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TDK's abuse-resistant 200GB Blu-ray disc

by Tarinder Sandhu on 10 January 2007, 22:21

Tags: TDK

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Hopping on along to the TDK booth - a member of the Blu-ray Disc supporters club - we saw the company highlighting incredible leaps made in BD capacities.

In the image below, the top-left disc is a single-sided 200GB prototype. That's right, we're talking of a potential to store over 40 DVDs' worth of data on a single disc.

TDK has managed to reach this outlandish mark by increasing the layer count to six and the capacity per layer to 33.3GB from the usual 25GB associated with Blu-ray Disc media.


TDK Blu-ray Disc media


It's unclear whether current Blu-ray Disc drives will be able to support 200GB media but the prototype needs to be passed by the Blu-ray Disc standards body before certification is approved. Whatever the case, at CES 2007, the supporters of Blu-ray Disc look to have lots more to shout about than their HD DVD counterparts.

You may be aware of the fact that Blu-ray Disc media has a much smaller coating layer than the 0.6mm coating on standard DVDs and HD DVD media. The BD discs shielding is just 0.1mm thick, so media makers have needed to come up with methods to safeguard data. TDK's solution is its Durabis 2 hard-coating technology.

The proof of the pudding is in the scratching - or something like that


The image above highlight the effectiveness of the hard-coating technology against the usual scratches and wear. Discs were abused with fine wire wool and a permanent marker. The disc on the left is a standard DVD, the one on the right has a Durabis 2 coating.

There's no noticeable damage to the TDK BD disc but this rough treatement left the DVD disc unplayable. Okay, that's not the most scientific of tests but it does indicate that TDK's protective coating seems to work.

TDK four-layer Blu-ray Disc


Want to know how multi-layer BD is constructed? The picture above shows the process involved in engineering TDK's four-layer 100GB prototype. There's more to it than meets the eye.

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HEXUS Forums :: 17 Comments

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this is the second time they have spoken about this. I've linked to articles about this in previous BluRay threads too.

200GB is the reason i still like BluRay as a *data* format :)

Still no word on expected release though i see.
Like Funkstar said I can see Blu-ray becoming the replacement for DVD-r unless HD-DVD makes some huge leap, and of course if Blu-Ray becomes prevelant in the PC market this will more than likely push over into movies and games with no companies wanting to support both unless they really have to.
if dual format players become prevelant, then the whole argument is moot.

BluRay for data and home recording, HD-DVD for commercial video. The reason for HD-DVD still having a pull for the studios and distributers is it is far cheaper and easier to manufacture. They can use the same production plants as DVD films. It's not like the demand for DVDs is going to wane in the near future, so instead of two production plants, one for DVD the other for BluRay, a production house can have two plants that can share produciton and switch between formats as demand requires.
Dual format players are just starting to appear, I wonder how long before the PC drives become available. The only drives available at the moment are ridiculously expensive and can't play BluRay Movies :(
I know, DVD drives weren't this expensive when they first appeared were they?

Although, they didn't have a blue laser diode shortage to contend with as they were built on the same foundations as CD-ROM.