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Hitachi-Maxell develop 200GB, 8 layer Blu-ray Disc
Hitachi-Maxell of Japan have developed an 8 layer Blu-ray Disc with 200GB of storage capacity. Blu-ray already has the layer advantage, but an eight layer disc would provide a massive capacity that the competing HD DVD format would never be able to match.

“Hitachi, Ltd. has developed an optical technology for use with an optical disc device to amplify the reproduction signal output from a photodetector by ten times. In general, an optical disc with multiple recording layers has a problem in that the reproduction signal tends to get weaker. It is expected, however, that this bottleneck can be solved by the latest technology. The company claims that it is possible to efficiently detect the reproduction signal of a Blu-ray Disc with a capacity of 100-200 GB on a single surface which is obtained by the provision of four to eight recording layers, for example.”

Hitachi added three new enhancements to the current Blu-ray optical system to make the new 8 layer Blu-ray Disc technology possible.

1) Several new optical parts were added to the original system.
2) Polarization differential detection was added.
3) Variation in signal gain was reduced.

An optical disc the size of a standard DVD, but with 200GB of capacity would be highly welcomed by many technology enthusiasts, but this format won’t see the light of day until 2009 at the earliest. Even when it does arrive on the market, you have to wonder just how expensive the discs will be due to lower manufacturing yield rates on multi-layer discs. This 8 layer Blu-ray Disc format might not ever be an affordable option for consumers or movie studios. Thanks to Steve for also sending this in. Source: Tech-On! via CDRLabs.

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