Sanyo's laser could bring 12x Blu-ray burners and 100GB discs

While Sony and others compete with Blu-ray burners of a paltry 8x, Sanyo's looking ahead with a new laser that could enable write speeds of up to 12x. More impressively, the 450 milliwatt diode (twice that of current burners) could read and write through four 25GB layers. If you're not so good at math (it's okay, we had to break out the calculator) that means discs of up to 100GB burned in 10 minutes or less! But don't go running down to your local Blu-ray emporium looking for double-digit speed drives just yet; new standards will be needed for discs that big and drives that fast, which could mean a year or two before production begins. If speculation of Blu-ray's impending demise is to be believed, that may be cutting things a bit close.

[Tim @ Oct 6th 2008 10:26AM]

I dont know about you but I dont see the demise of blue-ray anytime soon.
Yes it has got to a bit of a shaky start, but I think its on the verge of meeting mass acceptance in the market.

PS3, Computers, Video Cameras, and the fall in price of dedicated players are all leading to this technology.
If not for storage alone Im starting to think that blue-ray maybe an excellent backup method - especially given how many notebook hard-drives I have falling over with my business trip.

Granted that I do live in Japan, the birthplace of this technology, but I dont see the lights dimming on this technology like the engadget would have us believe.

[Rob @ Oct 6th 2008 10:38AM]

I hope you're right. But, with all the problems people are having with Blu-ray, from manufacturing to playback issues, I have to say that I'm not betting all my money on Blu. I don't hold Sony stock, but the BDA is doing a lousy job by forcing their BD-Live marketing garbage on people, resulting in playback issues. BD has one strike against it, and that is its higher price than DVD. Then, due to DRM schemes coming out all the time, playback is compromised for a lot of people. The average consumer doesn't have the time, nor patience, to be tweaking their players or tv just because they're having problems playing a new movie. That's the fastest way to becoming obsolete.

[Intrepid @ Oct 6th 2008 10:41AM]

Please... Flash memory is getting bigger, faster and cheaper every day. Once internet speeds increase a little more, we'll be downloading our movies and transferring most of our larger files that way - and then storing them on our $25 200GB MicroSD cards.

A lot can happen in five years.

[rock99rock @ Oct 6th 2008 10:51AM]

I dont *think it will die soon either. Unless sony kills it by making these disks more expensive than their hard drive counterparts.

[Salsa Shark @ Oct 6th 2008 1:07PM]

Fry's has been selling new BD releases like IRON MAN for $13.99.

Once there's a critical mass of BD player installs, the other retailers will have to follow suit.

[ScooterDe @ Oct 6th 2008 5:32PM]

If the burners are $50 and the disks $3 a pop, it may compete nicely with HDD.
In the end, I think optical storage is doomed. Too much movement, noise, and fragility. Solid state will surely win this race in the next few years. Until then, HDD rules.

[loosely_coupled @ Oct 6th 2008 7:14PM]

do you guys have any idea how great a laser pointer a 450mw blue-ray laser diode would make??! holy god!

[E71 @ Oct 6th 2008 9:27PM]

Wasn't Sanyo on the HDDVD camp? Burn in hell Sanyo!!

[phinn @ Oct 6th 2008 11:33PM]

Na Blu-ray is awesome tech and is currently the best (by quite a bit) in picture and sound quality you can get. Some of the better Blu-rays I've seen (on my PS3 of course) blow away anything I've seen in 1080i on regular HDTV. The crispness and color fidelity is much higher, as is the audio on a good system.

Anyway, maybe this new 12x /100gb tech will make it into PS4.

[Rob @ Oct 6th 2008 10:31AM]

All these "we have the fastest Blu-ray burners" nonsense sounds like the same bs Washington has fed people with the $700 billion bailout scam, "we can even make a profit out of this."

I'm all for faster burners, but what about bringing the prices down to realistic levels? Who cares if you have the fastest when the prices are out of reach. Same goes with Blu-ray players. Like I've always said, "having a gaming console as the best player of a video format is ridiculous." Don't get me wrong, I like my PS3. But, if I wanted to get a second Blu-ray player, another PS3 is completely out of the question.

[Zorque @ Oct 6th 2008 11:03AM]

Ah, nothing like timely but otherwise completely irrelevant comparisons. What do those two have to do with each other again?

[mcatrage @ Oct 6th 2008 11:06AM]

Wow that was a terrible analogy. You are trying way to hard to tell us you were against the bail out.

