Company announces 100 GB Blu-ray discs as 4K Blu-ray discs

Singulus issued a press release announcing new machinery for production of triple layer 100 GB Blu-ray discs. These BDXL  Blu-ray discs can store 100 GB, twice as much as regular Blu-ray discs. The technology remains the same, a blue laser reads pits in the disc but instead of using two layers, the 100 GB discs are made up of three layers.

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In its press release Singulus states that the larger capacity discs are the preferred playback medium for  content in UltraHD and that company now has a marketable concept of a replication line.

UltraHD also known as 4K is the successor of full HD and has four times the resolution. Due to the higher resolution it also requires more data. The amount of 4K content is still limited but internet connections are usually not fast enough to transfer the large amounts of data required for  4K quality. Therefor a physical medium like Blu-ray is an excellent candidate to store 4K content.

Singulus also states in their press release that a new and specifically designed data compression method for UltraHD (they probably mean HVEC) allows more GB's of video to be stored. The company claims an increase from 25 GB to 33 GB. Whether the BDXL will not only be the preferred format for 4K but also the official format is unclear, the Blu-ray Disc Association is still discussing the specifications.

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It's also unclear whether current Blu-ray players can playback the 100 GB (BDXL)  discs. Possibly a firmware upgrade is required but it's also possible that it requires entirely new devices.

When we'll see Blu-ray discs with 4K content in stores is unknown . In July Panasonic and Sony announced they're working on the successor of Blu-ray. The new optical storage standard should become available by 2015 and has a capacity of 300 GB.

Discuss this in our Blu-ray Forum.

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