Sony Develops Powerful Laser for 1TB Optical Disc
Let's hope Sony doesn't get the idea of attaching these things onto sharks.
The Blu-ray Disc Association may have just passed the BDXL specification that expands that capacity of Blu-ray media to 100GB, but the real roomy optical format of the future is being developed in a lab in Japan right now.
Sony and Tohoku University have created a laser that has a beam output that's in excess of 100 watts, which is more than a hundred times the world’s highest output value for conventional blue-violet pulse semiconductor lasers.
This latest successful development is an all-semiconductor laser picosecond pulse source with a laser wavelength of 405 nanometers (1 nm = one-billionth of a meter) in the blue-violet region. It is capable of generating optical pulses in the ultrafast duration of 3 picoseconds (1 picosecond = one-trillionth of a second), with ultrahigh output peak power of 100 watts and repetition frequency of 1 gigahertz.
What's even more remarkable, boasts Sony, is that that other ultra high-output laser devices require a bulky light source box and a specialist technician to ensure the stable operation of the laser. This technology, however allows for a much smaller lightbox and perhaps for a more automated process.
Sony said that it has already tested applying this technology in next-generation large-capacity optical disc-storage, which could mean capacities 20 times greater than what we have now.
This laser technology could also be applied to a wide range of fields such as three-dimensional (3D) nano-fabrication of inorganic/organic materials.

Apparently you're new to the world of optical discs....
Seriously though. 100w@1Ghz is friggin impressive.
Pretty sure Blu-Ray isn't analog...neither is this...
Apparently you're new to the world of optical discs....
So, while Blu-Ray is sufficient for most of us, it would be nice to see an uncompressed 1:1 format, or at least a far less compressed format. An hour of uncompressed 1080p video can take up around 500GB. So what we see on Blu Ray is 20:1 compression, at best. Hopefully such a "videophile format" won't be relegated to obscurity like the SACD format... That would be the "Holy Grail" of video formats, as far as home theater is concerned.
Yeah, there is the 4K video format (4096x2304), but unless you are sitting 5 feet from a 120" screen, you likely won't see the difference.
May be they need it for fast Write functionality, but definitely not for read.