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DVDs could hold '100 times more'


All the episodes of The Simpsons could fit on one disk
Future DVDs could hold 100 times more information than current discs.
Imperial College London researchers in the UK are developing a new way of storing data that could lead to discs capable of holding 1,000 gigabytes.

It means that every episode of The Simpsons could fit on a disc the size of a normal DVD.

Lecturer Dr Peter Torok revealed the technique called Multiplexed Optical Data Storage (Mods) at the Asia-Pacific Data Storage Conference 2004 in Taiwan.

472 hours of film

DVDs are the single most successful consumer product in history. Most DVDs have two layers and can hold up to 8.5GBs.


We came up with the idea for this disc some years ago, but did not have the means to prove whether it worked

Peter Torok, Imperial College
Work is already well advanced on the next generation.

One technology, HD-DVD (High Definition DVD), can hold up to 30GBs, while a rival format called Blu-ray offers 50GBs of storage.

The technique developed by the Imperial College team could offer much more on a disc.

The researchers believe their technique could be used to create a disc with four layers, each with 250GBs - the equivalent of 118 hours of video per layer.

A four-layer DVD could hold one terabyte (1,000GBs) of data, enough for 472 hours of film, or every episode of The Simpsons ever made.

The Mods technique is laser-based like existing DVD and CD technology. A disc is made up of tiny grooves filled with pits that reflect the laser as a series of ones and zeroes.

Reflected light

Current discs carry one bit of data per pit. But the researchers say that by using angled ridges in the pits, they can alter the way light behaves.

The end result is a way of encoding and detecting up to 10 times more information from one pit.

"We came up with the idea for this disc some years ago," said Dr Torok, "but did not have the means to prove whether it worked.

"To do that we developed a precise method for calculating the properties of reflected light, partly due to the contribution of Peter Munro, a PhD student working with me on this project.

"We are using a mixture of numerical and analytical techniques that allow us to treat the scattering of light from the disc surface rigorously rather than just having to approximate it.

"The future for the mobile device market is likely to require small diameter discs storing much information. This is where a Mods disc could really fill a niche," he said.

It could be some time before the technology makes it way into the living room. The Imperial College team believe it could take five years to perfect their technique, with a commercial version available by 2010, depending on funding.

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It says the future disc could hold 472 hours of film ,enough for all the Simpsons episodes.

Are there really 950 episodes
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 09-28-2004, 07:21 AM:
 
Interesting that they never make mention of the possibility of including less material, but with less (or no) lossy compression, which would be far more useful to most people than having 400+ hours of material on one disk.
 

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Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 09-28-2004, 01:50 PM:
 
Wonder if it would actually be used to its full potential though- they rarely make use of DVD's full capacity in favor of splitting things up into separate volumes, or spreading things out over several discs in a box set to make it look like more.
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 09-28-2004, 04:59 PM:
 
Scott - I'm not totally sure that most people would prefer lossless compression over total running time. The vast majority of consumers who buy DVDs don't need or want any higher picture quality than is needed to look acceptable on a 19" TV set. For that purpose MPEG-II IBP-frame looks fine. Furthermore, lossless compression (or even uncompressed video) would require much more raw computing power in the consumer hardware in order to handle the increased bandwidth. For 9 out of 10 people, DVDs already look much better than VHS tapes and that's as much as they care about. Give them a choice of the same running time, but which will look a lot better projected on a screen 10 feet across, and 400 hours plus at the same quality as the DVDs they have already, and I think most would regard the latter as more of a selling point.

I remain deeply sceptical about whether blue-ray or this latest research holds out any promise as an archival data storage medium either - after all, optical discs don't have a very good track record for longevity thus far.
 

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Posted by Greg Davis (Member # 2687) on 09-28-2004, 06:27 PM:
 
Once again, the problem of technology vs practicality. Unless we come up with some ultra-cool new super duper hi tech way to see movies (like 3d where we can give Tom cruise nipple twisters) i find no point in having a DVD with 472 hours of film. there are only 168 hours in a week, and 472 is what, 3 weeks worth of movies. congratulations. I am sure someone will NEED to have that, just in case he wants one episode that god forbid isnt all on one disc. I think about 40-50 hours max is all anyone will need. I have seasons 1-5 of M*A*S*H and watched up to 4 when i got bored and hate the show. the same thing will happen. NOW to be practical would be to have every dvd you own (and then some) burned to one of these suckers and never have to worry about that again. oh wait, than a new movie comes out. so much for that disc. Toss and remake. Practicality. one movie per dvd. all we need.
 

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Posted by Ken Russell (Member # 2491) on 09-28-2004, 07:17 PM:
 
Well... FWIW, I agree with the comments about using this new media as a simple DVD. However, being a computer guy for the last 25 years I find the capacity facinating. Most data centers have direct access storage capacity measured in the dozens or in some cases hundreds of terabytes. The amount of money being spent on moving just backup tapes around is unbelievable. The DVD size media holding this much data, about 100 tapes the shape and size of an old 8-track, has staggering implications for savings.

