Talk:Holographic Versatile Disc

Release date

is there any word on when it comes out?19:59, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

• No. If you read the article, it will tell you it's still in the research stage. {{Template:NazismIsntCool/sig}} 10:46, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

• • Check the Links section...DaTARIUS has signed an agreement with InPhase to be their sole distributor of a product coming out in 2007 as 300GB WORM discs (with accompanying hardware), 600GB re-writable discs (and hardware) in 2008 and 1.6TB discs available by 2010. I always said HD and BD discs were not signifigant enough jumps and would fall by the wayside very quickly.

Of course, they still may keep a hold on the consumer video market...their size is ok for that, while HVDs will be more expensive, but absolutely vital for the IT industry. Grendelum 03:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

HVD Forum website says

Q When will HVD products be generally available?

A HVD drive and disc designed for enterprise market will be available starting summer 2006.

So now we know. Has anyone seen anything real working ? --195.137.93.171 (talk) 20:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Storage

Do you think the disks will be used for say the Ultra High Definition Video standard? 159753 11:45, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

According to that link, the HVD would only be capable of about 20 minutes of video. Moltovivace 01:08, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

That's uncompressed, I think. --Ctachme 14:52, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah it can hold 11 hours of compressed Ultra High Definition Video (The 3.9 terabytes version) Uber555 02:06, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah compressed and it would take 3900GB of storage that's some HD Video (most normal HD have 500GB) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.250.110.93 (talk) 19:34, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Well, a 3.5 hour movie would be around 900 gigs with audio (both compressed). Assuming that 1.6 terabyte discs become reality (or the 3.9 ones), that would easily be enough space for LotR: tRotK + extras. And that's about the longest movie I ever intend to sit through:P. Gopher65_talk 17:36, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Games

they would see better use in the gaming industry i think Gabrielsimon 11:59, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I can't imagine that the gaming industry could find a use for that much available data storage in a game. The costs to develop a game with such expansive graphics, storyline, and cutscenes (among other things) would be astronomical and take years to create. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.64.0.35 (talk • contribs) 18:28, 15 July 2005 (UTC).

• To the above comment : Games are HIGHLY compressed. Mass Effect for the 360 for example had to be stripped down to fit on a DVD. If games were uncompressed they would take up 50-400 times the storage space. Textures alone can have a compression ratio of 1:100. Games without compression wouldn't require decoding. They would load much faster and run a lot smoother and faster. Not to mention everything would be ultra high resolution. A lot of games wouldn't need to be installed since the data is ready to be processed by the engine and requires no conversion. This means, on a PC you could put in a game and run it instantly, only creating save files (Which with a data transfer rate of 1gb/s would easily be possible). The costs to devlop such a game would be less since there wouldn't be a need to develop advanced compression and decompression techniques based on specific computer architecture.RAFAZUM (talk) 01:06, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

• As Bill Gates once said: "No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time." Drumnbach 20:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Bill Gates also once said: "640kb will allways be enough"... 84.39.98.169 (talk) 07:04, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

they used to say that about games basd off of CDs. Gabrielsimon 22:02, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't see holographic discs as a mass-distribution medium. CDs, DVDs, HD-DVDs and the like are injection-moulded. One machine can produce hundreds of DVDs per hour, for pennies apiece. Holographic discs (I think) would have to be written one at a time. You can't distribute a game or a movie that way. Spiel496 18:22, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Interesting point. One idea is multiple HVD's could be "burned" simultaneously by using one very powerful laser and one data page and a light splitter to simultaneously burn all the HVD's. Obviously lots of design issues to be solved before thats a reality, but if it works then say 100 HVD's could be burnt in one batch. Another thing is there is no limitation to a single burning head - multiple heads could be used to write the disks quicker. The problem you mention looks like it'll be a problem with many next-gen formats. 82.21.25.116 (talk) 19:12, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but they say the price will drop. Uber555 02:09, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes a factory of these machines could do it. Aside from that, the read rate would more then justify the use for anything if it is really 1 gig/sec. I mean come on... two seconds and POW! You have a modern first person shooter loaded to memory, no install needed. Hard drives need to get to this rate! - 68.228.56.158 03:49, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Future utility

If this got popular, they probebly wouldn't need another storage medium for decades. I wonder if they could make smaller discs which still hold terabytes of information. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.120.94.143 (talk • contribs) 11:49, 23 August 2005 (UTC).

