"FILL IT UP...PRETTY PLEASE"
"300GB Disc set to challenge DVD" blares the "come hither, you geek" headline on VNUnet (via memeorandum). It should add the sub-headline, "Leap-frogs Blu-Ray and HD-DVD"...at least on paper.
What's all the fuss about? Well, here's the full skinny:
"A computer disc about the size of a DVD that can hold 60 times more data will go on sale in 2006, according to its American developer InPhase Technologies, a Lucent spin off.
The discs, holding 300GB each, use so-called Tapestry holographic memory technology to store data by interference of light. They are also able to read and write data at 10 times the speed of a normal DVD.
InPhase Technologies has formed an alliance with Hitachi/Maxell to market and sell the discs. The first public demonstration was held at the International Broadcast Equipment Exhibition last week in Tokyo.
Tapestry can store more than 26 hours of broadcast-quality high-definition video on a single 300GB disk, recorded at a data rate of 160Mbps. The discs are 13cm in diameter and a little wider and thicker than conventional DVDs."
As the Geek.com explains a bit more:
"Maxell says a 13 cm platter (about the size of a DVD disc) at its current holographic storage capacity holds 63 times more than today's DVDs. To put that into perspective, the Maxell disc holds 500,000 300-page books, or 239 continuous days' (5,736 hours) worth of CD-quality MP3 music (~180,000 songs)."
So a WHOOOLE LOTTA storage, in a thing that kinda looks like an overgrown floppy, but is not (see picture below. This is cool stuff, if they can get it to market fast enough at 
reasonable enough prices...HUGE execution challenge, especially when they're behind the beefy horses ahead of them called "Blu-Ray" and "HD-DVD".
What's the big deal, you say? I can barely fill up my current DVDs with legal content, you say?
Well, you'd be right on that front.
This thing would be good for HD content, so Mark Cuban should be smiling. See his "The Coming Golden Age of Television" for the bull case on HD-TV. I'm not sold on the whole HD-TV surpassing everything else argument, but he makes some points worth grokking.
I'm much more in violent agreement with him on his latest post titled "Time to allow Hard Discs pre-loaded with Music..." AND video, I'd add. As Mark cogently explains:
"So why doesn't it happen ? This old fuddy duddy music licensing organization called the Harry Fox Agency. Talk about an organization so out of step with the times its holding an entire industry back.
How expensive is it to “pay the Harry Fox Piper ?” From their website
” The current statutory mechanical royalty rate is $.085 (8.5 cents) per song per unit for recordings of compositions up to five minutes (5:00) in length. ”
That's alot of money. Do the math. How many songs can you pre load on a 30gbs or 60gbs IPod. How many as those hard drives grow and grow.
At 8.5 cents ea. That's big, big dollars. Per Ipod. Which is exactly why you cant buy MP3/Ipod devices preloaded with music. Its obscenely expensive ."
With the above-mentioned holographic DVD, we wouldn't even have to worry about the relatively high cost of hard-drives, assuming of course the "Holo-DVD" is priced at a reasonable consumer level. Which of course it won't be any time soon, for similar archaic licensing restrictions.
As I highlighted in a post a few days ago on the high cost of "owning" the music, our ability to store stuff economically is WAAAY surpassing our ability to fill it up at a economic rational price for mainstream consumers.
As an article in the Guardian I quoted then noted:
"The 60GB model sells for $350 (£200); to fill it up with freshly downloaded content from the Apple store could easily cost another $25,000."
This applies even more for video content given the paranoia that already exists amongst the media giant to "protect" their content at the cost of alienating paying customers.
And the media industry will continue to add unnecessary friction points as consumers try and transfer music and video they've already bought on CDs and DVDs onto increasingly capacious, portable hard-drive based storage devices and DVD discs, as the recent Sony CD debacle illustrates vividly.
So it's a ironical "storage, storage everywhere, not enough drops of content to fill" kind of world we'll be in, at least for the next few years.
You have forgotten about the enterprise storage market. That can probably easily swallow up this demand, assuming that the power/space ratios work out.
BTW thank you so much for changing from the black background to the white background. The readability has improved by a HUGE amount.
Posted by: A lurker | Friday, December 09, 2005 at 04:45 AM