As for a view more in line with FT, imagine a D-Cinema feature at a 4K resolution delivered on one DVD. The current alternative is MANY disks or DAYS of data transfer at current network speeds.
 

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Posted by Adam Wilbert (Member # 1184) on 09-28-2004, 10:57 PM:
 
I think the idea of smaller media is interesting. I've found the small 3.5 (i think) inch cds to be pretty convienient, but they only hold a bit over 100 mb. Do they even make 3.5" DVD+/-ROM media yet?

Another thought: How much better can the Simpsons really look? Its not like they're going back to the original animation cells for the dvd issue, and I doubt that they even exist still. If dvds came in a HD resolution, then that would hold everyone over for quite some time. It boggles my mind that dvds are a semingly odd resolution, better than standard TV, but less than HD. WHY? If someone could shed light on why the res of a dvd is what it is (720x480, broadcast tv is 460x360, hd is 1920x1080), i'd appreciate it.

-adam
 

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Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 09-29-2004, 08:02 PM:
 
Let's see, 472 hours, at 2+ hours per movie, thats at least 200 movies. 200 movies at $20 each, thats $4000.00 per disc. Yep, they'll sell a lot of those.
 

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Posted by David Buckley (Member # 2600) on 09-29-2004, 08:15 PM:
 
Yeah, but 200 pirated movies for $20 the lot is a far more attractive proposition.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-29-2004, 10:31 PM:
 
Why in the hell are we still shackled to spinning media? You'd think they'd figure out a way to put the data on something that just sits there. It could speed things up and make equipment more reliable.

What am I saying? It probably already exists and will be released as soon as everyone buys everything on two or three more spinning formats first.
 

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 09-29-2004, 10:56 PM:
 

quote: Mike Blakesley

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Why in the hell are we still shackled to spinning media? You'd think they'd figure out a way to put the data on something that just sits there.

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It's called Millipede

Still in the prototype/development stages but it looks pretty promising!
 

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Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 09-29-2004, 11:11 PM:
 
IBM was working on holostore devices as early as 1981. They were talking terabytes of storage in a cigarette pack size device, using lasers to read/write to layers of a crystal lattice. There were device stability issues. Haven't heard anything about that technology in a long time. Maybe it got overrun by falling memory prices, as happened to bubble memory. Heck, 2-gig USB thumb "drives" are out there now for not much $$$.
 

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Posted by David Buckley (Member # 2600) on 09-30-2004, 12:02 AM:
 
Although a DVD with 200 movies on it may not be a great proposition, a VCR size box that holds 200, 400, 1000 movies using similar technology would be cool.

Warning - IT story

I did some consultancy on a government job a couple of years ago that involved scanning paperwork, and this ran to about a terabyte of images a year. But the knocker was that we needed to store it all for over a century. The big HP optical jukebox of the day stored about 1.2TB, so that would do for the first year, and something similar for the next couple of years.

The kicker was when the improvement in storage density was factored in, the amount of physical stoage space required never grew beyond about 400 square feet.

Unlike my first job in IT, where I briefly worked with the then fourth largest database in Europe, which occupied about 5000 square feet of data centre and broke a lot. And would fit on the hard disk of just about any PC you can buy today...
 

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Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 09-30-2004, 02:02 PM:
 
(I don't think they can actually fit 472 hours of film onto a disc the size of a DVD, but I'm sure they can fit 472 hours of video)

Is this research taking into account the abuse that most DVDs suffer at the hands of people who use them? (Used as coaster, frisbee, handled by little kids w/ sticky fingers, stored on the floor, etc.)
 

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Posted by Ron Yost (Member # 1850) on 09-30-2004, 03:22 PM:
 
Just last night I went to Hollywood Video to rent a movie.

The girl tried to remove the lock on the case using the standard method .. which didn't work. She mumbled something under her breath, obviously becoming more exasperated by the second.

Then she proceeded to violently smash the lock-edge of the case on the edge of the counter until it was destroyed and the 'lock' fell out. (Proving, once again, that Mr. Redifer's 'solution' is THE answer in all difficult situations.)

Stunned, I said, "Jeez, you sure you didn't screw up the disc?" (I was gonna' add 'hun', but quickly realized this probably wasn't the best time for shallow, patronizing comments.)

She remarked, "NO!" (She didn't add "..You f'in IDIOT!", but I could tell she was thinking it.) "I'll put a new case on it when you bring it back. These stupid new cases don't work so good."

"Ummm .. Ok.", I said, "So I'm not gonna' get charged for a new case, right?" She just glared and practically threw the thing at me after I'd passed thru the theft detector.

I walked out into the cold, lonely night .. knowing there are some people ya' just don't mess with.

Ron Yost
 

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