400 GB of data on a single Blu-ray disc

400 GB of data on a single disc. Seems to be quite amusing for some while some would say that it will take time to achieve it. But Japanese electronics giant Pioneer has made it possible. Pioneer has developed world's first 16-layer blu-ray disc, squeezing 25 GB of data on each layer thus totalling to an amazing figure of 400GB.

The currently commercially available blu-ray discs have the storage capacity of 25 GB. Those having two layers can store 50 GB of data. The problem in developing multiple layers disc have been to obtain a clear and stable signal from each recording layer. The frequently visited problems were crosstalk from adjacent layers and transmission loss. Pioneer managed to overcome these issues and developed a disc structure that reduces crosstalk from adjacent layers. Finally it came with a 16-layer optical disc that can play back high-quality signals from each layer.

The good news is that these high capacity discs are backward-compatible and will play on blu-ray disc players. These discs can be read using the same objective lens in current Blu-ray drives. Video game publishers and movie studios can use these discs to take more content on a single disc.

With the development of this technology, Pioneer is putting a green spin on the development. Discs with such enormous capacities mean fewer resources are consumed to deliver the same data or movies on Blu-ray media. For consumers, the main advantage of this technology is the chances of renting an entire season of a television show or collection of movies on a single disc. No need of disc-swapping.

So what do you think? Isn't it the future of data storage?