Although not ready for primetime quite yet, Hitachi claims it has developed a prototype four layer Blu-Ray disc capable of holding 100GB of data. While concept 100GB multi-layer discs from companies such as TDK and Panasonic have been announced before, they have always required a specially developed optical head in the player to read the disc. Hitachi, however, claims that current Blu-ray drives would only require a firmware upgrade to be compatible with the new disc.

The manufacturer is reportedly working to stabilize signal quality before considering a commercial roll-out for the new discs, and is also working on an eight-layer variant of the technology, which would yield a Blu-ray Disc capable of holding 200GB.