The Blu-ray Disc Association announced last week that it has approved two new disc formats that provide customers with additional options for writing or rewriting on the Blu-ray format.
The first specification, dubbed BDXL, targets the medical, broadcasting and imaging businesses with 100GB and 128GB recordable Blu-ray discs. The goal of the new format is to accommodate the increasing storage needs of these commercial sectors with a long-term archival format that is more reliable tape, but smaller than hard drive arrays.
“Professional industries have expressed a desire to find optical disc solutions that enable them to transition away from magnetic media for their archiving needs,” said Victor Matsuda, Blu-ray Disc Association Global Promotions Committee chair. “Leveraging Blu-ray Disc to meet this need provides professional enterprises with a compact, stable and long term solution for archiving large
amounts of sensitive data, video and graphic images using a proven and widely accepted optical technology.”
The BDA also noted that a consumer version of the BDXL spec is slated for markets where Blu-ray recorders have achieved “broad consumer acceptance,” but clarification on this point was not provided at press time.
The Intra-Hybrid Blu-ray Disc (IH-BD), the second approved spec, incorporates a 25GB read-only BD-ROM layer and a 25GB rewritable layer (BD-RE) so users can “include relevant personal data” without overwriting “critical published data.” A relevant use case for this design was not provided.
Finally, the BDA did not specify when the new formats are headed to market, but it was cautioned that both BDXL and IH-BD will require new players and recorders. The new equipment will be backwards compatible with existing Blu-ray specs, as the new standards are merely an extension.
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