250GB DVDs?

[Doramius]

I know about holography, but I didn't know it was to this scale already. This may not be NEW news, but it certainly is new and was pretty interesting to me.

http://www.inphase-technologies.com/technology/

I'm just psyched to see a 2 hour movie placed on a disc at such an extremely high bitrate I can get 7.0 audio & utilize full bitrate capability of my HDTV.

Sad thing is I'm just gonna have to wait about 2-3 years after it hits markets for the price to come down. I think $120 for a DVD±RW DL is still a bit much. Of course, I also think spending $120 for 1 day at Disneyworld is a bit steep when I can take 4 people out to Applebee's for the same cost or less. I don't get the same thrill as I would in Disneyworld, but my stomach is full and that's all that really matters anyway.

[GullyFoyle]

$120 for 250 gigs?
100 present disks for under $50.
That is kind of steep.
It will take five to seven years for this to be affordable.

[Doramius]

$120 for a DVD±RW DL burner. The discs will probably be close in price to discs now. Maybe $10-20 for a 3-pack. It's more like $20 for 750GB. Changes the perspective on things now, dosen't it?

[gll99]

Like I said in other threads discussing HD DVD and blu ray, unless there are major financial insentives for switching I don't plan on embracing the winner of those formats too quickly. There are other technologies that will likely be better in much less than 10 years from now as long as the movie industry let's them surface. The problem is that many good ideas never make it to market or only end up in niche products because they have too little or the wrong corporate backing.

The movie industry and hardware manufacturer who too often are one and the same of course would love us to spend more money every 10 years on basically the same movies just by changing the format.
In the short term, this one may be too close on the heels of their pet blu ray and hd dvd formats to have a fighting chance.

Unrelated to this product's innovative design but holographic tv is in the long term future and maybe expanded storage technology will go hand in hand with that long term goal.

[rijir2001]

A few years ago 3M (I think) was testing the FMD disc that appeared transparent. It was able to record hundreds of layers on a single FMD disc resulting in Terrabytes worth of data. That seemed to me like the way to go. But I guess that fell through. It was the same size as a CD/DVD.

No matter what anyone comes out with it will be for collectors and high end consumers only. The general public will NOT convert to a new format anytime soon. They finally swithched to DVD from VHS!

Not Gonna Happen...

[Doramius]

I agree among the lines with HD DVD and blu ray, but their stil limited below 40G per disc and the cost is very low. I do agree there needs to be a strong corporate backing as well. The format for DVD was pretty much commissioned by the movie industry to be created if you look at it's origins closely. And it mostly sold because you could get the movie on DVD 1 or 2 weeks before it came out on VHS when they first debuted.

However, These 250GB discs aren't really focusing towards movies themselves, but more as storage media. ZIP drives could have blown through the roof, If Digital CD media hadn't made it's debut. CD media was cheaper and held more information. ZIP drives could have been made larger, but cost & bulkyness, just caused them to fall flat on their face like a BetaMax cassette or a laserdisc. Quality is great, but quantity at the lowest price seems to beat out every time. If you get quality mixed in with quantity at the lowest price, you'll storm a market every time.

I strongly believe, if an optical drive started out on the market, to read/write these discs, for around $400-500; and these discs started on the market for about $10 each, they would quickly become a #1 storage media. This would be regardless of whether they could be played on a DVD player. I doubt they'd stop the production of standard DVDs because it would still be the general playable video format.

[Wile_E]

This reminds me of that holographic cube I read about YEARS AGO! It was the size of a sugar cube. What ever happened to that thing?

Unfortunately, with blu-ray/hd-dvd around the corner, us consumers won't see these holographic discs for probably 10-15 years from now. These companies talk BIG, but never produce product. Vaporware if you ask me.

They always said that DVD could have more than two layers. Never happened. We finally got dual-layer DVD recordable after all these years. Also I'm noticing that they are doing away with dual-sided DVD's too. Instead putting the content on two DVD's. Talk about going CHEAP just save some pennies.

[Doramius]

They still have double sided DVDs, the problem is the PUBLIC thinks they are more susceptible to damage than regular discs. My guess is it's those people that don't put the discs back in their cases after use, but lay them playable side down on a dusty entertainment center. :/