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Hitachi's experimental model of the quad-layer Blu-ray Disc  (Source: PC Watch)
100GB on a single Blu-ray Disc that will work with today's machines, promises Hitachi

Throughout the life of the format, DVD has been primarily limited to at most two layers, keeping the format at a maximum storage space of under 9GB. The new high-definition formats, however, appear to have taken a page from hard disk drives when it comes at adding additional storage.

Just as how adding additional platters inside a hard disk drive provides more storage, optical media makers are finding ways to stack layers of readable surface inside a polymer disc to increase capacity. Hitachi revealed this week at CEATEC JAPAN 2007 that it has successfully developed a quad-layer Blu-ray Disc that is capable of storing 100GB of data.

The concept multi-layer discs is practiced by many other media labs, but Hitachi claims that its quad-layer technology would be compatible with existing Blu-ray Disc drives after a firmware update. Prior developments of greater than dual layer discs have required special hardware to read the new media.

Hitachi is now working on improving the signal quality of its quad-layer technology so that it will be ready for market. The company also said that it is working on an eight-layer variant of the technology, which would yield a Blu-ray Disc capable of holding 200GB.

Although no new hardware may be required to read the additional layers of Hitachi’s Blu-ray Disc, it is still unclear what costs, if any, would be added onto the manufacturing side of the equation. Should expensive equipment be required to manufacture the discs, movie studios may opt to release their titles across two Blu-ray Discs rather than cram movie and special feature data onto a single disc.

While the Blu-ray camp has its hopes in Hitachi’s multi-layer disc technology, the HD DVD group recently approved a triple-layer disc that is capable of holding 51GB. In order to reach a dual-layer Blu-ray Disc-besting capacity, an extra 2GB per layer was squeezed in, for a total of 51GB. Toshiba states that continued improvement in disc mastering technology has achieved further minimization in the recording pit, allowing for the boost in capacity to 17GB in single layer and a full 51GB on a single-sided triple-layer disc.

Interestingly enough, blue-violet laser technology has not stopped endeavors in increasing the capacity of red laser-based media. UK-based New Medium Enterprises revealed in March that it developed a quad-layer DVD, called the Versatile Multilayer Disc (VMD), which is capable of storing 20GB. Even with four layers, the VMD can’t best the storage offered by today’s HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc media.

Adding just one or two layers may just be the tip of the iceberg in optical media technology. Media specialist company Ritek told DailyTech at CES 2007 that not only has it been able to produce three-layer and four-layer HD optical discs, but to have successfully designed HD media with a full 10 layers. Ritek said that its multi-layer process can be applied to both HD DVD and Blu-ray formats, making the latest developments in 20GB DVD, 51GB HD DVD and 100GB Blu-ray Discs look like just the beginning.

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Great for users
By jak3676 on 10/5/2007 8:26:49 AM , Rating: 2
I don't think this is even needed for high def movies, but it will be great for all the other uses - assuming that they can make cheap recordable media for consumer use.

Cost is always the issue, and I think that's the only reason that there is even still an argument between HD and BR.

But its really nice to see that this update will be compatable with existing hardware with only a firmware update. I've heard that HD is working along similar lines (multi-layer), but I haven't seen anything from the HD camp say that it will only take a firmware upate. If either camp starts making updates to their standard that are not fully backward compatable - that will only push more consumers away. While consumers understand that technology is always improving, no one wants to sink a lot of money in a standard that may not be able to play the discs that are released in a few years.




RE: Great for users
By GreenyMP on 10/5/2007 9:16:08 AM , Rating: 1
Just for fun lets do some math. If a typical DVD is recorded to support 720 x 480 resolution and a typical Blu-ray is recorded to support 1920 x 1280. The Blu-ray needs to support six times the data. (In an attempt to simplify the equation I will ignore the codec differences.) In The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King (Platinum Series Special Extended Edition) is 4 disks. So 4disks * 4.7GB * 6xResolution = 112.8GB needed to put it all on one disk.

So I am sending you all back to the drawing board. Blu-ray/Hitachi, we need another layer out of you guys. HD-DVD, we need 7 layers at 17GB/layer (8 at 15GB/layer). Lets not do the job half way boys. Lets do it all the way or not at all (straight from my dad).


RE: Great for users
By retrospooty on 10/5/2007 9:32:13 AM , Rating: 4
or... less useless crap added to movies. The movie itself fits on one DVD right?

I for one don't want 3 dvd's full of extra's. I want the movie, and in some cases a few extra features that usually fit onto the first DVD already, not 3 whole extra DVD's worth of crap.


RE: Great for users
By colonelclaw on 10/5/2007 9:37:39 AM , Rating: 5
hmm, maybe sony needs the extra space for it's next DRM scheme?


