What about HVD?

[Blu-rayrules]

HVD info

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/hvd.htm/printable

If HVDs can store up to 1 terabyte that will blow blu-ray and hd-dvd out of the park. It almost seems superior in every way.

[JTK]

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=1609

We've discussed this in depth at least one time before. Check it out.

My Cliff's Notes answer to this is:

1.) Looks nice on paper.

2.) Will be very expensive when/if it finally ever comes out.

3.) I'll believe it when I see it.

4.) Will not be a factor for the forseeable future, at the very least.

5.) I am intruiged by this, nonetheless.

[hmurchison]

The problem is HVD isn't going to be cheap. An then there's the assumption if given the ability to use a bunch of space that somehow is beneficial over having a physical medium that is tailored to fit the data.

My point being.

If a 50GB DL BD-ROM discs can hold a movie at damn near D5 Master quality. What am I gaining by expanding that data onto a HVD disc? I'm already getting %90 transperancy at much lower datarate and cost.

With HVD you still need to build up the control layer and framework for dealing with media. Just as the internet is the worlds largest physical networkig structure that doesn't mean that it's comparable to todays media for viewing experience. You don't have multiple language tracks or subtitles or other interactive features with internet movie downloads(yet) that infrastructure has yet to be created.

Thus HVD is just a bigger bit bucket but it doesn't address how to captilize on everything else in the chain. Good day.

[Shadowself]

when there is a large percentage of 4K TVs in consumer's hands. (That's the Cinema 4K standard, bye-the-bye.)

Until then I don't expect the consumer to need more than is already in the Blu-ray Disk roadmap (50, 100 and 200 GB disks). I don't expect 4K sets to be prevalent for *at least* 10 years and maybe not for 20 years or more. Besides IMHO, someone with a 40" set is not going to be able to see the difference between 1080p and 4K.

For the commercial/industrial user that's a different story. There may be a reason to want to move around pieces of a 4K movie in an uncompressed or lossless compressed fashion; corporations needing long term, massive archives because of SOX; and other such reasons.

Also the drives need to come down in price by a factor of 10 or more. The last I heard was that the first drive (due before the end of the calendar year) will cost $15,000. That's a bit stiff even for corporate users. When drives come down to the $5,000 or less range then corporate users will really start picking them up.

Don't get me wrong. I hope HVD takes off. I hope they can follow their roadmap and get to 6.4 TB disks in the next few years. As some in this forum know I'm currently spec'ing a system which will archive over 21 TB per day. I would love that to be on 4 disks per day in a few years rather than a dozen tapes per day or a few dozen Blu-ray disks. But I'm not counting on it.

[suprmallet]

There's also Holodisc (unless HVD is another name for Holodisc), which can also hold up to a Terabyte right now. But at the moment proejcted prices for blank media is $100 per disc.

Isn't there a player already playing HVD? NeuNeu or something?

[Blue]

I thought that a TB was still theoretical and only 300GB had been proved, just like 200GB Blu Ray has been proved - but neither have left the confines of the Lab. Although a propriotry bit bucket is able to be gotten to market much faster there it remains as a bit bucket in a isolated environment for example the IOMEGA dives and disks.

Blu Ray theortically has been around for a long time in the lab - but it has taken many years to move it from the lab to a commercial product. Stanardisation is even yet to occur (HD-DVD vs Blu Ray).

For this to become a commercial standard especially for movies, the movie studios are going to want to get involved in the DRM (there goes at least a year), for it to become a standard a number of companies need to support it (this is HD-DVD's biggest risk) another long period of time, then there has to be a need either real or be able to be created by a PR company.

You may get the loosers of the current war to join forces, but I don't think the consumer will be in any hurry to change, as this move to HD is going to hard enough, as it really only applies to large screens. On a 20" TV the standard broadcast picture looks fine and Digital as good as DVD, and there will be marginal improvement with HD of any kind. If the sceen is 100" and larger there is a desperate need for HD and between 20" and 100" the need becomes more evident as the screen grows in size. I think 1080p will be more than enough for screens below 100" and that covers nearly all the population. As for cinema there are not enough of them to generate a special media and standard data transportation methods will more than meet their requirements.
It may even be the Holographic disk that misses out as what is comming next? Maybe Bill Gates will be correct, in his statement that Blue Laser discs will be the last, all storeage will become solid state - one day

[Psiweaver]

wouldn't surprise me if all discs become solid state.

[suprmallet]

Solid Snake??



Waah?

[aryntha]

You look around, you see a lot of "i'm-skipping-the-blue-formats-because-we'll-have-holographic-soon" threads...

I've seen this on the audiophile forums, the videophile forums, and the computer geek forums for the last few years whenever anyone brings up BD...

The arguments usually go:

1) Blu-ray will be too expensive. (oh really? BD-R 25's already cost less in some cases than when DVD+R DL blanks were introduced. Looking at HD-DVD movie titles vs BD .. the prices are.. both about $25. In some cases I've seen HD-DVDs go locally for $29 and $32. I've never seen a BD over $24.99 yet.)

