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Date Posted: 21:49:14 04/27/09 Mon
Author: Rick
Subject: Blu-Ray update for Ray

Digital Bits editor Bill Hunt

I just wanted to chime in here with a quick late update. A number of Bits readers have e-mailed us links to a New York Times story on a new holographic digital storage breakthrough that allows 500 gigabytes of data to be included on a single disc. That's 10 times what a BD-50 Blu-ray can hold and 100 times the storage of a single-layer DVD disc. Naturally, it's prompted the usual claims online (from the usual people, who are - as usual - inevitably proven wrong) that this is a Blu-ray killer.

Holographic storage is very cool and it's probably the future of physical media. Here's the thing you need to know: This is NOT going to mean the death of DVD or Blu-ray Disc. Not ever. Bottom line: Hollywood and the consumer electronics industries are not going to cannibalize their existing disc-based formats for yet another one. Can you really see Paramount selling every Star Trek film and TV episode on a SINGLE disc for, what, $875? Or for $29.99 for that matter?! Right. The simple fact of the matter is, you just don't NEED 500GB of storage to offer top-of-the-line high-definition video and high-resolution audio quality for viewing movies in the home, as Blu-ray has proven. This kind of breakthrough is far more relevant to the computer/IT world, and those industries that have a serious need to archive and quickly retrieve MASSIVE amounts of data - like medical information, important documents and Library of Congress kind of stuff. The reality is, DVD and Blu-ray are probably going to be around at least another 10 to 15 years, after which time broadband downloading of media content will probably take over. So while this news is very cool from a techie standpoint, I wouldn't start selling your movie discs anytime soon, no matter what Richard Doherty says.

You want a more realistic take on the future of Blu-ray? Here you go. Also, ironically, from the New York Times.

You know, people often ask how we ended up picking both the DVD/Divx and Blu-ray/HD-DVD format wars correctly here at The Bits, very early on in each of those dust-ups. The answer is, it really wasn't all that hard. All it required was talking to everyone, listening to the right people (by which I mean to say KNOWING who was a good, reliable and unbiased source of information and who wasn't), and applying a little good old fashioned common sense. On any complex subject, you simply identify the REAL experts, sort their opinions and commentary out from those with other agendas, and when in doubt you trust your own experience and common sense. That approach doesn't just serve you well in evaluating format wars, it works in real life too. I'm just saying. ;)

Stay tuned...

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Replies:

[> Re: Blu-Ray update for Ray -- Ray, 16:44:28 04/29/09 Wed [1]

Thanks for the update,Rick! It's not too hard to believe how fast advancing today's modern technology is.

As of today,only about 22% of American homes have HDTV,so i do agree it would be rather difficult for all the great gadgets to advance further than what people have in their home and what their willing to or are able to afford.

I still buy by cd's.

From beta to VHS to DVD to HD dvd to Blu-ray,there is no end to how many formats we'll be able to put Bonanza on!

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