Pioneer makes 400 GB Blu-ray

[h0mi]

This is good news. Sure, 1 movie wouldn't need 400gb, but it would mean that we're not stuck with a hard 50gb limit either. If a studio wanted to release a limited edition blu-ray with extras that would span 2 discs, it could be released on 1. Imagine all star wars movies on 1 disc, not scattered across 6 (plus the extras).
TV series would benefit most from this of course.

[ack_bak]

I would be really surprised if 400GB discs were used by studios. But you never know

[Forge]

This type of thing wouldn't be too useful for movies, except maybe for TV shows, but this would really be useful for businesses and organizations to use for backup media and getting rid of tapes.

I complete agree with resevilfan86. As an IT consultant, one of my biggest pains these days is finding a good, affordable, reliable tape drive. No one seems to want to support them for medium to small buisness budgets. Perhaps 16 layers is a bit much for most of my clients, but it still offers a possible alternative. That is depending again on price of hardware and media.

[aristotles]

I think that at least 3 or 4 layer BD-R, BD-RE discs will have a market as both a backup media and to store vast digital photo and high def home video collections.

With hard drives coming out in the terrabyte range now we need to have a backup media in the 100 GB range if not larger not only as a backup for backup drives in case of failure but also for storing your precious data in an offsite safety deposit box or safe.

[stevo4]

I would be really surprised if 400GB discs were used by studios. But you never know

I'd be more interested in how these discs supporting this tech, will be mass produced.
Putting that before any consideration in using them for movie media.

[HiDefFanboy]

I'd be more interested in how these discs supporting this tech, will be mass produced.
Putting that before any consideration in using them for movie media.

Great point. This is burn technology only, useless for movie studios.

[Phillysports8982]

I would be really surprised if 400GB discs were used by studios. But you never know

I think this is will either be used for tv shows or more than likley data back up

[Gutter21]

We all knew this would happen but the big ? is would this be playable on todays players.

Oh man if this was true I would be excited

[C.S.Strowbridge]

I complete agree with resevilfan86. As an IT consultant, one of my biggest pains these days is finding a good, affordable, reliable tape drive. No one seems to want to support them for medium to small buisness budgets. Perhaps 16 layers is a bit much for most of my clients, but it still offers a possible alternative. That is depending again on price of hardware and media.

Tape drive? I remember buying a tape drive backup for my computer from a guy I met on a BBC. He had me meet him at a Skytrain station at 10 pm. It didn't strike me as odd at the time, but now I wonder.

[stevo4]

This is burn technology only, useless for movie studios.

I agree. Its hard to see a manufacturing process being able to piece together 16 layers accurately.
Not without poor yields, resulting in expensive discs.

I can only imagine they created the different layers of data by refocusing the laser at different depths to be able to burn that many data layers.

From what was reported at Pioneers web site -

playback of recorded signals by employing a wide-range spherical aberration compensator and light-receiving element that can read out weak signals at a high signal-to-noise ratio in the optical pick-up mechanism

http://pioneer.jp/press/release193.html

As that reads, a different optical pick-up to what is used in BD players atm would be required to read the discs.

[arrowspark]

And exactly what are yields like for a 16 layer disc? Price?

[Super-VHS]

And exactly what are yields like for a 16 layer disc? Price?

My guess - not very good and damn expensive.

[Thulium]

If these can be affordable in the short term, I could see them being quite useful in movie production as they could record 4k master with relatively little compression.

[Thulium]

My guess - not very good and damn expensive.

Yeah, that's why I suggest they could be used for filming. Do you know how much a reel of 70mm costs? About $1/foot. I would suspect that a foot of 70mm film could be pretty well represented by 4 gigs of data, so anything less than $100/disc is not too shabby.

[bfellow]

I for one feel 400gb is enough storage to store various ways to terminate things on a cyborg.