Anyone heard about these holographic-memory discs? They claim to hold 60 times more data than a DVD. I read something about people seriously working on it about 8 years ago, and looks like it's about a year away now.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8370

(If you spin the disk backward, it'll change the weather - for the tinfoil hat crowd.)

 

wow that is pretty crazy. over my head. i wonder how much it would cost!?

 

Just when you get the DVD player and think it's great, they find some other way to take your money... And just as well, they'll start phasing out DVDs so we HAVE to upgrade...eh...

 

If they've spread the tech in a world wide article like that - it likely means they are right on top of it and have the patent rights well in hand. It also means they expect to open it up as main-stream technology!

Holy DATA Density, Batman!!!

PS: No, if you spin it backwards you get a complete MTV video documentary of the Beatles "White Album"...

 

But how practical would it be for something like home movies (read: to replace the DVD player)?
I mean, do we really need 60 times the data on a disk to watch Spaceballs?
They are already just cramming the extra space with filler garbage,err, special features, to make you feel justified in spending the extra $$ on the DVD.. Do we really care about everything right down to the bowel habits of the director?
Granted, we already have DVD-HD and such, but even that isn't finding much of a market yet...

 

I think the most important question here is Do we really need to watch spaceballs at all. What a terrible movie.

Higher data density won't change the movies we have now, but trust me, they'll find a way to fill that space. Just like hard drives, bigger is always better, and it's definetly coming.

 

I guess from the standpoint of just watching a single movie, it doesn't make a lot of sense. In the movie market, I think bundled programming, (like every eposode of Star Trek, plus all the ST movies on one disk - for you Spaceballs fans), or super definition for HDTV would be cool.

For the IT guys, backing up systems would be a great benefit. Like when FTE crashes, Ken could just grab a single disk and go.

Security applications could really be helped out by this. Security camera data is now stored either on VHS, (old systems), or hard drive transfered to DVD. There's a lot of labor involved swapping and saving files, because video takes up space. A way to save full definition video, for say, a month on a disk for 16 cameras - people would pay for that.

I think the money would be there.

My personal favorite idea would be to have something like Delormes 3D Topo map software on a single disk, yet have the format be based on high definition gaming software. Put a single disk in the laptop and be able to see a visual of every road in the country - or even the world. Instead of looking at a map, actually look at the landmarks, (turn at that building), and see the road condition, (wow, that's a curvey shortcut, but the river's nice). I would be able to go offroad and fly over an mountain to check out a trail. With satilites, it's not that big a deal getting the data, but having a storage medium large enough.... (I guess you could just stay home and take the trip on your recliner, but that's no fun.)