There probably will be 8cm discs which can store 1.25 TB. {{Template:NazismIsntCool/sig}} 10:46, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Changes

Parts of this article seemed poorly written, so I made a couple changes... didn't add anything. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.128.160.180 (talk • contribs) 15:52, 25 August 2005 (UTC).

Start using headings

This article seems a bit biased. If these have such huge capacity and such fast write-speed, why aren't they common? Is it just price, or are there still some problems in need of fixing before these become mainstream? NPOV, people, not just the info in the companies' advertisements.Twilight Realm 00:09, 27 September 2005 (UTC) Probably because it's still in the research phase. Even if it was completed it would still take years to gain widespread use because of (probably) very high manufacturing costs compared to DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.--DA Roc 01:43, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, could somebody please add an explanation what's holding up this disc standard? Peter S. 11:40, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

You should read the article. It's still being researched. {{Template:NazismIsntCool/sig}} 10:46, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

The same thing could be said about FiOS or Genome Splicers. If its so great why don't we have it in all our homes. It takes time for a technology to mature. I'm suprised we get something like this by 2006.--208.253.80.123 00:00, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I was talking to a gentleman who works in the military and from what he was saying, this type of data storage has been in use in the military for a couple years. The problem is cost more than anything else. The drives that read the "discs" cost in the upwards of around 7,000 - 10,000 USD. Its the same as any technology. Military -> Commercial -> Consumer.

"This sort of technology" is still in the research stages, and can't be used by anyone. I suspect your conversationee was talking about something else entirely. Tim 16:54, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Or it could just be a cover-up sort of thing... 70.64.36.70 02:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Delft University of Technology

I recently heard that the Delft University of Technology was working on something like this. But I see no reference to that here. Is that a different project? DirkvdM 13:41, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

HVD To Solve Chess

This technology could be instrumental in the effort to solve chess. Chess tablebases take up a huge amount of space, the HVD could potentially solve the space problem. Dionyseus 11:35, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

You're talking 10⁵⁰ legal positions, according to Computer chess. That would exceed the capacity of an HVD by a factor in the vicinity of a duodecillion. In point of fact, it will be physically impossible to store all possible chess positions on the planet Earth, since that only consists of around 10⁵⁰ atoms. And finally, the computational complexity of solving all those positions is utterly prohibitive with current technology; if we had a billion computers solving a billion positions per second, it would take 10³² years for them to solve chess, ten sextillion times the age of the universe.

Or, in short, these aren't going to help a whole lot. ;) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

With the development of Spintronics we will get closer though. —jS 00:28, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

What is so hard in solving chess and how do you "solve" it what does the word solve mean? 84.250.110.93 18:00, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

If you solved chess you would know the best first move for white. 88.68.216.157 (talk) 21:50, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

In this regard "solving" means being able to see every possible move from start to finish, every single variation. Once we have solved chess, it would be impossible for god himself to win. Not that we can ever do it though... =P —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.137.240.250 (talk) 04:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Appearance

The HVD looks like gold on one side. Maybe "technology pimps" would end up wearing them. :-) {{Template:NazismIsntCool/sig}} 10:46, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Gibibytes or Gigabytes

Is gigabyte the right term? giga refers to the decimial system while Gibi refers to binary. So Would that make the correct term Gibibyte?

Gigabyte is the common term at this time, regardless of technicalities. My guess is that "this is an encyclopedia for the masses, not a technical journal" applies.

