell that to all the companies that are going to start charging per GB of usage (increase the price you pay significantly if you want to use broadband as a distribution medium)

I agree, physical media is going to be around for a long time. It's always nice to know that even if your computer dies in a fire, you still have a copy of CoD4 sitting in your drawer somewhere.

Edit: Supposed to reply to #6...

#9 Posted by PeterTHX on 07 Jul 2008 - 20:26: This is not another format.

It's a multilayer Blu-ray Disc!

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/pi...ray-disc-416837

#10 Posted by Airlink on 08 Jul 2008 - 00:45: Promises, promises.

#11 Posted by Shiranui on 08 Jul 2008 - 01:31: Multi-layer is an overly complicated way to do things. I think it is time to move in a different direction.

#12 Posted by DaveBG on 08 Jul 2008 - 11:24: This thing is awesome!

#13 Posted by Atlonite on 12 Jul 2008 - 12:32: LOL Broadband getting cheaper LOL thats a good one what country do you live in... obviously not New Zealand here at the present time i get 15GB a month for 59.95 and 10 bucks per a 5GB block extra at that rate it'd cost me (400 - 15 = 385 / 5 = 77 x $10.00 = $770.00) and at 3.0Mbps i doubt i could evan D/L that much in a month oh and left over data blocks on my isp don't carry over to the next month so it'll cost me evan more yet again so a 400GB disc sounds pretty damn good to me as long as i dont have to wait a whole day for it to burn

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