[Dave Chappelle @ Oct 7th 2008 1:14AM]

ill add to ur irrelevant crap. but mine will be REALLY LOW RANKED..
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100gb?? HOLY SHIT! thats like 6 IPHONE'S!!!!!!
actually now that it think about it. go ahead low rank me the Engadget mods will just rig the damn thing to make this comment like high ranked and GOLD in colour.
kthxbye (oh ye i said it, take me seriously) (and i actually despise the Iphone)
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I am sick of the blu ray demise speculation it is bs. people think M$ is going to bring digital downloads? seriously apart from windows is there anything that M$ has made that succeeds?. i would love to pay $120 a month to download two 1080P movies on ADSL2+ a month ion a 80gb quota which would still take longer then me going to my local video store renting it and coming back + an additional id say $10 to download the movie itself RIPOFF and fail.

if anyone lives in Australia here imagine the price Telstra or Optus would charge for a ADSL2+ with 100gb Quota? id say well over $150... and thats where like 80% of the people are. another reason why this is not going to happen.

Actually i just thought up another reason do you think Warner, Paramaount, Sony etc would want to put their movie on your computer all nice and pretty so you can go right ahead and pirate the damn thing?... NO WAY.

[)law( @ Oct 6th 2008 10:41AM]

Does anyone else imagine porno flicks in special blu ray editions with extra features and in depth commentary with a standerd def version just put on there to fill space....

[Jonathan @ Oct 6th 2008 10:51AM]

Porno commentary?

[3dpenguin @ Oct 6th 2008 10:55AM]

You shouldn't be allowed to use the terms "porno", "in depth", and "fill the space" in the same sentence.

[jitty @ Oct 6th 2008 10:45AM]

Hmmm... I heard 12x was the theoretical limit. That was fast, in 3 years we go from the standard speed of 2x, to the theoretical maximum speed. Wonder if they push to faster than 12x? The drive would be spinning around at the speed of light =\

Also, if sony or MS decides to use a blu-ray drive for their next console, they should definitely use a 12x drive.

[The Aggie CEO @ Oct 6th 2008 10:47AM]

even if BD DOESNT make it, as a Storage format its still a pretty good choice.......especially if it gets to what Sanyo is trying to do in the next year or so.......

until then I'll be good with my 4x BD Drive......

[turn_self_off @ Oct 6th 2008 3:05PM]

indeed, i found blu-ray to be more interesting as a media, simply because it had greater capacity then hd-dvd. however, as a video sales/rental media, its doa, as our usage habits of the net becomes more and more entertainment saturated.

[Ogo @ Oct 6th 2008 10:47AM]

Déjà vu.... this is going to be like Dual Layer DVD. The multi-layer discs will be very expensive while the single layer discs will be cheap. When they price of the multi-layer finally comes down there will be something better being pushed.

Do I sound bitter?

[Andrew T. @ Oct 6th 2008 10:56AM]

I don't mind viewing HD content, but personally I just think that many people don't care for HD programs. I know people who's mentality is "yes, there is a difference, but who cares? watching TV, movies or whatever is the same but one is much more clearer - doesn't really matter to me" and all the equipment that needs to be purchased (whether it be just a HD-capable TV and player if you're talking about HD discs).

I think this would be the same thing if HD-DVD won the "war". It still wouldn't be accepted yet since people are still into DVD's.

Simply put, the main difference people are looking at is the picture quality and most people don't care for it, it doesn't bother them to watch SD content.

Even if prices do drop, I know you and I would probably rush out to get whatever we can for cheap, but for the majority they still wouldn't go out and buy BD.

[3dpenguin @ Oct 6th 2008 11:31AM]

You're right about mass adoption not likely even at a lower price (HD DVD or Blu-ray), people still love their DVDs, but there is one thing you forgot about. Since HD DVD bowed out Toshiba hasn't been focusing on Optical Disc technology anymore, their only real position in DVD Forum is the fact that they chair the forum, they have nothing to do with development anymore. So, what they have done is started focusing on different mediums of storage, they stated they would back when they killed HD DVD. They have been focusing their efforts on Flash and SSD devices, along with cell processor technology. They have as recently as two weeks ago stated that Optical Formats aren't going to be around in the near future because the formats have outlived their usefulness, this coming from the company that has profited the most from optical formats being used in home entertainment. In a way they are right, if you consider that CDs cost around 0.50/GB of storage, and yes I know you can't normally store 1gig on a CD, and DVD which is around $0.01.5/GB, but D/L DVDs cost $0.20/GB and Blu-ray costs $0.40/GB the price of optical is going up, which is a bad trend, the greater capacities are costing more, which is the opposite of what you see happening with Flash type memory and conventional hard drives, which is you do pay more for the larger storage devices but price per unit, GB in this case, is less. Its the old buying in bulk scenario, you pay less for buying more.