Gibibyte is a kind of artificial term. At first, KB, MB, GB, TB were defined and used by computer specialists, where K is 1024, and everything is obviously bound to powers of two. Later some dishonest manufacturers started to use the 1000 definition of K, which counts for 7.5% for GB. Since SI defines K as 1000, it's formally permissible, but the computers can never move to 1000 without complication. So "kibi, mebi, gibi, tebi" and associated terms were introduced, as purely artificial ones, for distinction. As far as I know, nobody uses them except when specifically discussing 1000/1024 prefixes, and no one is probably going to use them. So, gigabyte in computers generally means what is today formally called "gibibyte". When discussing estimates and approximates, there's clearly no need for the obscure "gibibyte" term. CP/M ^comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 15:37, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Gibibyte is very necessary to disambiguate between the archaic interpretation of gigabyte. People who use gigabyte to mean gibibyte are defying ISO standards. Regardless of gigabyte's historical meaning, it is precisely one billion bytes. The SI interpretation of kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, etc... came about as computing evolved higher level platforms that mask the computer's intrinsics. --RITZ 03:41, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Except roughly 0.1% of people know or care what a 'gibibyte' is (not to mention that it's a stupid name). The ISO may not like it, and a few people may be on some mystical crusade to convert the planet, but gigabyte means 1073741824 bytes. This is like trying to change the meaning of 'mile' to be a thousand meters, and particularly stupid when pretty much every computer on the planet has a memory size that's a power of two, not a power of ten... like people really want to have to deal with buying 1.073741824 gigabyte DIMMs. Mark Grant 10:41, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this is not just false and ignorant, it is quite insulting. Maybe you are on "some mystical crusade to convert the planet" but it is an absolute certainty that gigabyte does NOT mean "1073741824 bytes". Not now and at no time in the past. Period. Not by formal definition and not by common usage. Go out on the street and ask a thousand people "how many bytes are in a gigabyte" and the most common answer is going to be "a lot", followed by things like "a thousand megabytes" and/or "a billion bytes". There's going to be tiny, vanishing minority of nerds who might say something like "1024 megabytes" or maybe even "1024 times 1024 times 1024 bytes", but there will be ZERO people giving you the answer "a gigabyte is 1073741824 bytes". With certainty. WP is (supposed to be) descriptive not prescriptive, and thus the proper meaning of the word "gigabyte" is what people use the word to mean: a billion bytes. As important as techy-nerds seem to imagine themselves to be, you do not get to redefine the words of the English language -- only we, the speakers of that language get to do that and we do it by usage and by usage a "megabyte" is "a million bytes". At best someone might translate the word to "about a million bytes". But no living person on the planet says "megabyte" and actually means "1048576 bytes". (<- As a matter of fact, I had to resort to a calculator to even figure out that number there.) Iron Condor 22:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Dudes, seriously, it's not that hard and it carries plenty of both historical and judicial precedent (and it has nothing to do with wat ignorants think, which is why there is so much judicial precedent, especially in the US). Think of the metric system (which actually makes sense)... How much meter is a kilometer? How much ton is a megaton? How much watt is a terawatt? THIS is exactly why it's not only perfectly legal to say a gigabyte is 1000 megabyte but it's even very logical.
The gibibyte and so on were invented to deal with the fact that a computer calculates using not base-10 (10^9 = giga) but to base-2 (2^30 = giga in binary -> gibi). Look it up: [1]. That's why this debate is as useless as the Lilliputian-Blefuscan war.
The question remains valid though, what exactly do they mean? Unfortunately I haven't been able to find the answer. Indeed, Ecma's recently released standards remain mum on this. But, in the light of industry practice, I'd say gigabyte is in fact the correct term.

I was wondering whether GB in this article refers to 1000^3 or 1024^3 bytes. This discussion addresses the question but doesn't seem to answer it. Does anybody know? Thunderbird2 (talk) 19:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I have heard nothing about this particular case, but for DVD-Rs they use Gigabytes not Gibibytes. 4.7 sounds bigger than 4.3. I imagine that his body uses the same rational. Without evidence to the contrary, it's always a good bet to assume that they will use the number that makes their product sound the best. Especially if another format war is brewing. Still, it'd be nice to have a source. I can't find out. I don't think one exists yet.Gopher65 (talk) 19:58, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be seeing that we just don't know. That's a sorry state of affairs isn't it? Thunderbird2 (talk) 20:03, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

InPhase

I changed some of the parts about InPhase's competing media, and removed an erroneous part about InPhase releasing a HVD disc in 2006. Seeing as InPhase is working on an entirely separate standard, maybe it should get it's own article, or maybe this article should be renamed to include all holographic standards?

