50gigs storage space right away or delayed?

[James Morrow]

Hi Douglas,

TDK are using a copper alloy/silicon composite to form the data "marks" on its BDR25s, BDR50s and planned BDR100s, by melting and mixing a silicon layer and a copper alloy one. The press releases indicate that the enhanced precision and stability of the (inorganic) recording layers had already allowed 6x recording in the labs. by spring 2005, with very low jitter (typically around 4%). This of course puts less strain on the servo-mechanisms and can potentially lead to better sound and picture quality. With the inorganic recording layer also not being light sensitive, they further make comments such as ideal for archival purposes, outstanding archivability, exceptionally suitable for long term archival, but do not currently provide any projected lifetime figures and comparisons (detailed or otherwise) - see:

http://www.tdk.com/tecpress/20060103_bdship_ces.html and
http://www.blu-raydisc.com/assets/do...0606-13019.pdf

I have asked for such information several times since early 2005 - but obviously this is a new technology which has until recently been in development. However, now that the first generation inorganic recording technology based discs are about to be shipped I would expect that some basic longevity figures will soon be released - followed by more detailed results, as the promise of this technology is clearly likely to be of considerable interest to archivists. Certainly a light-safe recording process has the potential to form a major advance in archival of data - and to significantly change the way in which data is archived and managed.