Pioneer has developed an optical disc that can hold up to 400GB of data, easily surpassing all known prototypes, according to reports published prior to the Joint International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage in Hawaii next week (July 13-17), where more details likely will be announced.
While such a new disc and its huge capacity would not be part of the Blu-ray disc format, per se, the blue laser technology apparently will be compatible in some ways with Blu-ray players (at least after some minor tweaking). Today’s typical Blu-ray Disc holds a total of 50GB, or 25GB per side. Pioneer’s technology provides 16 layers of 25GB each—thus producing a total of 400GB onto a regular-sized 12-centimeter disc.
A Blu-ray disc can store up to about six hours of HD video; the Pioneer blue laser disc can grow that capacity to perhaps 48 hours, which would be ideal for archival purposes, and an entire season of TV shows, among other things.
Pioneer is not thought to have any current plans to commercially produce the disc itself, but could license the technology to other manufacturers.
Stay tuned.
