HD DVD Capacity Blown Out To 150GB?

By Greg McNevin

January 15th, 2007: Like adding extra blades in the battle to become top dog among razor manufacturers, the race is on to bump up the capacity of HD DVD and Blu-Ray discs, with optical storage company Ritek appearing to take the lead.

Hot on the heels of Toshiba’s CES announcement of a three-layer 51GB HD DVD, Ritek boasted that it has developed technology to write a full ten layers of data onto both HD DVD and potentially Blu-Ray discs too.

The company’s HD DVD can supposedly hold 150GB of data as opposed to the 30GB found on the currently available two-layer discs. Reported by DailyTech, Ritek also claims that if its technology works on Blu-Ray as it believes it will, it could be used to churn out 250GB discs.

Ritek did admit that there is a slight problem with the advance at the moment due to "the lack of reader / writer laser diodes to support the additional layers." However, with technology that boosts the capacity of both next generation contenders, a suitable diode should be just around the corner.

In another interesting twist to the whole Blu-Ray vs HD DVD battle, Sony seems to want to repeat the outcome of the VHS vs Betamax format war as it has reportedly banned porn from being sold on its technology. Adult movies and data storage may seem worlds apart, however, in the early 80’s the decision of skin flick makers to embrace VHS proved to be one of, if not the, nail in the coffin of Sony’s Betamax.

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