Blu-ray Discs are getting a step-up, after the Blu-ray Disc Association announced two new specs for the format – BDXL and IH-BD. There’s bad news however – you’ll need to buy a new player/recorder to use the 128GB discs.
The new BDXL specification describes High Capacity Recordable and Rewritable discs which will write up to 128GB of content on each disc. These are write-once capacities, with the rewritable discs allowing for 100GB of storage. For now it’s just for commercial usage, but the BDA will be launching consumer BDXL discs, which will be handy for those of us planning on investing in a Blu-ray recorder in the near future.
The IH-BD format will contain two layers of 25GB capacity each – one for BD-ROM use, and the other a BD-RE layer, designed for viewing but not overwriting data.
While the extra storage capacity for the BDXL discs is welcome, it’s not all good news – as the BDA has warned that they won’t be compatible with existing hardware. Look out for BDXL and IH-BD supported Blu-ray players and recorders soon. [BusinessWire]
Christian
Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 10:23 AMDoes that mean my ps3 is now obsolete?
glennc
Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 11:04 AMnot yet. i don’t think this will amount to much. firstly it is mainly for commercial BD-R/RW use which is like flogging a dead horse. BD players/recorders won’t be as mainstream as DVD was.
Physical media is the actual obselete thing here in regards to PC usage. people just use external HDDs now. gone are the days of a dodgy co-worker having wallets and wallets of movie discs in his drawer… he now just uses an HDD.
Steve
Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 11:21 PMRubbish, these will sell well, people will always want to archive their favourite programmes. Or just but them on Blu-ray. Everyone I know has 1, downstreaming and SkyHD is just crap in comparison.
HDD drives are perfect for low quality crap, but HD takes up a huge amount of space, 128GB Blu-ray Discs are the long term favourite.