[Bill @ Oct 6th 2008 11:08AM]

Until they approach the $40 price of DVD burners I don't see much acceptance of BR as a storage format, at least in the consumer market.

[Eric @ Oct 6th 2008 11:15AM]

I was at a Fry's electronics yesterday and saw 6X LG Burners for $249 and $279, and Blu-ray dics for between $9.99 and $25 depending on manufacturer.

I think there's a long future ahead for Blu-ray.

But they are going to have to knock off the BDA marketing crap. I put a disc into my Sony player a week ago and it couldn't get to the menu at all. (Dan In Real Life) My PS3 not only played it, but getting from boot up to menu was lightning fast. (Latest firmware updates on both players.)

[TIMMAH! @ Oct 6th 2008 11:33AM]

Yay! Now I can lose 100GB of data on a disc-gone-bad!

[Nathan @ Oct 6th 2008 11:46AM]

I have 70 gigs of HD video sitting on my hard drive right now. It would be nice to throw it on a disc but then I realize how cheap a 500GB drive is and it's only going to get cheaper. By the time blu-ray is a viable solution, discs are way too expensive, hard drives, flash, and solid state drives will be available for far cheaper and with way more storage.

For the current cost of a blu-ray burner alone you could get two 1TB drives.

[xfr @ Oct 6th 2008 4:00PM]

I feel sorry for you

[Tristan King @ Oct 6th 2008 12:20PM]

I remember when DVD burners were initially released, many sold for over $1000. The initial Blue ray drives that we have seen so far have not only cost less, but have decreased in price quicker than their cdr and dvdr counterparts.

Personally I think people are going to be more willing to buy a disc for a little more than a dvd than they are clogging up their internet with a 20gig file to get the HD content, only to have it lost on a faulty hard drive.

Over the past 6 months I have seen stand alone blue ray player decrease by around $200 and following that trend we should have $100 players in the next year.

Now all we have to do is to disown those disgusting 1366x768 sets which have no native media, make the only standard Full 1080p HD, and make digital television remotely decent (stop them being so scabby on the bandwidth) so people know what they are missing out on.

Poor poor sheeples.

[Cybergypsy @ Oct 6th 2008 1:22PM]

remember beta .....BR will not become that big just like lazer discs?

[brian @ Oct 6th 2008 1:39PM]

cant wait for a 450 milliwatt blu-ray laser pointer

[Nytemare @ Oct 6th 2008 3:26PM]

That would be epic.

[Technex @ Oct 6th 2008 4:28PM]

You are the people that ruin the world.

[Caleb @ Oct 6th 2008 5:09PM]

I'm holding out for a 1.1 Gigawatt laser pointer! Only drawback is having to wear lead based SPF 2k sunscreen to use it.

[cory yalowicki @ Oct 7th 2008 4:34AM]

what could you do with a 450 mw laser pointer??

[ssrat_ @ Oct 6th 2008 2:23PM]

Beta may have sucked consumer wise but it is still a going standard in the professional TV world. Give it another 5y and you will be hard pressed to see any tapes being used professionally even for local commercials.

While I don't work in it anymore, the HUGE amount of space that will be freed up, and the easier programming for infomercials will be a great boon to those in Master Controls

...100G, THAT is a great size for a DVD, the only problem is of course when and how much. Data wise it has to get here soon and some sort of subsidy will be needed to compete with the 1.5/2T (or more depending on release)

If they dropped the Blu R/RW by $50 then it would be hard NOT to buy it, since you would have a decent player for the PC, the latest DVD burner, and HOPEFULLY a 10m 100G burner ($8-&10per disc?)

[sithlord 24 @ Oct 6th 2008 3:39PM]

who cares about any of this.... none of this matters until the blu-ray prices goes down,,, 150.00 for players and steady 19.99 for the dvd's. the majority of the public can give a rats ass about 12x 30x or 60x

[xfr @ Oct 6th 2008 3:58PM]

LOL,why don't you wait until it's free