Pioneer's Blu-ray disc hits 400GB across 16-layers

16-layers -- that's how many layers it takes to the hit the center of a 400GB Blu-ray disc, pops. That's 25GB per layer just like those dual-layer 50GB discs available for retail. Best of all, the technique used by Pioneer is expected to be backward compatible with existing Blu-ray gear since the specs and lenses required for pickup are identical. The prototype is read-only for the moment but R&D's on it so let's give them some time to work it out.

Update: Now that the English press release is out, it's less clear whether the new media -- whenever it might come to market -- will work in existing Blu-ray players or not. While "it is possible to maintain compatibility between the new 16-layer optical disc and the BD discs," players would seemingly require a modified optical pick-up mechanism to see the data. We'll learn more on July 13th when Pioneer discusses the breakthrough in detail.

[Via Impress]

[Dustin Frazier @ Jul 7th 2008 3:55AM]

Will it still protect my desk from condensation?

[Colin Potter @ Jul 7th 2008 4:07AM]

not as well as any HD-DUDs you might have kicking around

[gad get @ Jul 7th 2008 3:55AM]

Ah, the wonders of spinning slabs of reflective plastic.

[Cody @ Jul 7th 2008 3:57AM]

Well, I guess I have something new to store my data on, :) since my external hd and the hard drive in my pc is full....I use too much space. :( But first I've gotta buy a blu-ray player (let alone writer.) Oh wait...first comes an HDTV...I'm behind....

[Charles Han @ Jul 7th 2008 4:01AM]

holy buckets!!! 400gb? geez one of my external hd is only 250 gb. If they make a rewritable version of this disk, the potential is limitless.

[j_g_puff @ Jul 7th 2008 4:24AM]

no...

If they make a re-writeable version of this disc, the potential is quite clearly limited to 400GB (and whatever R/W speed they manage to squeeze out of the thing, which will be considerably less than your 250GB hard drive)

[Wwhat @ Jul 7th 2008 12:11PM]

And the media would no doubt cost 30% more than a 500GB HD, and be very sensitive to scratches, and I mean very.

[hiko36 @ Jul 7th 2008 4:04AM]

Damn... That's one LLLLOOONNNGGG PS3 game...

[ybd @ Jul 7th 2008 4:09AM]

Think of the possibilities... a 15-hour Heavenly Sword?

[hiko36 @ Jul 7th 2008 4:13AM]

Only 5 extra hours??? I was thinking like a 20 hour Heavenly Sword with an anime adaptation and then a Live Action adaptation based on the anime.... with 20 hours of extra features...

[jrb @ Jul 7th 2008 4:18AM]

just imagine how long that would take to install to the hdd! :>

[hiko36 @ Jul 7th 2008 4:22AM]

It would probably install in segments, much like MGS4 does...

[x20mar @ Jul 7th 2008 8:32AM]

Yes and Final Fantasy XIII should only be on one disc now instead of 4 (at least that what I was told when I last checked!)

[Link2877 @ Jul 7th 2008 4:08AM]

So how long before these things are big enough to hold fully uncompressed video?

[Dave @ Jul 7th 2008 4:20AM]

I think it will be possible soon. At that rate it has to be soon. I mean it doubles the capacity every few months. Next will be about 1TB :)

[j_g_puff @ Jul 7th 2008 4:38AM]

What would be the point? With H.264, HD video appears perfect at around 40Mbps+ anyway. Uncompressed HD is around 1.5Gbps - you'd waste a hell of a lot of space (and incur significant costs in the technology required to read/write to the media) for no gain.

Of course, when people start clamouring about the next resolution points (2160 and above) we're going to need some serious storage space.

[Kurian @ Jul 7th 2008 8:38AM]

And these discs have faster sequential read rates than a single harddisk.

[ybd @ Jul 7th 2008 4:08AM]

Heh. Would anyone really use it for backup purposes though? It'll be very expensive, it's physically fragile, it's not reusable (until we get RW version of course), burning will take forever and of course, if you get a burn error you're going to kill yourself.

It'll be awesome in 3 or 4 years from now though when these are more affordable and common.

[Colin Potter @ Jul 7th 2008 4:09AM]

i think this has great potential for use in content beyond 1080P... if a 1080P movie with HD Audio and a bunch of special features doesn't fill up 50GB, 400GB could do a hell of a lot!

[maty @ Jul 7th 2008 5:08AM]

1080p didn't use up that ol' HD DVD, which was only 30GB tops.

400GB. Huge capacity, and aye, it would be good for ultra high def, but we're not even at a point where a majority of homes hae HD set with HD signals, let alone the any generations after that.

Its a nice technological advancement, but personally (and this is just me); I don't see it ever coming into production.

[[ Roll on 2 years of Engadget when I'm proved wrong. ]]

[Colin Potter @ Jul 7th 2008 5:13AM]

HDTV is like color TV... everyone that can afford to and has the desire to is adopting it, it will bring the prices down slowly and soon enough the majority will have it... with retailers not having to push to sell HDTV sets, they will focus more or HD sources like blu-ray and satellite, which will eventually become a new standard as color picture is now standard over B/W, and within a couple years of that happening, Blu-Ray will be replaced by something newer and better (or atleast a powerful revision) and we start all over again

[Dave @ Jul 7th 2008 4:11AM]

holly crap that is awesome

[Ysleiro @ Jul 7th 2008 4:43AM]

HELP! Somebody please explain to me how in the world they can stack layers of info on top of more layers of info.

Isn't it overwriting itself?

