14 DAY TRIAL // According to a Sony representative, the Blu-ray disc may be considered the final optical disc format that will be developed. The idea is not that there will be no more physical media for content, but the other way around: the new advances in the Blu-ray technology will allow it to keep its crown for quite a long time.
"Blu-Ray is the final format for the optical disc. We don’t have a shorter laser. In the future, if we have a physical media format, it will change physically. It won’t look like an optical disc. I don’t know what sort of technology we will have in the future but while using lasers and optical discs, this is the final format," said Taka Miyama, Sony’s product strategy manager for home video marketing in Europe, according to Electricpig web-site.
The current Blu-ray discs offer a lot of storage space for the modern movies. Up to 50GB of information can be stored on a single optical drive, meaning that studios can easily record a high-definition movie in 1920x1080 resolution along with additional content on the same medium. No doubt that both the industry and consumers' requirements will increase, along with the need for higher capacities that will allow more interactive features or even stereoscopic 3D to be stored on the optical drives. There are already some who are testing a new Super Hi-Vision video technology, which requires dramatically more storage space than before, as it enables up to 7680x4320 resolution and has an extremely high bit-rate: 180Mb/s – 600Mb/s (22.5MB/s – 75MB/s), up from 40Mb/s on Blu-ray.
Yet, Sony seems rather optimistic when it comes to Blu-ray, as there are companies like Pioneer and TDK that are already working on the development of discs capable of providing larger storage space, which means that the format will have a prolonged life for sure.
"I’ve seen prototypes for 400GB discs," said Sony’s Chief Technical Advisor for home audio and video, Eric Kingdon. "That’s approaching half a terabyte. If you went to 4K (twice the resolution of full HD), Blu-Ray is still big enough for a full movie. If it’s enough, then there’s no need to do any more development," he added.
Still, there is a catch that both Sony and Blu-ray disc association, the organization that oversees further development of the standard, need to pay attention to. While they have to make sure that the currently available Blu-ray format will still last for a great deal of time, and the consumers will be able to use the players and content they already own, the Blu-ray disc promoters also need to stay ahead of services that rent or sell high-definition videos via the Internet, which means that the quality and the standard should be constantly improved.