300 gigabyte discs by 2015

[Clipper]

Sony, Panasonic promise 300-gigabyte discs by 2015
Devin Coldewey NBC News

July 29, 2013 at 3:32 PM ET

Devin Coldewey / NBC News

A standard capacity DVD, like the one pictured, has a capacity of about 4.7 GB; a Blu-ray can have around 50GB; and the proposed format could have up to 300GB.

First there was the CD, which held 700 megabytes. Then the DVD, which held 5 gigabytes. Then the Blu-ray disc, with 50 gigs. What's next? Sony and Panasonic hope it will be a 300-gigabyte disc they're jointly researching that could hit in 2015. But might we have abandoned discs altogether by then?

Sony wrote up the joint-development agreement in a press release, citing the many strengths of optical media as justification for the project:

Optical discs have excellent properties to protect them against the environment, such as dust-resistance and water-resistance, and can also withstand changes in temperature and humidity when stored.

However, both Sony and Panasonic recognized that optical discs will need to accommodate much larger volumes of storage in years to come given the expected future growth in the archive market, and responded by formulating this agreement.

For years, the companies that make discs like these have worked to make the lasers, materials, and other components more precise, and have added more recordable layers, improving capacity. Just this last November, TDK announced a 1-terabyte disc based on refined versions of today's technologies.

But reading between the lines and taking current trends into account, the companies' enthusiasm seems a little forced. After all, the most popular new devices in the world, tablets and smartphones, both rely exclusively on flash memory rather than spacious but cumbersome hard drives, let alone optical discs. And that's only when they're not streaming that data or downloading it from cloud storage.

Even full-on computers, desktop and laptop, are far less likely to have a disc drive than they used to. Apple took the lead in 2008 with the drive-less MacBook Air, and since then support for discs has become increasingly rare.

That's why the proposed format is being framed as more of a professional tool: a high-capacity medium for the companies' pro-level video cameras and backup archives. After all, Sony and Panasonic gear is deeply embedded in TV and film, and a big bump in capacity like this will be attractive to the many creatives who rely on those devices to store hours of HD video for shows and films.

Will there be a new format war in 2015 as these mega-discs come to market? Or will we have moved on to flash and cloud storage? Chances are a bit of both — and by making sure that both will actually exist then, Sony and Panasonic are covering their bases.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc.

My question to our tech savvy folks is this: Will those of us with older machines with CD drives still be able to use them, and if not, is it possible to take the data that is on our operating system discs and other software package discs and transfer it to flash drives?

[clarencebunsen]

A couple years ago I visited my son-in-law at his work place and he proudly showed off his new video camera which he uses for recording commercials, man-on-the-street interviews and such. For storage it used flash cards similar in concept to the SD cards in my camera but much larger (both physical size and storage capacity). The whole package was about half the size and 1/3 the weight of the older tape based camera sitting next to it and recorded at much higher resolution.

I mused on how the language had changed as we had gone from filming to taping and now we needed a new term. I advised him that it was probably not a good idea to tell his boss that he was "going to the beach to flash a few tourists."

[clarencebunsen]

I don't think there is an ideal format for really long term storage of data. Plus as the ease of storage has increased the amount of inconsequential stuff we store has increased at an even faster rate.

I had the clash of storage formats forced upon me in May when we elected new officers in our lodge. As secretary I had to file a certificate of election with the state Grand Lodge. I do my meeting minutes on a notebook computer during the meeting although I'm still required to print and file a hard copy. For the certificate I had to fill out a long double sided form by hand with the name, addressn phone number and Grand Lodge numberof each officer. In order to do this I had to keep the Grand Lodge database open for easy access to each person's mailing address and Grand Lodge number. To the bottom of the form I affixed the lodge seal and my signature.

Then it was off by registered mail to New York where a clerical person had to read my hand writing and enter appropriate data into a data base. Probably just entered a Grand Lodge number which then brought up the rest.

[Clipper]

I saw our local Channel 5 news crew shooting video of a car cruise-in as I drove by on my way home from a meeting one night this summer. They still have a camera that they hold on their shoulder to use, but it does seem much smaller than the older ones I am used to seeing in the past.

