Hitachi Develops 100GB Blu-ray Disk

[Jimmy 2004]

Electronics company Hitachi has developed a new Blu-ray disk capable of holding 100GB of data by storing it on four layers – as well as maintaining compatibility with current Blu-ray hardware (providing that the firmware is updated). Whilst a 51GB three layer version of HD DVD was recently approved, Hitachi engineers have managed to almost double that figure, and the company is even working on an eight layer version of the Blu-ray disk which could potentially hold 200GB. At present Hitachi is focusing on improving the signal quality of the new disks so that they are ready for the market, but provided the manufacturing costs aren’t significantly higher than those of the two layer disks it is likely film companies may opt to use these four layer disks in future so that they can fit even more high definition video on a single disk.

Source: DailyTech

[WarEagleAU]

wow, nice addition, but if one extra layer adds 49gb, how come they cant do 100gb with 2 or 3?

[Mediocre]

It's four layers = 100gb, eight = 200, so 25gb per layer...

I wonder how tough it will be to update firmware. PS3 firmware should be easy enough, but what about burners and stand alone players? Glad I've waited....can't imagine trying to talk my parents through updating firmware on a stand alone burner/player....

[Dr. Spankenstein]

Yeah!! Now one hairline scratch=40Gb of info inaccessable!
How far we've come....

I can barely get 30% of my Netflix HD rentals to play without a major freeze/hiccough/hitch and the disks are barely scuffed. All of my personal discs playback perfect. I imagine there is a point of diminishing returns as far as real-world usefulness and reliability is concerned. Pushing for the biggest number in storage is a moot point if the reader can't be past particles of statically clinging dust that obscures enough info to make certain tracks/files unreadable.

[/rant]

[kwchang007]

Originally Posted by Dr. Spankenstein

Yeah!! Now one hairline scratch=40Gb of info inaccessable!
How far we've come....

I can barely get 30% of my Netflix HD rentals to play without a major freeze/hiccough/hitch and the disks are barely scuffed. All of my personal discs playback perfect. I imagine there is a point of diminishing returns as far as real-world usefulness and reliability is concerned. Pushing for the biggest number in storage is a moot point if the reader can't be past particles of statically clinging dust that obscures enough info to make certain tracks/files unreadable.

[/rant]

Try using eyeglass cleaning spray and the cloth that comes with the spray, works like a charm when we rent from redbox (dvd) .

100gb on an optical disk....that's awesome.

[Dr. Spankenstein]

EVERY movie goes through the cleaner (CleanDr)before I put it in my player. It is a scuffing issue. Although I'm amazed at how much schmutz comes on these discs when I get them!! You'd think they had used them to prepare their dinner the night before....

[spacejunky]

wow 20 GB of movie and 80 GB of worthless bonus features.

The only thing I see this useful for are trilogies like the Matrix or TV series with all of them on 1 disk.