DVD-like optical disc could store 1.6 petabits (or 200 terabytes) on 100 layers

[Neatfeatguy]

My DVDs can't touch my 1080i feeds from CBS and NBC and my ABC and Fox feeds are a decent 720p. My plex server does all the commercial removal for me, I don't do any of it anymore. If I really like a movie I tend to grab the blueray at some point and rip it to my plex server, definitely a nice boost in visuals.

Physical media for movies/shows is sadly on the way out. You are hard pressed to find newer shows/movies on DVD/Blu-ray anymore. Redbox used to get lots of movies that released on disc, now they barely see any. I used to purchase used copies from them for pretty cheap, but I think Barbie was the most recent movie that was in theater (that I know of) that came out on DVD to Redbox.

A couple of movies that have released on DVD since then (I think Barbie hit DVD back in October 2023) are The Equalizer 3 and The Marvels and I haven't seen them at Redbox.

Don't forget the fact that Best Buy is no longer in the physical media business. They dropped physical movies on DVD/Blu-ray at the start of the year.

My local Target stores carry next to nothing in terms of physical movies. They used to have 3 or 4 shelves of movies/shows and now there are maybe 1 or 2 endcaps with a couple of "New Releases" and some older movies.

I've been working on finding movies and shows on DVD that I enjoy and adding them to my Plex server. Pushing 1100 movies now and 50+ complete TV series.

I used to copy shows and movies that aired on TV, but those files took up so much extra space over transcoding from .mkv to .m4v that I stopped doing it. Plus it was kind of hit and miss with the commercials being removed properly when I was doing this stuff 5-6 years ago. I'm sure it's improved since, but the only TV access I have is what comes through on digital signals - I don't have cable or satellite. Just got the antenna and the digital converter box that I packed away 3 years ago and haven't used since.

 

[erickmendes]

Active NAND/Flash/whatever storage may really have lower lifespan because of eletronics wearoff. Discs on the other hand don't have eletronics to wear off so if manipulated by high precision robotic arms in disc libraries it may have a longer lifespan.

Now about stored storage devices, "Nano-optical long-data memory" is said to withstand for 600 years, meanwhile, taken from google: "Some SSD manufacturers also claim that SSD can save data without a regular power supply for around 15 to 20 years."

So we are talking about 30x expected lifespan.

 

[Branch]

Like the cure for cancer, it will never see the light of day. Mankind's greed is its downfall.
Search for, "New Quartz Coin Can Store 360TB of Data for 14 Billion Years".

 

[Uncle Al]

Seems I remember the original DVD's were making some very big claims like this but when they came out the size was but a fraction of the claims. Hope they get a bit closer this time around ..... lol

 

[johnsonlam.hk]

1) I don't believe Chinese News except it is on sale for a period of time, remember their enhanced DVD "EVD"?
2) Take a look the popularity of BluRay Disc.
3) Will the world accept once more plastic pollution again by mass producing those unreliable multi-layer disc?

 

[GeforcerFX]

Physical media for movies/shows is sadly on the way out. You are hard pressed to find newer shows/movies on DVD/Blu-ray anymore. Redbox used to get lots of movies that released on disc, now they barely see any. I used to purchase used copies from them for pretty cheap, but I think Barbie was the most recent movie that was in theater (that I know of) that came out on DVD to Redbox.

A couple of movies that have released on DVD since then (I think Barbie hit DVD back in October 2023) are The Equalizer 3 and The Marvels and I haven't seen them at Redbox.

Don't forget the fact that Best Buy is no longer in the physical media business. They dropped physical movies on DVD/Blu-ray at the start of the year.

My local Target stores carry next to nothing in terms of physical movies. They used to have 3 or 4 shelves of movies/shows and now there are maybe 1 or 2 endcaps with a couple of "New Releases" and some older movies.

I've been working on finding movies and shows on DVD that I enjoy and adding them to my Plex server. Pushing 1100 movies now and 50+ complete TV series.