• It isn't actually InPhase that is doing it, but DaTARIUS. See my above comments (and hopefully my addition to the article if it doesn't get removed) that has time tables and file sizes (300GB to 1.6TB in 2010). Let's talk about that ;¬) Grendelum 03:29, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Other competition

Fluorescent_multilayer_disc

I doubt that, this one has got 3.9Terabits when that things got 1Tb

Higher Storage Capacity Options

Stabilizing Ferroelectric Materials

Poorly written sentence

I removed the following sentence:

(For comparison, the red laser in a consumer CD-R or DVD-R drive is 0.1–0.25 watt)

It's rather poorly written. Firstly CD-Rs use infrared lasers. Secondly, it's not clear to me what it's talking about. Is it talking about the power of the laser used for reading or for writing? If it's for reading, we should be talking about the laser in CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives. Of course, CD-RW drives and DVD+/-RW drives also have a laser but AFAIK the laser is higher power and the high power is needed/used for writing (when reading it uses less power). If it's for writing, then we should refer to them as CD-RW and DVD+/-RW drives or something like that since that's what they're commonly referred to as and make sure we're clear it's for writing. Regardless, is the 1w green laser currently the laser power needed for HVD for reading or for writing? Clearly we should be comparing apples to apples so the laser power should be either reading or writing (or both) for both. Also, I'm guessing BluRay and HD-DVD blue laser power is probably similar but we need to be clear. Nil Einne 12:09, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Expected by June '06

Seems strange that something is "expected" by june '06 since it's past then. Chris M. 23:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

What is this list?

• Alps Electric Corporation, Ltd.
• CMC Magnetics Corporation
• Dainippon Ink and Chemicals, Inc. (DIC)
• EMTEC International (subsidiary of the MPO Group)
• Fuji Photo Film Company, Ltd.
• Konica Minolta Holdings, Inc.
• LiteOn Technology Corporation
• Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Company, Ltd. (MKM)
• Nippon Kayaku Co., Ltd.
• Nippon Paint Company, Ltd.
• Optware Corporation
• Pulstec Industrial Company, Ltd.
• Shibaura Mechatronics Corporation
• Software Architects, Inc. (?)
• Suruga Seiki Company, Ltd.
• Targray Technology International, Inc.
• Teijin Chemicals, Ltd.
• Toagosei Company, Ltd.
• Tokiwa Optical Corporation

the company's in the development of holographic disks or better know as the HVD alliance Markthemac 21:55, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

New standards and names incorporated

I changed the piece about the standards, reflecting the changes and the final approval of the Ecma standards.

Also, the HVD Alliance website is emptied, it's all moved to HVD FORUM. Changed that too.

Contradiction

It says this early in the article:
"The HVD also has a transfer rate of 1 gigabit/s (125 megabytes/s)."
However, in the Storage capacity in context section, it reads:
"The transfer rate is at an average of 1 gigabyte/second, or 1024 megabytes/second, around 380 times the transfer rate for current 16x DVD storage."
Can someone can clarify which one it actually is?
—jS 23:27, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay I want one. 3900GB would cost around min. 1000€ :D you know this might be a good reference to how great of an improvement that would be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.250.110.93 (talk) 19:29, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Access Speed.

The opening paragraph states 1gigbit/s access times (125mb/s) yet the next paragraph stated 1 gigabyte/s access times.

They can't both be right, im inlined to think the first one. Anyone know? Neosophist 16:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

just noticed this was tagged last month, my bad. Someone should fix it or at least remove both references until a speed is determind? Neosophist 16:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Anglo-American focus and systematic bias

What is this line? "Current models are being mass produced by Maxell and shipped to TV stations across the country."

