Blu-ray adds new 100GB and 128GB disc/format specs!

[kpmedia]

Commentary after the article...

Quote:

Blu-ray Disc Association Announces Additional Format Enhancements
April 2, 2010 - Los Angeles, CA.

The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) today announced two new media specifications that use Blu-ray Disc technology to provide targeted functionality for commercial and consumer applications. The specifications for BDXL™ (High Capacity Recordable and Rewritable discs) and IH-BD (Intra-Hybrid discs) are expected in the next few months.

The BDXL specification, which is targeted primarily at commercial segments such as broadcasting, medical and document imaging enterprises with significant archiving needs, will provide customers with write-once options on 100GB and 128GB capacity discs and rewritable capability on 100GB discs. The discs reach these capacities by incorporating three to four recordable layers. A consumer version of BDXL is also expected, particularly in those regions where BD recorders have achieved broad consumer acceptance.

“Professional industries have expressed a desire to find optical disc solutions that enable them to transition away from magnetic media for their archiving needs,” said Victor Matsuda, Blu-ray Disc Association Global Promotions Committee chair. “Leveraging Blu-ray Disc to meet this need provides professional enterprises with a compact, stable and long term solution for archiving large amounts of sensitive data, video and graphic images using a proven and widely accepted optical technology.”

The Intra-Hybrid Blu-ray Disc (IH-BD) incorporates a single BD-ROM layer and a single BD-RE layer so as to enable the user to view, but not overwrite, critical published data while providing the flexibility to include relevant personal data on the same physical disc. This allows for consumer specific applications where combining published content with related user data on a convenient, single volume is desirable. Both the ROM and the RE layers on IH-BD discs provide 25GB of capacity.

Because both BDXL and IH-BD are specially designed formats with specific market segments in mind, newly-designed hardware is required to play back or record BDXL or IH-BD media. However, because the new media specifications are extensions of current Blu-ray Disc technology, future BDXL and IH-BD devices can be designed to support existing 25GB and 50GB Blu-ray Discs.

About Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray DiscTM is the next-generation optical disc format for high definition audio-video and high-capacity data software applications. A single-layer Blu-ray Disc holds up to 25 gigabytes of data and a double-layer Blu-ray Disc holds up to 50 gigabytes of data.

About the Blu-ray Disc Association
The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) is responsible for promoting and developing business opportunities for Blu-ray Disc - the next-generation optical disc format for storing high-definition movies, games, photos and other digital content. The BDA has more than 170 members. Its Board of Directors consists of individuals affiliated with the following member companies: Apple Inc., Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company, Hitachi, Ltd., Intel Corporation, LG Electronics Inc., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Panasonic Corporation, Pioneer Corporation, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sharp Corporation, Sony Corporation, TDK Corporation, Technicolor, Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures and Television, and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. The Blu-ray Disc name and Blu-ray DiscTM logo are registered trademarks of the Blu-ray Disc Association. BDXL™ is a trademark of the Blu-ray Disc Association.

For media inquiries, contact: Corporate Advocates – Heather Schroeder (Tel) +713-972-0041 (email) hschroeder@corporateadvocates.net

Read this carefully: "Because both BDXL and IH-BD are specially designed formats with specific market segments in mind, newly-designed hardware is required to play back or record BDXL or IH-BD media. However, because the new media specifications are extensions of current Blu-ray Disc technology, future BDXL and IH-BD devices can be designed to support existing 25GB and 50GB Blu-ray Discs."

You want me to be even more Blu-ray stuff? No, I don't think so. ..... Pass.

Another unattributed generality quote worth examining: "Professional industries have expressed a desire to find optical disc solutions that enable them to transition away from magnetic media for their archiving needs"

Says who? I call BS! I want to see that survey. I'm sure companies would love to get away from magnetic tape, but rarely does anybody say they want to leave drives for discs. Tape vs hard drive! Who wants to bet the survey did not specify, or that it's being taken out of context?

And this quote: "targeted primarily at commercial segments such as broadcasting, medical and document imaging enterprises with significant archiving needs"

Why buy optical discs for 100GB when I can buy 2TB eSATA hard drives? The costs of those burner drives, discs and software will surely cost more than TB's of drive storage. The hard drives are faster, too!

And this one: "compact, stable and long term solution for archiving large amounts of sensitive data"

Huh? Recordable multi-layer optical media are still very much in their infancy. It was maybe just 6-7 years ago when optical engineers were still not sure the dual-layer recordable tech was even possible. And now they're saying it stable and long-term for 3-4 layers? Okay....

Oh good grief: "using a proven and widely accepted optical technology"

Widely accepted? Since when does a 10-15% market share is count as being a "wide" acceptance?
My baloney has a first name and it's B-L-U-R-A-Y!

I'm out.