Latest DVD Technology

The moment I read this news, I quickly shared it with Chief and now, scribbling it online.

Yes, according to an AFP story filed from Paris last May 21, scientists have discovered technology that will allow consumers to have only one…. yup, only one DVD for 2,000 movies.

Yup, one DVD = 2,000 movies.

The story further says that this new DVD technology stores data in five dimensions. The researchers from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, used nanotechnology to increase the storage potential of DVDs.

DVDs were first introduced in 1997 as a replacement for several formats including CDs, VHS and laserdisc. Do you remember those laserdiscs? Yup, I remember, going to those shops in Greenhills which sold and rented laserdiscs!

The story further quotes Min Gu, who led the team. "We were able to show how nanostructured material can be incorporated onto a disc in order to increase data capacity, without increasing the physical size of the disc."

What does the five dimension means? Currently, disks have
three spatial dimensions. The researchers were add two dimensions, one based on the color spectrum, and the other on polarization, by using gold nanorods.

Maybe, an anology I can use is these new DVDs have 5 alternate reality (to borrow a term from the latest Star Trek film). Simple, means five realities of storage space. But all this space is in the same physical location, unlike the alternate reality in Star Trek, which happens in different locations.

But this technology is still work in progress and researchers says that commercial production is at least five years away, with possible partnership with Samsung.

Two thousand movies? If each movie run for 120 minutes, that means 240,000 minutes of viewing time. Or roughly, 166 days of viewing time?

Now, am asking myself if I have seen two thousand movies since I first saw Gene Wilder’s “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” in 1971 at Diamond Theatre. And up last Saturday night at the Cinema 2 of Greenbelt Cinema, when Chief and I last saw J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek.”

By the way, I have seen Star Trek four times. Maybe, for the fifth time, I will look at it from the techy point of view!