The cameras I remember seeing WKTV remote crews using before we left up there were huge and bulky looking. Of course we left there in 2002, and they may have still been using tape back then. Of course WKTV was never the first to adopt new technology. I think that Lyle Bosley and Jerry Fiore used to stand on the roof on Smith Hill to access the weather conditions and then go on the air with their report, LOL. They didn't have the radars and other tools that they do now.

[dave]

Aug 10, 2013 7:17:16 GMT -5 clarencebunsen said:

I don't think there is an ideal format for really long term storage of data. Plus as the ease of storage has increased the amount of inconsequential stuff we store has increased at an even faster rate.

I had the clash of storage formats forced upon me in May when we elected new officers in our lodge. As secretary I had to file a certificate of election with the state Grand Lodge. I do my meeting minutes on a notebook computer during the meeting although I'm still required to print and file a hard copy. For the certificate I had to fill out a long double sided form by hand with the name, addressn phone number and Grand Lodge numberof each officer. In order to do this I had to keep the Grand Lodge database open for easy access to each person's mailing address and Grand Lodge number. To the bottom of the form I affixed the lodge seal and my signature.

Then it was off by registered mail to New York where a clerical person had to read my hand writing and enter appropriate data into a data base. Probably just entered a Grand Lodge number which then brought up the rest.

Download a free copy of Foxit PDF Writer. Scan any document, convert it from jpg to pdf, and bring it up on your PC using Foxit. CLick Comments/Typewriter and you can type in anywhere on the form, different fonts, sizes, etc. You can copy repeating texts into it also. I use it for some volunteer work I do here. Neat.

[dave]

Except for the NSA debacle, cloud computing seemed to stand a chance as a storage "medium."
However, even before Snowden's revelations, I had a bad experience with either DropBox or Google File, I don't remember which. With my story files up to date, I would log on with my laptop that had been sitting unused for a week with older versions of some stories. It connected to DropBox (I think it was DropBox, come to remember). DropBox took the old versions and changed my new versions back to the old! It didn't even check the file dates, for cripe's sake! Luckily, I had back up on an external hard drive.

[clarencebunsen]

"Download a free copy of Foxit PDF Writer. Scan any document, convert it from jpg to pdf, and bring it up on your PC using Foxit. CLick Comments/Typewriter and you can type in anywhere on the form, different fonts, sizes, etc. You can copy repeating texts into it also. I use it for some volunteer work I do here. Neat. "

I wanted to do something like that but the form was too long for my scanner and I didn't think the printer would handle it either. Next year (assuming they don't fire me) with less time pressure I may be able to make that work.

[chris]

300 GB ...do you think that will eliminate me having to use 39 disc to back up my Corel Photo Album (over 7000 photos) ...Yes I went out an bought a stack of DVD-R's to back up thinking it would be plenty (10/pk) when I got the message that it would take 39 disc's. (and no I have never backed up Corel but I do back up once a month on an external drive all my files in my PC.

[clarencebunsen]

Sept 4, 2013 17:50:16 GMT -5 chris said:

300 GB ...do you think that will eliminate me having to use 39 disc to back up my Corel Photo Album (over 7000 photos) ...Yes I went out an bought a stack of DVD-R's to back up thinking it would be plenty (10/pk) when I got the message that it would take 39 disc's. (and no I have never backed up Corel but I do back up once a month on an external drive all my files in my PC.

One problem is that the recordable discs are a different technology than the prerecorded discs you buy. Recordable and rewritable discs use a laser to change the color of a small spot of organic dye to mark a bit. That is not generally considered suitable for long term storage since the dye can degrade with age. Predicted life is around 30 years. That's probably enough to outlast me but not really enough to pass photos on to future great-grandchildren.

www.osta.org/technology/dvdqa/dvdqa11.htm

[Clipper]

Sadly, anything we see today may become as obsolete and unavailable as 8 track tape players in the future. Our best bet may be good quality prints, such as what I have preserved in albums that my grandfather passed to my dad, and my dad left to me. Some of the photos of my great grandparents have lasted over 100 years so far and are still in good shape.

50 yrs from now our grandchildren's children may ask "what the heck is a DVD or CD" and a thumb drive may have long since been replaced by something new, leaving them with no device with which to read or view the data.