Japanese tech giants Sony and
Panasonic have announced a new
collaboration with the aim of creating
the next standard of optical discs by
the end of 2015. The new discs will
have a storage capacity of 300GB –
equivalent to 60 standard DVDs or six
Blu-ray discs.
However, Sony has said that the new
medium will be aimed at the
professional market, catering to
companies and organizations “with the
objective of expanding their archive
business for long-term digital data
storage”.
“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,” say Sony.
“They also allow inter-generational
compatibility between different
formats, ensuring that data can
continue to be read even as formats
evolve. This makes them a robust
medium for long-term storage of
content.”
This shift in focus towards archival
purposes is no surprise. The
proliferation of cloud storage, SSD
memory and high-speed internet
connections mean that the demand for
high capacity physical storage is
waning and the last update to the
medium, Blu-ray, never really caught
on as analysts predicted.
Despite this though, plenty of people
still enjoy using discs to watch films
and the like on simply for the ease of
use. The new discs could also host
movies in 4K definition (four times the
resolution of current 1080p HD); these
would be likely to take up more than
100GB of space, and streaming such
content would be impossible without a
top-tier internet connection.
Similarly, if 4K camcorders such as the
GoPro HD HERO3 become more
widespread then storing and editing
the resultant footage would be more
convenient using discs.
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