Tokyo (Japan) – Sanyo claims it has the technology foundation for Blu-ray players that can read Blu-ray discs with twice the capacity at twice the speed than average Blu-ray players can today.

The secret behind the technology is a 450 mW pulsed-operation blu-violet laser, which is significantly stronger than the 200 mW lasers that are commonly used in today’s Blu-ray players.  Sanyo claims that the new device can support Blu-ray discs with up to four layers (instead of only two), raising the potential maximum capacity of Blu-ray discs from 50 GB to 100 GB.

Sony previously indicated that Blu-ray may be scalable up to 200 GB.

According to Sanyo, the 450 mW laser also increases the write speed of Blu-ray burners. The speed increases from 6x (216 Mb/s) to 12x (532 Mb/s or 66.5 MB/s), which would mean that a full 100 GB could be filled in about 25 minutes. In fact, a data transfer rate of 66.5 MB/s is competitive or faster than what most hard drives offer.    

Sanyo did not say when the new laser devices could become commercially available.

Faster than Hard Drives?

Oct 09, 2008 11:19     

Sign me up! Backing up a hard drive and storing it safely on a shelf is priceless. I am very excited and I hope we hear more about this in the near future.
alex report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +8

well

Oct 09, 2008 11:56     

I imagine sequential reads or writes are faster... I'd be more than a bit surprised if random IOs were even close. Didn't Sony claim that Blu-ray was already as advanced as it could get? There would be no higher capacities, etc etc...? I really wish Sony was a little bit more open about the Blu-ray format, and maybe didn't get it such a dumb name(sorta like toshiba and company were about HD-DVD) Oh well, not saying there is anything wrong with Blu-ray I just get tired of typing/saying the name.

-- report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -2

@well

Oct 09, 2008 12:17     

"Didn't Sony claim that Blu-ray was already as advanced as it could get?" This is going to be marketed as "Bluer-ray" heh..
MorituriMax report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +9

then...

Oct 09, 2008 12:18     

..then Bluerer-ray, Blufreaking-ray, and finally Blultimate-ray.. MwuahahahahHAHAHAHAH!
MorituriMax report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Blu vs Blue?

Oct 09, 2008 12:29     

if it uses blue ray laser why not call Blue instead of Blu ? Did a Japanese spell it out this way? just asking
Wisam report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Samsung had another idea

Oct 09, 2008 12:29     

As not long ago written on this board that as of Samsung claim the blu-ray days are numbered. So what is next holodisc...
Mat report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

BR vs. Flash

Oct 09, 2008 12:32     

I wonder what the specs of portable flash drives will be by the time such 4 layer 100 GB BR discs become affordable/available. Gotta love the tech evolution!
nke report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Woo-hoo now I just need a lottery win....

Oct 09, 2008 13:48     

.....to buy the burners & media.
DaveBG report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Re: Wisarm

Oct 09, 2008 15:57     

I have a feeling its due to the fact that you can't trademark an actual color, etc. That's why certain names which incorporate the word "Tech" for example must be spelled Tec. I could be wrong though...
Ankh report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

Blu-ray

Oct 09, 2008 17:55     

BR optical discs will always be much cheaper per GB than a flash drive. I don't think you'll see movies or games being distributed on flash media... Media is still somewhat expensive, but BR burners are only a $200, and nothing comes close for capacity. Just like DVDR, the media costs will come down over time...
loosely_coupled report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

It isn't the laser power that matters, it's the wavelength

Oct 10, 2008 05:29     

The new laser diodes are shorter wavelength (nearer to ultraviolet than blue), hence the greater potential data capacity - I reckon this is more significant than the actual laser power. Perhaps it should be renamed Purple-Ray or UV-Ray (© !!!).
John E report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0