The magic of holographic discs

July 25, 2011
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As “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two” continues its profitable run in cinemas around the world, the thoughts of the packaged media industry will turn to the many ways that the series on video will be diced, sliced and repackaged in the years to come. Boxed sets in the guise of standard, premium and collector’s editions are no doubt ready for the shelves and some say that Warner Bros. has planned the “Ultimate 3D Edition” for a year or two hence. The magic will continue.

As IHS Screen Digest Senior Film Entertainment Analyst Jan Saxton explained, “Once a kid is hooked on the first book and begins to beg his parents for the movie, Warner gets that sale—and almost inevitably, seven more soon thereafter.”

Young people who have grown up with Potter over the past ten years will understand that prediction as they follow Ron and Hermione into the realms of parenthood. But there are other words in the analysis that their offspring might find harder to understand: such as “book”, “DVD” and “Blu-ray”.

Potter’s children will have no need of such muggle-inspired ideas, (aka the thoughts of their ‘old fashioned’ parents and grandparents) since they will be able to download both book and film onto their “iPad 13” and watch it.

Usually, at this point a voice pops up to advise that we will all have high-speed connections sometime soon and that fibre optics will bring multiple movies in high-definition to our homes at little or no cost. Even if this proves to be true (and see previous editions of Eye on the Supply to learn just how likely that might be), to give a physical object is a great motivator to discover what lies within.

Although the future is another country to most of us, there are some certainties not least of which is that Harry and his chums will continue to appeal. It also is likely that the complete works of J. K. Rowling will become less physical and more digital in their consumption, for a while at least. Once-treasured first editions of her books might find a home in charity shops as the on-line generation turns to downloads for its entertainment. The parents who grew up with Harry Potter at their bedside, however, will find it hard not to pass-on the reading habit to their own children, if not their well-thumbed volumes.

As a present, a book token with a suggestion of what it might buy is not the same as the gift of the “real thing” with an enticing cover. Would a voucher to the value of a digital download of the “Goblet of Fire” on Kindle and Blu-ray receive quite the same attention as a gift-wrapped parcel? And while a book or a disc comes without any commitments, a pre-payment card for the online equivalent would not include the data costs involved in the download.

Excluding the final part of the epic, the series on Blu-ray occupies nine discs, which at a conservative estimate represents around 400 GB of data. Add the finale, a set of e-books and some bonus material and the total approaches 500 GB, a large amount of data by any standards. The fortunate few with a 50 Mbps connection could theoretically transfer the Potter oeuvre in a day. Households with the UK average broadband speed of 6.2 Mbps could retrieve it over a week of non-stop downloading.

This, of course, assumes that the ISP does not invoke its “fair use” policy and restrict data downloads beyond a defined limit. For example, one of the few ISPs to offer superfast broadband, Virgin Media, caps its heavy users at 10 GB, after which they cut the transfer speed by 75% for the following five hours. As each Blu-ray disc can hold up to 50 GB, the download could extend over a matter of weeks. The child who wakes up early on Christmas morning to discover that Santa has left a voucher for a Potter download will probably have lost interest by the time it completes on New Year’s Day.

GE Global Research has worked for the past six years on a format that could effectively bridge the gap between physical and digital media – a Blu-ray sized disc that holds up to 500 GB of data. It opens the door to the concept of a single disc that can store the equivalent of a box set with content that could be unlocked and copied directly to companion devices.

Traditional disc media, such as CD, DVD and Blu-ray, relies on reflective layers held by a protective coat of moulded polycarbonate. Although there have been successful attempts to add to the one or two layers in common use, none has found favour in the consumer market. Manufacturing costs increase, the yield falls as the reject rate rises, and the increase in capacity is marginal.

The solution is to use all the space between the two surfaces of the disc, so-called “volumetric storage”, in a holographic format. For years this has been an elusive dream pursued at great cost by several companies, most of which no longer exist. Now it seems that there is a commercial solution in the pipeline, although it remains some way from a marketable product.

GE scientists have devised what they call “bit-wise volume holography” – a technology that cries out for a catchy acronym – that can record data at the speed of Blu-ray. The analogy is no coincidence: the GE format is the same size as a BD and the long-term intention is to make consumer devices that will play both Blu-ray and holographic discs.

The immediate market for this technology is for data archive and retrieval systems where extended life of the storage medium is essential. If the discs can be replicated economically, they could eventually find a place in content distribution networks. Modern hard drives are cheap and reliable but they wear out and fail over time. Optical storage does not have the same problem; a beam of laser light does no harm to the disc as it scans the holographic information.

If GE can licence a consumer version of the product to a CE manufacturer, there could be a resurgence of physical media. Holographic storage would have to be part of a complete ecosystem, not just an alternative to the Blu-ray player in the living room, but the potential is immense.

Imagine a digital locker that lives in the home, a repository for existing DVD and Blu-ray collections as well as a physical distribution platform for 3DHD and beyond. If designed from the ground up, a holographic system could satisfy every bit of the data storage requirement in the home of the future. Content protection could be built-in by writing an invisible signature on every disc that would permanently identify its source.

The fastest way to get large amounts of data from one place to another has often been via “sneaker-net” – hand-carrying several Terabytes of data stored on portable hard drives. A dozen GE holographic discs would weigh much less and could do the same job, potentially at a lower cost.

Superfast broadband will undoubtedly encircle the globe at some point in the future. Until then, its primary use will be for the distribution of volatile and time-sensitive data. Enduring content is best stored on robust media in the hands of the person who owns it.

In the home, the 500 GB holographic disc would be magic. 

Just think of the smile on the face of the digitally savvy child who wakes up on Christmas morning to find the “Complete Harry Potter” beside the bed – everything from “The Philosopher's Stone” to “Tales of Beedle The Bard” and all of it ready to play, instantly and in perpetuity.