Pioneer creates 400GB Blu-ray compatible disc

Mon Jul 7, 2008 10:05PM EDT

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If standard Blu-ray discs are considered high definition, then I'd have to call these new discs "ultra" HD.

PCMagazine reported that Pioneer, the Japanese electronics manufacturer, has created a new, 16-layer disc capable of holding 400GBs of data. The disc, which looks the same as a traditional disc, is backwards compatible with Blu-ray technology, meaning that current Blu-ray drives may be able to read these massive discs in the future.

What does "16-layer" mean? Think of it like colored, transparent sheets. A typical Blu-ray disc is just one red sheet. Now neatly stack 15 different colored sheets on top. To the untrained eye, it's just a brown-black mess, but with the right set of glasses, you can see the red color just like you did before. Or you can change it to blue, green, or any other color sheet you stacked on top, without any of the other sheets distorting your view.

Technology is amazing, isn't it?

Related links:

Beginners guide to Blu-ray

 

Comments on Pioneer creates 400GB Blu-ray compatible disc

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  • 3 Posted by magpagbst on Wed Jul 9, 2008 5:24PM EDT Report Abuse

    wow . . . i'm wondering if this will lead to hard-driveless laptops . . . laptops sold with 2g-4g RAM, maybe a small 40g ssd, and a blu-ray drive with one of these discs for larger apps/storage . . . i can see the external drive/storage systems quickly becoming extinct with the advent of these discs . . . no?

  • 4 Posted by kupriaa1 on Thu Jul 10, 2008 8:52AM EDT Report Abuse

    This technology certainly has benefits- but calling this technology ultra-hd is a stretch. I dont think Pioneer was intending movies as the purpose of this media. From a data point of view this technology is great since optical discs have a tremendous shelf life. As far as laptop storage- i would never want this- optical drives are extremely slow compared to SSD and the mechanical drive. So for backups and archived storage this is great. For holding multiple movies and "very long" movies- great technology. For a traditional hd movie- a waste- no TV could output this quality plus one could argue if this kind of resolution would even be necessary.

  • 5 Posted by mberg22 on Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:56PM EDT Report Abuse

    Well I remember Bill Gates once said we would never exceed the need for 640k on a PC :-) Course if Vista gets any larger they might need to distribute it on one of these. ;-)

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