Sony and Panasonic today announced an agreement to develop a next generation optical disc standard together. Both Sony and Panasonic have been involved in Blu-ray, currently the most popular large capacity optical disc format. However, both Sony and Panasonic recognize that optical discs will need to accommodate much larger volumes of storage in years to come given the expected future growth in the archive market.
The new standard and successor of Blu-ray should be an optical disc with a capacity of at least 300 GB, six times more than a traditional single layer Blu-ray disc and it should be ready for mass production by 2015.
Although the official announcement mentions that the format is aimed for professional use, the new disc will likely also appeal to consumers. At the moment there is no standard format to physically distribute 4K Ultra HD content. Displays that support this format are slowly becoming available but there isn't much Ultra High Definition content available.
The 4K Ultra HD format provides phenomenal video quality and operates at a resolution of 3,840 × 2,160 pixels (which is equivalent to 8.3 megapixels) whilst 8K Ultra HD operates at a resolution of 7680 × 4320 pixels (equivalent to 33.2 megapixels).
Blu-ray can be used to store Ultra HD content but Blu-ray players do not support the H.265 codec that can be used to store Ultra HD content more efficiently. This means that with current Blu-ray players Ultra HD content needs to be stored in H.264 which requires multi-layer Blu-ray discs.
Sony recently launched a Ultra HD mediaplayer that doesn't use optical discs. This player will cost $699 in the US and comes with 10 Ultra HD movies. New movies can be downloaded from an Ultra HD video service that Sony hopes to launch soon.
After CD, DVD and Blu-ray it will be interesting what the name of this new optical disc standard will be...
Rest assured though, whatever it is, Myce will be here to bring you all the details.
The full Sony press release can also be read here and the Panasonic version here.