I used to copy shows and movies that aired on TV, but those files took up so much extra space over transcoding from .mkv to .m4v that I stopped doing it. Plus it was kind of hit and miss with the commercials being removed properly when I was doing this stuff 5-6 years ago. I'm sure it's improved since, but the only TV access I have is what comes through on digital signals - I don't have cable or satellite. Just got the antenna and the digital converter box that I packed away 3 years ago and haven't used since.

All the major movies from last year came out on disc, I got Oppenheimer, the Mario movie, john wick 4, guardians of the galaxy 3, equalizer 3 and dungeons and dragons on dvd for christmas. Redbox has lost a lot of there distribution deals that's the main reason for the lack of renting options from them. Online and Walmart tend to dominate the sales of physical media. All the walmarts I have been in over the last few years still have 2-3 movie and game isles that are physical media, and the bargain bin at walmart can always be fruitful. A lot of DVD's and bluerays are available through amazon and seems to be popular looking at review numbers alone. Also special collector releases seem to be popular now adays. It will never become as big as it once was but studio actually love physical media still and if people want to buy it they will keep making them since it's easy cheap money compared to operating a subscription streaming service.

 

[Q Wales]

Just saying: 1 Petabyte = 1024 Terabytes init

 

[Superconductor]

Considering the survival date of existing multilayer discs and the increased difficulty to read them (meaning there is more to potentially go wrong), the issues with storage and longevity, the data rate...considering tapes are already at about 20TB per tape (lto-9) for the latest generation, and do around 400mb/s max, have much better lingevity, already exist, are a proven product means that I highly doubt enterprise would ever pick this up, especially considering how the existing attempts by optical disc manufacturers to get into that space (m-disc and so on), have failed, having so much data on one failure mode (and a fairly easy failure mode at that with minor scratches probably meaning whole swathes of data are dead) would probably be not seen as good as well, quite pointless

That gets the Most Epic, Run-on Sentence Award of all ... forever!

 

[Superconductor]

All the major movies from last year came out on disc, I got Oppenheimer, the Mario movie, john wick 4, guardians of the galaxy 3, equalizer 3 and dungeons and dragons on dvd for christmas. Redbox has lost a lot of there distribution deals that's the main reason for the lack of renting options from them. Online and Walmart tend to dominate the sales of physical media. All the walmarts I have been in over the last few years still have 2-3 movie and game isles that are physical media, and the bargain bin at walmart can always be fruitful. A lot of DVD's and bluerays are available through amazon and seems to be popular looking at review numbers alone. Also special collector releases seem to be popular now adays. It will never become as big as it once was but studio actually love physical media still and if people want to buy it they will keep making them since it's easy cheap money compared to operating a subscription streaming service.

Physical media sales relating to music and movies are way down. Aisle space at most brick & mortar stores are either shrinking majorly, been announced to cease or are already gone. Streaming is king now because it's more simple & convenient for consumers and WAY more profitable for the other side. There is also the matter of shelf degradation for multi-layer discs that doesn't get much coverage. It's a real thing because mfg-ing quality has gone in the toilet.

Anecdotal examples of what you've seen at Walmart isn't a good statistical basis - or probably exaggerated. Walmart has whacked carrying a lot of inventory on both CD's and movies on disc.

 

[J Oelschl]

I am not holding my breath. They can't even make dual layer recordable discs that lasted much more than 10 years. I just got done rescuing a large part of my collection that all had errors reading the discs. It took me months and 100s of hours. I have also had quite a few commercial discs that suffered from dvd rot (bronzing) that were almost completely unreadable. Those were a complete loss and if I want them I will have to repurchase them . It is infuriating because I bought into the "IT WILL LAST 100 YEARS". My trip to Europe that I had burned to disc was badly compromised. I had to pull it off of MINI DV tapes again I was lucky that the camcorder still worked.
I havent checked my large collection of purchased discs to see how many may be compromised.

 

[J Oelschl]

Just saying: 1 Petabyte = 1024 Terabytes init

But they said it will store 1.6 PetaBITS not PetaBYTES

 

[wiyosaya]

My $0.02 - For anyone predicting the ultimate demise of physical media, my bet is that there will be a resurgence in sales just like there has been with vynal and CDs. https://www.whathifi.com/news/cds-a...ales-just-rose-for-the-first-time-in-17-years (And even Film sales are resurging.)