RE: Great for users
By retrospooty on 10/5/2007 9:58:32 AM , Rating: 1
LOL - probably... All the more reason to go HD-DVD


RE: Great for users
By mal1 on 10/5/2007 11:26:07 AM , Rating: 5
Yeah....'cause Microsoft wouldn't even dream of using DRM.


RE: Great for users
By retrospooty on 10/5/07, Rating: 0
RE: Great for users
By mars777 on 10/5/2007 2:35:18 PM , Rating: 3
If they use the same exact size for the same codec... neither one is bloated or both are.
Meanwhile AACS+MKT (on BluRay) is just another way of encoding the keys on the disc, arguably more secure.

But it really doesn't matter.
Use AnyDVD to rip BluRay or HDDVD.

DRM doesn't matter cause it's cracked.


RE: Great for users
By mars777 on 10/5/2007 2:47:47 PM , Rating: 2
Ah, i forgot to mention that AnyDVD HD strips the BD region coding too..

ie 100% cracked formats.


RE: Great for users
By mars777 on 10/5/2007 2:53:10 PM , Rating: 2
Ah, i forgot to mention that AnyDVD HD strips the BD region coding too..

ie 100% cracked formats.


RE: Great for users
By BladeVenom on 10/5/2007 3:29:59 PM , Rating: 2
Sony has started adding another layer of copy protection, BD+ to their latest videos. Has that been cracked yet?
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/1035


RE: Great for users
By andrewsdw on 10/5/07, Rating: -1
RE: Great for users
By V2K on 10/5/2007 10:09:18 AM , Rating: 2
good for TV box sets too - you could fit entire seasons of some shows on a single disc


RE: Great for users
By Martimus on 10/5/2007 11:57:35 AM , Rating: 2
The movie is on two DVD's. The extras are the other two DVD's.


RE: Great for users
By kyp275 on 10/5/2007 1:43:24 PM , Rating: 2
actually, I found the extra features on the LOTR extended dvds to be quite interesting.

I don't usually bother with the bonus materials, but then I'm a big LOTR fan :)


RE: Great for users
By Locutus465 on 10/5/2007 5:44:00 PM , Rating: 2
Speacial edition Fellowship of the ring does not fit on to a single DVD... I'm sure the same would be true for HD... Though to be honest I'm not really that upset by it, not much different than changing video tapes back in the day. And as far as I know the standard editions of all the movies *DO* fit onto a single DVD, there for if you really don't want to change disks you can buy standard as opposed to speacial uber omg edition.


RE: Great for users
By Cogman on 10/5/2007 9:47:54 AM , Rating: 5
Ahh, but the codec difference is a huge one. We are talking about a codec that is essentially 4 times more efficient then the old MPEG2 standard, meaning if that was pure video, you would only need 28 GB to store it all. A single layer Blu-ray disk is 25 GB. so already you can store almost all of it on one disk. If you want crazy quality, you could easily split this to 4 single layered blu-ray disks, and get a quality that is much better then a MPEG2 encoder would be able to handle. Now you split that to double, triple, or quad layers and you are talking about either Uber-extreme quality or using one or 2 disks at the most.

Don't discount the codec so quickly as it is a HUGE factor in how much data can be stored.


RE: Great for users
By Obadiah on 10/5/2007 4:00:30 PM , Rating: 3
No, the codec really isn't so much of a factor when the material is high-definition. Part of the reason is that mpeg2 was designed for high-bitrate applications while h264 was designed for low-bitrate applications. Another part of the reason is that the higher the bitrate, the more often blocks of the image are encoded instead of just re-using blocks from previous frames and all of the codecs - mpeg2, h264 and vc1 are roughly equally efficient at encoding new blocks, they only differentiate themselves by how well they are able to "figure out" what previous blocks can be re-used.

So, the higher the bitrate, the less of a difference there is in codec efficiency.

Take a look at this comparison of all three codecs: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=128498

If you look at the table comparing OPSNR (peak signal to noise ratio) and SSIM (structural simularity) you can see that mpeg2 at 12mbps beats vc1 and h264 at 6mbps, sometimes very dramatically. At 18mbps, mpeg2 just barely lags the others at 12mbps.

The important thing to take away from those numbers is that at best the other codecs are 2x as efficient as mpeg2 and their lead decreases as bitrate increases. Note that those tests are not low-bitrate like 2mbps, where h264 would have a significant lead over mpeg2. But that kind of bitrate is for internet-streaming video, not high-definition blu-ray/hd-dvd.


RE: Great for users
By Strunf on 10/8/2007 7:58:10 AM , Rating: 2
You contradict yourself... if mpeg2 was designed for high bitrates and mpeg4 for low ones then how come the mpeg 4 wins on high bitrates?...

mpeg2 was never made for high bitrates it was made to have the best quality possible and still fit a movie on a DVD.

Also the higher the bitrate is the less the codec becomes important, however we have a limited space available has such for any givin space the mpeg4 encoded movie will give a better quality than if it was encoded in mpeg2 (at the same resolution).