TDK cracks 200GB Blu-ray Disc problem

TDK had been working on a 200GB Blu-ray disc for some time now. But it was reported that their engineers had been facing a few roadblocks. Their original idea was to make it a 4 disc (8 layers) unit, with 50GB being stored on each disc. But cramming 4 dual layer Blu-ray discs into a unit was too difficult.

Instead, they’ve reduced the actual number of layers to 6, and increased the capacity of each layer by about 30%. According to the report, it uses bismuth peroxide as the recording medium – heat it sufficiently with laser light and it forms bubbles of air. These reflect light differently than the surrounding material does, so can be used to record digital information in the way a CD or DVD’s pits do.

It is still unclear whether a normal BD-ROM can actually read these discs. At this point, it looks more like a show-off than anything else. Lets just wait and watch.

TDK had been working on a 200GB Blu-ray disc for some time now. But it was reported that their engineers had been facing a few roadblocks. Their original idea was to make it a 4 disc (8 layers) unit, with 50GB being stored on each disc. But cramming 4 dual layer Blu-ray discs into a unit was too difficult.

Instead, they’ve reduced the actual number of layers to 6, and increased the capacity of each layer by about 30%. According to the report, it uses bismuth peroxide as the recording medium – heat it sufficiently with laser light and it forms bubbles of air. These reflect light differently than the surrounding material does, so can be used to record digital information in the way a CD or DVD’s pits do.

It is still unclear whether a normal BD-ROM can actually read these discs. At this point, it looks more like a show-off than anything else. Lets just wait and watch.