Despite what everyone says about the convenience of streaming, streaming is still lackluster when it comes to resolution and sound quality especially when it comes to Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray. There are still people out there that value the increased video resolution and audio quality that physical media offers.

And if anyone has been following the news, streaming is not not exactly the profit cash cow that those who hoped to cash in on the fad were expecting. Profit is the only thing that matters to content providers.

Most streaming services, except for Netflix and perhaps Hulu, are struggling to become profitable - and consumers are resisting those attempts because, IMO, the model that is materializing is essentially the same model as the "pay TV" model that streamers, like myself, abandoned in favor of streaming. There is no way in hell I'm subscribing to every Tom, D!ck, and Harry streaming service to watch what I want to watch - at least not on a continuing basis.

Disney, and others, are after profit. Since they are finding the streaming business difficult, to say the least, and falling on their faces, they, especially Disney, are releasing what used to be streaming only content on physical media https://www.avsforum.com/threads/di...n-in-a-new-era-for-dvds-and-blu-rays.3295540/

IMO, it doesn't mean Jack that places like Best Buy are ditching physical media when there are plenty of on-line outlets where consumers who value physical media can still buy what they want.

And I dropped going to Redbox in favor of the media collection that my local library has. My local library system is faithfully getting DVDs, Blu-rays and even UHD Blu-rays on a regular basis. In fact, right now, I'm watching Season 2 of Star Trek Strange New Worlds on Blu-ray that I have borrowed from my local library system.
/My $0.02

 

[Superconductor]

I am not holding my breath. They can't even make dual layer recordable discs that lasted much more than 10 years. I just got done rescuing a large part of my collection that all had errors reading the discs. It took me months and 100s of hours. I have also had quite a few commercial discs that suffered from dvd rot (bronzing) that were almost completely unreadable. Those were a complete loss and if I want them I will have to repurchase them . It is infuriating because I bought into the "IT WILL LAST 100 YEARS". My trip to Europe that I had burned to disc was badly compromised. I had to pull it off of MINI DV tapes again I was lucky that the camcorder still worked.
I havent checked my large collection of purchased discs to see how many may be compromised.

From personal experience, I've had brand new 4K, highly packed, discs fail brand new. I've also had both Bluray & 4K discs that have sat - only having been played once or twice & stored properly - all of sudden demonstrating pixelation/freezing issues, on multiple drives and stand alone players. The common thread to it all of it is multi-layering and the Bluray standard. We've never had issues with longevity on multi-layered DVDs.

Big loss of faith in optical storage even though I know this is more data archiving centric..

 

[wiyosaya]

My DVDs can't touch my 1080i feeds from CBS and NBC and my ABC and Fox feeds are a decent 720p. My plex server does all the commercial removal for me, I don't do any of it anymore. If I really like a movie I tend to grab the blueray at some point and rip it to my plex server, definitely a nice boost in visuals.

Respectfully, my DVDs can't touch my Blu-rays.

 

[wiyosaya]

From personal experience, I've had brand new 4K, highly packed, discs fail brand new. I've also had both Bluray & 4K discs that have sat - only having been played once or twice & stored properly - all of sudden demonstrating pixelation/freezing issues, on multiple drives and stand alone players. The common thread to it all of it is multi-layering and the Bluray standard. We've never had issues with longevity on multi-layered DVDs.

Big loss of faith in optical storage even though I know this is more data archiving centric..

The only time I've had blu-rays fail is when I get them after they have been roughly treated by other library borrowers. Then again, I've got a great UHD Blu-ray drive in my HTPC. My bet is that the drive is better quality than most mass-market dedicated players since the aim, there too, is profit with the mass market players. In fact, I borrowed an audio book from my library that was in such bad shape, the only "player" that was able to correctly render it was my UHD Blu-ray drive.

