Aussies cram 2,000 movies onto single DVD
Last month, GE revealed that its research scientists had discovered a way, using holographic technology, to store 100 DVDs worth of information on a single standard DVD. What a difference a few weeks make.
In what can only be seen as a "serving" (or pwning) of the GE researchers, the B-Boys researchers at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, have gone way past 100 and on to 2,000.
While standard DVDs are made with three spatial dimensions, the Aussie researchers added two more.
Using nanoparticles--extremely small bits of matter--the Swinburne team was able to introduce a spectral (or color) dimension and a polarization dimension.
To create the "color dimension," the researchers inserted gold nanorods onto a disc's surface. Because nanoparticles react to light according to their shape, this allowed the researchers to record information in a range of different color wavelengths on the same physical disc location. Their findings appear in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature.
Current DVDs are recorded in a single color wavelength using a laser. Brain explode yet? No? Well just keep reading, pal.
The polarization dimension is even more trippy and impressive. When the scientists Down Under projected light waves onto the disc, the direction of the electric field contained within them aligned with the gold nanorods. This allowed the researchers to record different layers of information at different angles.
According to James Chun of the university's Centre for Micro-Photonics, "the polarization can be rotated 360 degrees. So for example, we were able to record at zero-degree polarization. Then on top of that, we were able to record another layer of information at 90 degrees polarization, without them interfering with each other."
Not surprisingly, some issues, such as the speed at which the discs can be written on, have yet to be resolved. However, the researchers--who have already signed an agreement with Samsung--are confident the discs will be commercially available within 5 to 10 years.
Thinking about how this would be applied commercially makes my mind hurt. Lets says MGM decides to release all 22 "James Bond" films on one DVD. How much would they charge? $220-$440 ($10-20 for each disc) for the single disc?. How long would it take for consumers to get used to paying that much for a single disc, no matter how much content is on it?
On the Buzz Out Loud podcast Wednesday, we speculated that an entire TV series could be released on one disc. For example, all five seasons of "The Wire" on one disc. That would definitely be convenient during a marathon, but would Netflix be willing to rent you a $250 disc, with the possibility that you'd keep it "forever"?
Of course, the discs are likely to have applications beyond the living room. They could potentially stores large medical files such as MRIs, for example. The commercial potential for this technology is obvious; I'm just glad I don't have to come up with a business model.
Eric Franklin refused to write a bio, saying, "Why are you bothering me about this bio business again? If I wanted people to know more about me, I'd send them to the Inside CNET Labs Podcast" (shameless plug). E-mail Eric. 
On a serious note, i think data archival especially Photos, personal HD Videos etc would be an application. Enterprise customers will find equiv. uses as well.
As we get more and more free content then it will drive down the price of paid content. The money will be in the large archives. Yes you can stream/download anything you want but some people would still pay for the ease of use of having a local copy.
My guess would be in 5-10 years time a release all 22 James Bond films on one disc would be $60-$80 not $220-$440, as the market will obviously quickly become flooded with more content that we can consume and people will buy less individual products.
Also let's not forget the pirates, how many DivX movies could you get on one of these discs? The entire 20th Centuries top 10,000 movies all on one disc?
BluRay is simply the same old 1D pure binary encoding of CDs and RedLaser DVDs taken to a smaller scale; all three store data as simple yes-or-no linear dot patterns. Think of tiny beads on a rosary; a zero bit is a stretch of cord, a 1 bit is a bead. Now make the string really really long and thin, the beads tiny. That's CD. You make the cord a bit thinner and the beads smaller and you get DVD. Make the cord thinner yet and the beads barely larger, so small you can barely feel them, and you have BD. And that's the end of the line of practical use for that approach.
Cause what both GE and the Aussies have done is jumped several orders of magnitude in sophistication by *successfully* replacing the beads with microscopic holograms. So each packet of data, the figurative "beads" isn't just a simple bit of data but an entire packet of data; say a byte or a word or long word or even an entire ascii paragraph.
These are overly simplistic metaphors, I know; but this is seriously big news if it is truly 5 years away. (Pound of salt time, folks. This is a research announcement. We have yet to hear from the engineers who have to turn the tech into actual commercial products.)
Its really too early to speculate on commercial product pricing and usage because first, a delivery form factor has to be defined. At the specified capacities, it may make more commercial sense to trade off some of that capacity for a more convenient form factor; going from 5 inch DVD form factor to something in the 2-3 inch range or, better yet; 1 inch. Even a 1 inch disk should be able to hold between 400 and 800 GB of data or about an hour or so of uncompressed 1080p video.
And yes, that is the likely first use of this technology; storing full-quality uncompressed video; first for filmakers and digital theaters, later for consumer use. Cause nothing eats up terabytes like uncompressed HD video.
Me, I want to see that 1 inch form factor; it could hold anywhere from 8 to 16 BD-ROMs worth of data. On a coin-sized disk. We could have some fun with this tech.
For example 4K 24 bit video (with lossless compression) coupled with multi-language 13.1 96KHz 32 bit audio would easily push a single 2 hour movie into the 300-400GB range and add in the mostly useless interactive and 'extras' and you could see a half terabyte per movie.
As far as Blu ray, if this becomes the norm over the next decade you can forget Blu ray. This would be capable (with the right player, which hasn't been invented yet) of movie images in a quality that far surpasses Blu ray or anything the top of the line TVs of today can display. This could conceivably display true film quality in your home.
Plus, I don't know why anyone would need 18 years of continuous mp3 music on a disc. At 9 TB per disc are you really going to be worried about capacity?
;-)
With this amount of data you wouldn't need encryption. The bulk along would kill transmission!
And by the time this technology actually hits the consumer market (if it ever does), internet speeds will be dramatically higher and the size of the data will be irrelevant.
Internet speeds will not be up to par to transmit data at these amounts in five years, at least not in the US where I live. I understand that fiber optics will be almost universally available in metro areas by then, but I do not foresee ISPs lowering bandwidth costs enough to make downloading terabytes of information time-efficient or cost-possible for most. However, bandwidth speeds will be high enough for streaming HD content. HD on-demand is the future for most casual media consumers. That is of course as long as Netflix continues to expand it's Instant Watch service, like it did with the recent deal with Starz.
I can see this technology being used to make much smaller data-heavy disks, but I don't see the current relevance of 2000 DVDs on one disk.
Still, you have to wonder if this kind of technology has to stay on a disc. How do we get to Star Trek levels of computers where a portable super computer (ala, the Enterprise's main computer) has nearly all human knowledge. We have to have some way to mash nearly limitless data into a finite space. Why couldn't this be the tech to do just that? It doesn't necessarily have to be for Hollywood.
- by Press any key May 21, 2009 10:14 PM PDT
- Hollywood just dropped dead!
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- by J5Chicago May 22, 2009 7:25 AM PDT
- Right? Part of the problem with DVDs (and CDs for that matter) is the spinning and the heat. Wouldn't it be great if they could layer this onto a stationary form of media... like those crystals in Superman or the thing that Tommy Lee Jones holds up in the first Men In Black Movie and says "these things are going to replace CDs someday. Looks like I'll have to buy the White Album again"? Doesn't something like that make more sense? Spinning drives are so 2000.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (48 Comments)But then, your PC will probably 'burn-out' trying to play the disk..
Pity they can't do this with a USB stick.