[Plothole @ Jul 7th 2008 4:58AM]

Each layer is semi-transparent, which means that some light bounces off while the rest passes through. By adjusting the focus of the read mechanism, it can isolate the light bouncing off of a specific layer.

[jhorsnel @ Jul 7th 2008 5:03AM]

Think 3D ! Current discs have two layers, these have 16. If my understanding of 'backwardly compatible' is correct, existing players would be able to read two of the new 16 layers leaving 14 for new HD-Blue-Ray hardware to use.

Then of course you could have double-sided too !!!

[ash @ Jul 7th 2008 5:05AM]

nope, like it says, data is written on different layers on the disk. current BR players can only read two layers, that's why they said BR lasers need to be modified.

[jrb @ Jul 7th 2008 4:20AM]

size isn't the only thing to consider.
Streaming speed, and cost of the media are another.

it may be simpler to just use a lossless video codec for the purists that want it, you can still save a hell of a lot of space this way.

[NineT9 @ Jul 7th 2008 4:24AM]

Agreed, sweet news! I was afraid BluRay would be too small for the future of HD, but with 400GB, BluRay is here to stay for years like DVD was

[Tom Allen @ Jul 7th 2008 4:52AM]

Hell, that's one expensive coaster.

[PHILLIP @ Jul 7th 2008 5:06AM]

damn.. this is so sweet!! i really need to buy that PS3 right now!

[sinjinn @ Jul 7th 2008 7:09AM]

i dont think this is a reason to buy a ps3

[aidan @ Jul 7th 2008 10:52AM]

@ PHILLIP
this is a disk.... not a PS3

[CRAZYO @ Jul 14th 2008 12:35AM]

I'm pretty sure he meant for a cheap Blu-ray player, although I'm not sure if that's the case anymore, I don't really keep track of that sort of thing.

[Harry @ Jul 7th 2008 5:10AM]

You have to think of the possibilities relevant to the future... Pretty soon 4k HDTV may be a reality for most consumers and it will be able to take advantage of 400 gb Blu-Ray discs perfectly.

Not to mention that such high storage capabilities are going to put a damper on those who say flash storage will catch up soon. Can you imagine what you can do with such discs? You could put all the Star Wars movies, extras, profile 2.0 features on 1 disc and still have room left over for adding anything else.

The advantages for such a disc would make it one of the most dominant formats in a long time. DVD is on the outs because it cannot handle HDTV, while a 400 gb disc could support future formats such as 2k and 4k no probem.

[Wwhat @ Jul 7th 2008 12:19PM]

And would cost $150+ just the media, before the studios added their rights to the cost.

[wilcoholic @ Jul 7th 2008 5:18AM]

Holy.... 400gb!!! What are the read and write speeds of a bluray disc? It could blow the SSD right out of the water in terms of performance

[A.C.E.R. @ Jul 7th 2008 6:13AM]

??

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Jul 7th 2008 12:19PM]

@ A.C.E.R

Me too...

[01 @ Jul 7th 2008 1:34PM]

Optical disc hard drives? The future is indeed now.

[Mike @ Jul 7th 2008 5:30AM]

Shouldn't we just go to HVD?

[F3nNec @ Jul 8th 2008 5:41PM]

yeah it haz got 3.9 TB =P imagine it!!1

[james @ Jul 7th 2008 5:46AM]

with these, you could have 7240p 120 fps 64 bit color video, and uncompressed 192 khz 32 bit float 22.2 audio!

imagine the cost though, i'm guessing upwards of $2 per GB.
if you had a burn error you you would have a frisbee or a useless 400 gb coaster. then you could say to your friends with crappy eMachines "my anti condensation device has twice the GBs of your entire computer!"

[abitskitzo @ Jul 7th 2008 6:34AM]

1 layer, dual layer.... 16 layers, who gives a toss, it's still a crappy, outdated and very eco unfriendly storage medium that relies on unreliable mechanical devices to work. I haven't bought or burned a CD/DVD in about 3 years and will never go back to them. yawn.

[Salacious @ Jul 7th 2008 6:43AM]

Since the spec is already written in stone then Blu-Ray players can't take advantage of a higher bitrate. All you can get is a much longer playing time, at the highest bitrate you can get at least 14 hours (the extended Lord of the Rings trilogy on one disc). It would be cheaper and easier to just use multiple discs although I can see a possible needs for triple or even quad layer, 16 layers is just to proove a technology. Also burning a 400GB disc at x4 will take 12 hours!!!

A higher bitrate would need a new BluRay spec e.g Blu-Ray 2 and this could be used with new codecs, lossless video, higher resolutions, 3D and anything else they can think of.

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Jul 7th 2008 6:32PM]

Increasing layers doesn't increase bitrate anyway. Only increasing linear data density on the layers or increasing spin rate would increase bitrate.

[cheeseman @ Jul 7th 2008 6:53AM]

You couldn't use this to play 4k or uncompressed video. The read speed wouldn't be any faster than current bluray drives as the pits on the disc are still the same size and the same distance apart.

All it's good for is fitting entire tv show seasons on 1 disc. This won't happen as it's too expensive and consumers love the feeling of having a big thick box set.

[zargon @ Jul 7th 2008 7:17AM]

So are we going to see profile 3.7 now because of this?

[Jake @ Jul 7th 2008 7:22AM]

Do you have any friends, being so pathetic and all that?

[zargon @ Jul 7th 2008 7:27AM]

Ain't the internet grand, even morons like Jake can have an opinion...

[zargon @ Jul 7th 2008 7:44AM]

Actually, the less than desirables like Jake is exactly the reason why I created egnored, the Firefox extension to ignore people like Jake.

http://www.electroburn.org/egnored/