Researchers at Japan's NHK broadcasters have been very busy recently. While one group works on Super Hi-Vision, another has developed an optical disc capable of spinning at up to 15,000 RPM.
To put that in perspective, current optical disc systems have a speed cap of around 10,000 RPM - spin them any faster and they're likely to disintegrate in the player, or at best become too unstable for reliable recording.
NHK's engineers have created a disc that's just 0.1 mm thick. In essence, it's the recording layer of a Blu-ray disc but without the 1.1 mm plastic substrate that makes the disc rigid.
Because the disc is so thin, it can't be used at all in an ordinary high definition burner. The drive needs modification to include a stabilising plate that keeps the disc steady.
The technology has been developed because NHK's broadcast-quality HD signals stream at 250Mbps, whereas a standard 1x Blu-ray disc can record only at 36Mbps. In other words, the new discs are capable of writing at 7x speed.
Don't expect to see this kind of technology available to the consumer any time soon. It's likely to remain in the professional broadcasting domain for some time to come.
(Via Macsimum News)
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