 

[Endymio]

Physical media sales relating to music and movies are way down....Anecdotal examples of what you've seen at Walmart isn't a good statistical basis

Neither of you presented any statistical data. Here's some:

July 2022: 4K Blu Rays just hit their highest sales ever

Or: DVD and Blu Ray still generating 1.34 billion in annual sales

Physical media for movies isn't about to vanish. Not that it's relevant in the context of this article, which is about archival data storage.

We've never had issues with longevity on multi-layered DVDs.

On the contrary, DVD rot was and is a well-known phenomenon.

 

[Superconductor]

Neither of you presented any statistical data. Here's some:

July 2022: 4K Blu Rays just hit their highest sales ever

Or: DVD and Blu Ray still generating 1.34 billion in annual sales

Physical media for movies isn't about to vanish. Not that it's relevant in the context of this article, which is about archival data storage.

On the contrary, DVD rot was and is a well-known phenomenon.

Hey literal larry, the DVD part was anecdotal sharing. Learn the diff!
Karen complex, parse lines much?

The comment realm here is a laugh riot.. as always.

There are also a ton of data, reports and analysis on the optical storage for both consumer use & serious business storage segments. I'd suggest people research the topic themselves extensively, with purpose if they are seriously interested in facts - and not relying on the likes of T's Guide, AVS-F, or worse. An important distinction regarding consumer optical disc sales is segmented Global, regional markets and how different regions are trending. Not a puny sampling of particular Walmarts.

 

[Endymio]

The comment realm here is a laugh riot.. as always.

Agreed! You knocked the prior poster for "anecdotal" evidence, then countered with anecdotal evidence of your own. His statement is correct: all major films are currently still being released on physical media, and that isn't likely to change soon. The fact that "brick and mortar" sources of disc are vanishing rapidly is more a phenomenom of brick and mortar itself declining. Why drive to Best Buy which may or may not have that disc, when Amazon will drop it off on your doorstep overnight?

...I'd suggest people research the topic themselves with purpose if they are seriously interested in facts - and not relying on the likes of T's Guide, AVS-F, or worse

The source data in that link was from the Digital Entertainment Group, the lead consortium in the field, made up of MGM Studies, Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers, Universal Studios, Disney, Lionsgate, Amazon, and more than 100 other members. Do you have a better source?

 

[J Oelschl]

From personal experience, I've had brand new 4K, highly packed, discs fail brand new. I've also had both Bluray & 4K discs that have sat - only having been played once or twice & stored properly - all of sudden demonstrating pixelation/freezing issues, on multiple drives and stand alone players. The common thread to it all of it is multi-layering and the Bluray standard. We've never had issues with longevity on multi-layered DVDs.

Big loss of faith in optical storage even though I know this is more data archiving centric..

To clarify, "most" of the dual-layer failures I had were on discs that I had burned myself (Verbatim seemed most reliable, Memorex are garbage and had the most failures). I did have quite a few commercially purchased discs that exhibited DVD rot and were unreadable. I have not yet checked all my blu-ray and 4k discs yet as I neded to take a break after the large scale rescue operation. I must say, I am probably now an expert in DVD disc rescue. Every disc was a bit different and I had to apply a different set of tools and techniques on a case-by-case basis along with using different drives. I was shocked how some drives couldnt read a disc and others read it with no issue whatsoever.

 

[Superconductor]

Agreed! You knocked the prior poster for "anecdotal" evidence, then countered with anecdotal evidence of your own. His statement is correct: all major films are currently still being released on physical media, and that isn't likely to change soon. The fact that "brick and mortar" sources of disc are vanishing rapidly is more a phenomenom of brick and mortar itself declining. Why drive to Best Buy which may or may not have that disc, when Amazon will drop it off on your doorstep overnight?

The source data in that link was from the Digital Entertainment Group, the lead consortium in the field, made up of MGM Studies, Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers, Universal Studios, Disney, Lionsgate, Amazon, and more than 100 other members. Do you have a better source?

Learn critical thinking skills & Profit. Seriously. Not your private information army nor is anyone else your researcher tool - as well. This isn't a Court of public opinion. It's a TS comment thread. LOL Believe what you want and put all your marbles in one consortium or another. Your deal..

