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RE: 4K 60FPS video is coming but where are we going to store it? The unexplored potential of optical discs
Thanks for this remarkable article.
The University of Southampton project sounds phenomenal... I was digging for but haven't yet found information on write/read rates and so forth, but the raw capacity v storage size sounds phenomenal... I've been saying for 25 years that I want 100TB in my shirt pocket; this ought to do it!
Storage capacities like this would make 360 degree spherical life-logging practical. Have you ever watched a scene unfold and after the fact said "I wish I had a picture of that." ? ;)
There was an article the other day on the dilemma of living a moment and capturing a moment on the phone or camera. This is definitely something that can be solved technologically, meaning that if we had adequate capacity, there would be no problem having a small sensor on our eyeglasses or head, that simply takes very high quality photos, at something like 100-200fps. In this way you both live the moment, and be assured that everything is recorded in real time and you can replay it later.
This will need a few years to become feasible, but eventually it will be. It's just a matter of time.
In theory, high-capacity optical drives were also supposed to be a matter of time to manifest, but they didn't (for the mainstream). For data archival purposes, optical discs are alive and well, although only for professional environments because the premiums are extreme...
http://www.sony.gr/pro/product/archiving-storage-oda-stand-alone-drive/ods-d77u/features/#features
"The ODS-D77U has very high transfer speeds. Read is 1.1Gbps. Write-once is 440 Mbps and Rewritable is 160 Mbps in case of verify on. Performance is varied based on type of cartridges."
Yet the device costs something like 6000$+ and the 1.5TB discs around 150$.
Note that this is ~5yr old tech btw. They can do a lot of stuff, they just don't want to.
Wow, that's pretty pricey! :0 :(
I wonder if the University of Southampton tech will ever be productized... It sounds just like science fiction.
There are already some Kickstarter projects that offer "life cams" but I don't know what the quality and the capacity are. One way to deal with it is to make the storage selective - just keep a high-speed, high quality buffer loop going and have a "capture" button that lets you archive only the last minute or two once you notice something that you want to save.