We have written several stories on the gladiator-like battle betwen Blu-ray and HD-DVD. But an announcement by Hitachi's Maxell and their partner Inphase may well open another chapter...
“The technology allows for the development of a wide variety of holographic storage products,” Liz Murphy, vice president of marketing for InPhase Technologies, “that range from handheld devices for consumers to storage products for the enterprise. Imagine 2GB of data on a postage stamp, 20GB on a credit card, or 200GB on a disk…” Now what all this about?
Inphase Technology is a Colorado based firm founded in December 2000 as a Lucent Technologies venture, spun out of Bell Labs research. Through research developed by a team of Bell Labs scientists, InPhase has more than ten years of groundbreaking research in holographic storage which culminated in the InPhase Tapestry media and drive. Don't forget this name... Tapestry.
Maxell has teamed up with Inphase to develop a new holographic disc fromat that can store up to... 1.6 Terabytes, i.e. more than 200 times as much as today's classic DVDs.
The first generation will be capable of 300GB, and you cam immediately compare with Blu-ray and HD-DVD, which can store 25GB and 15GB respectively.
The secret lies in this that Tapestry uses intersecting signal and reference laser beams and store data in 3D holograms. In other wods, HD-DVD and Blu-ray work on the surface, Tapestry explores the depth of the medium.
“Unlike other technologies that record one data bit at a time,” says Liz Murphy, “holography allows a million bits of data to be written and read in parallel with a single flash of light.”
Translation for us mortal, this can store more than 26 hours of High-def video on a single 300GB disk. The recording speed is 160 megabit. Now InPhase’s holographic technology can be used beyond Maxell’s discs, as Liz indicated above.
So... Some big players might well have to review their copies soon. Fisrt demos in 2006, thorugh an association with Turner.
Maybe we should all wait a little more...
Any comment? email didier@cinenow.com