2) Nobody will ever need 50gb on a disc. 15 is more than enough. (Note that 50GB DL BD-R's are available *now*, in the US, from Panasonic's site. Anyways, this item can be thrown out, I think, as nothing more than 'amusing' -- I remember when we thought that 650mb on a CD was virtually limitless storage.)

3) HD-DVD is gonna have 45gb discs! Blu-ray won't have 50GB discs until Septober 32nd 2909! (See above. The 3-layer 45gb is just theoretical, much like Pioneer's 200gb BD-R. HD-DVD's "pie-in-the-sky" numbers are less than what we can get from BD *now*.)

4) I'm just gonna hold out for holographic storage. It'll hold a million terabytes and it's just around the corner; as soon as I get my BD drive it'll be obsoleted by HVD!

...#4 ... fat chance.

I'm not sure if it's just that some posters like to have a "trump card" where they can show off that they know of this "amazing new technology", or what... but HVD has been "three to five years away" for the last three to five years or more.

"Holographic" storage is NOT coming any time soon.

First of all, at least with all _working_ systems until now, it needs a DPSS (green) laser, which CANNOT be made in a 'monolithic' fashion like red and blue lasers can at this point. (Read: Expensive. Yes, it seems they're doing some work with blue lasers as the actual write element... but as far as I know most of their back-technology was using green DPSS.)

DPSS green requires IR frequency doubling, which requires *expensive, fragile* optics to get to work at any sort of accuracy. (Yes, "cheap" green laser pointers do use DPSS frequency doubling... and they don't have to be accurate - the yield is still a hell of a lot more expensive than even these blue single-element lasers are going to be in a year or so.)

Even if they do switch to blue lasers for the collinear/objective beam, the optics are going to have to be a -lot- more advanced (read: still more expensive) than BD. I like how in that howstuffworks article they just kind of casually mention the SLM as if it's something you can just order from Newark or DigiKey. Chances are the SLM part will cost as much as, if not more than, each laser.

Second, if people thought the disc manufacturing costs of BD were going to be high, you ain't seen nothing yet with HVD. Yes, the servo information uses what's basically similar to CD-R groove structure, but the rest of the disc is a LOT more complex than any "2d dye-and-reflectivity" format we're using now.

Not to mention the processing circuitry and sensing optics are a hell of a lot more involved than the "is it a pit or a land?" processing we're -still- using for BD and HD-DVD. You're talking about a *simple single-element photodiode* in the case of CD, DVD and BD versus a *matrix CMOS sensor* (a grid sensor, multi-pixel, much like in a digital camera) in the case of HVD.

I'd *hate* to think of what would happen if you got a hot pixel on your HVD pickup's CMOS sensor... The yield on those things are going to have to be astronomically good. If anyone here has worked with CMOS image sensors or CCDs, they should well know that that's a pretty tough request while keeping the sensors 'on the cheap'. The cost differential between such a sensor and a photodiode is currently on orders of magnitude. (read: still even more more-expensive!)

So in summary: Yes, the technology 'works'. But it has yet to even begin to mature, and is nowhere near mainstream or 'production ready', and won't be for a LONG time. (the site even says "Consumer devices could hit the market around 2010. " ... The infamous 'three-to-five-years-away' clause.)

But they said commercial systems would be available by 2006! ... Yeah, right. Just hop on over to their site (www.optware.co.jp) or (www.optware.co.jp/english) ... Nevermind, you can't. Their page was unchanged from 2002 - May 2005, and since, It's been "under construction" for most of 2006. I can just feel a product launch coming *any day now*, can't you?

Optware has been just awesome at producing basement-grade mockups and making grand "ANY MINUTE NOW!" statements to the press to drum up VC for the last five to seven years.

Take this gem from the above link:

While MMIS is very skeptical that anything practical or of commercial importance will come from these developments anytime soon, much less samples of drives and media being offered for testing before the end of this year, it is important to keep an open mind regarding Optware’s claims. It would be unfair to both the company and to Mr. Horimai simply to write off their claims completely as just another publicity stunt!

That was in 2002.

“Once you generate momentum, good things can happen,” says IDC’s Mr. Schlichting. “Over time the market could have a lot of potential.” He says worldwide shipments of holographic drives could reach 50,000 by 2010. If the technology proves itself and can be incorporated into PC drives, numbers could hit 1 million by 2014.

Mainstream by 2014, eh? Gentlemen, stop your engines.

If anyone here thinks they're gonna "hold out" on the blue formats to wait for "holographic", or interferometry-based optical recording, they've got a LOT of waiting to do.

[JTK]

^^ Great post!

[Psiweaver]

yeah very good post. I don't think we'll need much disc storage in the future much of our storage will be virtual and all on various servers.