And to be clear, what you perceive as being "knocked" or how it applies in context, is a syndrome most cognitive humans recognize as a problem needing addressing. I wasn't knocking anyone. This isn't about feelings... LOL

And to add: You convolution of the topic with even more opinionated rubbish about why, where & what is happening in the commercial, optical disc business sectors is even more entertaining.

 

[KnightSayNI]

That's all it takes? I think I got that stuff in my shed out back.....

Joking aside. Options are always good. What might not be the best idea (massive storage on a single DVD disc) could always lead to more ideas or better implementations.

I'm still a fan of physical media. I'm currently going through and backing up my CDs (I haven't purchased a new CD for probably the past 20 years or more) to my computer and then ripping them on new writeable discs. Still got a CD player in my car that I use many days out of the week when there is junk playing on the radio.

I hate that 90% of movies/shows are going right to streaming. You pay for the streaming service and then on top of that you might have to pay extra to "own" (I mean, borrow) movies or shows and then when you want to watch them you're streaming data. No thanks. I like the physical media so I can watch it when I want and not have to worry about a streaming service dropping it or losing rights to distribute it. I make a digital backup of all my movies/shows and if that ever fails me I've got the actual physical media to play.

My problem is I keep buying physical media but I watch streaming 99% of the time. But I am lazy.

 

[Endymio]

Learn critical thinking skills & Profit. Seriously. Not your private information army nor is anyone else your researcher tool - as well. This isn't a Court of public opinion. It's a TS comment thread. LOL Believe what you want and put all your marbles in one consortium or another. Your deal..

And to be clear, what you perceive as being "knocked" or how it applies in context, is a syndrome most cognitive humans recognize as a problem needing addressing. I wasn't knocking anyone. This isn't about feelings... LOL

And to add: You convolution of the topic with even more opinionated rubbish about why, where & what is happening in the commercial, business world is even more entertaining.

It's difficult to extract any meaning from that word salad other than a vague lashing-out at someone who contradicted you. I didn't state opinion: I gave actual sales data from the industry-leading trade group. As for the flawed idea that declining brick-and-mortar outlets means the end of physical media, consider this. Brick and mortar bookstores are collapsing even faster -- do you believe that implies we're soon going to stop printing books?

 

[Superconductor]

It's difficult to extract any meaning from that word salad other than a vague lashing-out at someone who contradicted you. I didn't state opinion: I gave actual sales data from the industry-leading trade group. As for the flawed idea that declining brick-and-mortar outlets means the end of physical media, consider this. Brick and mortar bookstores are collapsing even faster -- do you believe that implies we're soon going to stop printing books?

Economics and Business 101 isn't your forte.

 

[Endymio]

Economics and Business 101 isn't your forte.

This is your rebuttal? Really? You might as well have stamped "I lost this debate" on your forehead in 48-point block letters.

 

[captaincranky]

Imagine burning data, having a readable disc and, 6 months down the line, having issues with accessing the data because of a scratch. 200 TB of data down the drain.

Well, DVD and believe CD(?) are recorded with error correction accounted for. Besides, they're reasonably immune to scratches from hole to edge, but less so with respect to radial damage.

Here's the thing, the "DVD like" description, IMO has apparently led to some rash conclusions. Your'e assuming optical discs of this capacity are going to b passed around during a beer, pizza, and wings party, while watching the Sunday game. Oh yeah, and that $29.95 Walmart Blu-ray player has anywhere near the manufacturing tolerances necessary differentiate the data points contained.

Whoever thought this was of any use must've been either smoking something or trying to prove a concept. That much data on an optical disc exposed to dust and scratches is a solution looking for a problem.

So, now comes the really relevant question, "what were you smoking, when you imagined disks like this would be employed in anything other than a sealed, sterile environment?"

The issue I see in dealing with this extreme data density is in the limits of machining tolerance necessary to physically intercept such ultra minute particles..

Who knows, given that limitation, these disks might come to be the size of an LP record, and the recorder/players might be a rack mount device, living in an uber clean, climate controlled, server installation.