What country? I live in Norway. Is it being shipped to TV stations across Norway?

Well, who knows? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.134.125.93 (talk) 17:20, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to remove this line because its obscure (what country? why ship to TV stations?) and unverifiable. Rotsor 06:35, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I know for a fact that it is true that it's being shipped to TV stations for archiving purposes. Where exactly these stations are, i'm not sure but i would assume america. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.128.65.183 (talk) 04:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

News?

• The HVD forum site seems to be quite silent from end of 2006.
• The Optware link results in site under maintenance. Just a case?

--Cantalamessa (talk) 15:01, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Uh, yeah. Is there any news on this anywhere? I'd like to see this page updated, but I haven't seen any news articles on this for a while.Gopher65 (talk) 23:33, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's some news: InPhase finally to phase in holographic disk

Edit: Also there's a picture at Engadget: InPhase to finally ship Tapestry 300r holographic storage solution in May 85.211.181.12 (talk) 18:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

It looks like one of the 2 remaining technical problems with HVDs has now been solved. The sole remaining issue is the high price of lasers of sufficiently high power. One down, one to go;). Muwhahahaha. Gopher65_talk 17:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The BBC just had an article about these discs. they called it micro-holographic discs. GE unveiled a 500 gig disc. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8021012.stm 142.179.247.219 (talk) 19:14, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Blu-Ray will be obsolete soon

the victory against HD DVD is insignificant

keep your dvd players —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.210.51.222 (talk) 08:29, 19 May 2008 (UTC) this wont effect blu ray dvd , u see ur need a special player with a green and red lazer , thats gonna cost a lot , blu ray is perfact for 20 years easy —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephenkolo (talk • contribs) 18:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

For mass storage Bluray is woefully insufficient, and in fact is more expensive on a per gig basis than even already existing HVD discs, never mind the newer, cheaper, larger size discs that are in the pipeline. When the writers start to drop from their current absurdly expensive price down to something more reasonable (~1500 bucks I'm thinking) then you'll start to see HVDs (or a similar technology from a competitor) supplant DVD writers on computers. However, while Bluray is too small and too expensive for mass-storage, even it is too big for current "high-definition" content, if you are using reasonable lossless compression. 50 gigs is easily more than what is needed. There is simply no need to have 200 gig or 1.6 terabyte discs at the current time. Maybe when lithographic (or is that hololithic? That's not a word yet, but I have a feeling it will be.) TVs with extreme resolution start to become popular that will change... mmmmmmmm quasi-3D... but for the moment nothing bigger is needed in the consumer video disc market.

But yeah, don't buy a Bluray writer for your computer. They're already obsolete. Wait a few years for the HVD writers to drop in price, then pick up one of those. Sony should never have forced that format war; it pushed back the *real* launch of HD discs until one format won the war. Now, because of Sony's obstinance, Bluray won't be as successful as a combined format would have been:(. Silly stubborn Sony. Gopher65_talk 02:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree totally. Blu-Rays might be fine for storing just audio and video (their main purpose), but for storage needs (Just like a CD or DVD)they are already obsolete. You can already buy hard drives near 1TB for a fairly cheap price per GB, and as made obvious by this article there are optical disc technologies out there that will have to wait a long time because of the "HD-DVD/Blu-Ray" war. I bought a 500GB SATA hard drive over a year ago for just a hundred dollars... and I have to buy an external one if I wanted to backup any of my data. You can forget using optical discs. Also, prices are rediculous still for Blu-Ray. I was in a store today and saw the cheapest one for $200. There was also a $300 model. You just add-on another $100 and buy a PS3 at that rate. Cody-7 (talk) 04:25, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Update 03/03/09: I just bought a 1TB hard disk for $99 in Decenber. So double the storage is already cheaper than it was just a year and a half ago. -- Cody-7 (talk) 05:31, 4 March 2009 (UTC)