Anyone that's seen a Blu-ray player in action (come on you've got a PS3 at home and a HD telly, haven't you?) will know that the picture is awesome. With 50GB of information on the disc it's no wonder why. But now boffins at Pioneer have managed to get eeight times that amount of data onto a single disc, and boy are they feeling smug about themselves.

The scientists managed the feat by adding 16 layers to the disc, each carrying the standard 25GB of information. Of course, you need a very good laser to pick up all the information as all those layers can cause lots of interference. Bascially this is done by "employing a wide-range spherical aberration compensator and light-receiving element that can read out weak signals at a high signal-to-noise ratio in the optical pick-up mechanism." Whatever that means!

The new disc will be unveiled at the International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage 2008 in Hawaii (boring sounding conference, not-so-boring location).

According to Pioneer, the disc is just the start.

"This development has bolstered Pioneer's confidence in the feasibility of a large-capacity optical disc, which is expected to become necessary in the near future", it said in a press release that wasn't sent to us.

The press release also managed to cram in some green credentials as well.

"The 16-layer optical disc technology, capable of storing much more data than the conventional discs on one disc, will greatly reduce the number of discs to be used and therefore contribute to the conservation of resources".

More disc layer goodness here (in Japanese).

Related news

Ritek crams 150GB onto an HD-DVD