850 GB DVD?

Loner · Post by **Loner** » 2005-05-31 12:32am

Nanotech to increase DVD capacity to 850 GByte

By Wolfgang Gruener, Senior Editor

May 24, 2005 - 12:37 EST

San Diego (CA) - Iomega believes DVD media to remain competitive with upcoming optical storage technologies such as Blu-ray and HD-DVD: Nanotechnology could multiply the current maximum capacity to 8.5 GByte 40 to 100 times, the company said.

The DVD appears to be far from its end of life according to Iomega's discovery. The firm was granted two patents that cover a specific use of nanotechnology in combination with optical data storage as well as a "method and apparatus for optical data storage." In the patent description, Iomega talks about a technique of encoding data on the surface of a DVD by using reflective nano-structures to encode data in a multi-level format.

This technology, named AO-DVD (Articulated Optical - Digital Versatile Disc), allows more data to be stored on a DVD and could allow future optical discs to potentially hold 40-100 times more information with data transfer rates 5-30 times faster than today's DVDs. Iomega believes that such media could be manufactured at costs similar to those of DVDs.

The firm said it is currently "working to investigate the commercial feasibility" of this format and other nano-structural data encoding formats such as a "NG-DVD" (Nano-Grating - DVD), which uses nano-gratings to encode multi-level information via reflectivity, polarization, phase, and reflective orientation multiplexing.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-05-31 01:18am

I assume it would not be readable with current players, correct?

I wonder when it will be available? Because if it's not available by the end of 2006, it will not be competing with HD-DVD and Blu-ray but rather with HVD (1 terabyte disks).

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2005-05-31 03:50am

Good, good, more storage is required, I already find DVD discs to be insufficient.

Loner · Post by **Loner** » 2005-05-31 10:48am

Praxis wrote:I assume it would not be readable with current players, correct?

I wonder when it will be available? Because if it's not available by the end of 2006, it will not be competing with HD-DVD and Blu-ray but rather with HVD (1 terabyte disks).

I googled more information about this, and nothing has been said so far if it could be played in a regular DVD, but some have said that it's theoritically possible. As for the second question, who knows? Though I will say that if this manages to become reality and comes out within the next two-years it'd be a real dick-slap to both Sony and Toshiba.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-05-31 02:52pm

I'm guessing more like 5 years, around the same time the holographic discs are slated. One or more of these technologies will probably end up being purchased or licensed by the current reigning firms as the next version of compact disc storage.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2005-05-31 02:56pm

Praxis wrote:I assume it would not be readable with current players, correct?

It's Iomega. Nothing they make works with current players.

Icehawk · Post by **Icehawk** » 2005-05-31 03:17pm

Cool, if this pans out then Xbox 360 is not as limited in terms of format capability compared to PS3, at least so long as the disks readable by standard DVD player.