Sharp Readies BD-100 Blu-ray Laser

At the 70th Autumn Meeting of the Japan Society of Applied Physics being held this week, Sharp announced that they have successfully created a Blu-ray laser diode which operates at a maximum of 500mW, enough to burn four-layer Blu-ray discs. This would allow for, when approved by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), Blu-ray discs with either 75GB or 100GB capacities. Sharp was able to advance Blu-ray laser diode technology by using a new method to process the edge face of the resonator. Typically, the crystal in the semiconductor is protected by a dielectric film. The consumer electronics company found that by introducing an aluminum oxynitride divider, performance of the diode increased exponentially. They have performed many test on the diode, operating it more than 1000 hours straight at a temperature of 80 degrees Celsius (176 degrees Fahrenheit) at full power, and have determined it ready for mass production. The only hurdle now is the BDA will have to adopt the BD-75 and BD-100 into the Blu-ray format, but once that happens, Sharp hopes to have commercially ready products soon after.
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RiseDarthVader  » Sep 11, 2009
Bring it on! The less compression in our movies the better!

ckenisell  » Sep 11, 2009
Maybe THIS is why Warner is waiting to release LOTR EE's. :P Can you say entire trilogy on maybe two discs? Eventually, you won't need to be really well versed on encoding. Just max out the bitrate on everything and you'll be good to go.

DualEdge  » Sep 11, 2009
I recall reading previously that all these 50GB+ prototype discs made by various manufacturers were being made to work in our existing systems. I hope that is still the case...

fettastic  » Sep 11, 2009
I can't wait for 3D BD-100's. I have no problem whatsoever upgrading my equipment over time to have the best experience. I don't know how eager Joe Sixpack will be to do so, but I'm all in!

fettastic  » Sep 11, 2009
Those LOTR BDs are probably already manufactured and sitting in that warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark just waiting to be released at teh opportune time.

wallendo  » Sep 11, 2009

The article is somewhat vague. It starts off talking about BURNING three and four layer disks, but the latter part of the article does not talk about BD-r disks. The only real-world application for this technology would be for data storage. Unless BD-75 and BD-100 disks can be made compatible with current players, the technology will never be popular for consumer video. Possibly this technology could be used for 3-D if a way could be found to store a standard 2-D version on two layers readable by current players.

JT_Designer  » Sep 11, 2009
I disagree. Future Blu-ray disks could possibly be burned onto BD-75 and BD-100 and these drives would be backwards compatible with current day Blu-ray movie disks. Current day technology will always become obsolete. What is the shelf life of a Blu-ray player? People may own it for a few years and their next one will be capable of reading BD-75 and BD-100.

PeterTHX  » Sep 11, 2009
Commercial discs are *stamped*, not burned. These are for BD-R applications only. Not pre-recorded packaged software.

vveksuvarna  » Sep 11, 2009

unless they have firmware upgrades for current players to read upto 4 levels, studios will be hesitant to release titles on 4layer bds, they will have to deal with a lot of returns, when the disc is perfectly fine. believe it or not, there are lot of consumers who havent upgraded their firmware since the day of purchase, i hope bd75 & bd100 become a reality, but backward compatibility is priority no1.

Josh  » Sep 11, 2009
As many have pointed out, this would, at least initially, be for data storage (BD-R/RE) discs. Now, if they were successful enough, there is no reason why they couldn't transition over to Hollywood films. Remember, Blu-ray started as a data storage medium until Hollywood required a high definition optical format.

-Sandro-  » Sep 11, 2009
New player needed ah?

alphadec  » Sep 11, 2009
sounds fantastic. I want more space

Oddiophile  » Sep 11, 2009
Awesome news!!! Bring on the BD100's!!!!! WoooooHoooo....

RIKANA  » Sep 11, 2009
O_O wow! I approive! BRING IT ON! RI

mr.hidef  » Sep 11, 2009
You know....I think these companies FIRST need to make their players work properly with all existing titles, instead of cramming a bunch of extra stuff (most people don't even watch) onto 75g, or 100g disca to freeze up our players. So don't be shocked when you need a NEWER player to play those!.......It's all marketing..........and these companies KNOW that they are good at it.

cmasiero  » Sep 12, 2009
@PeterTHX I think that the initial CD is 'burnt', then a stamp is created. Can't be sure though.

Neil_Luv's_BLU  » Sep 12, 2009
Think of what developers like Kojima would be able to do with a 100 GB BR!!! What is the current status of the 400 GB discs that Pioneer were working on? It all seems to have gone quiet their end!?!

trans22  » Sep 12, 2009
Maybe the studios might bring back uncompressed PCM.

YodasFootPowder  » Sep 12, 2009
I better not have to bu a new player.

BluMood  » Sep 12, 2009
Dump the 25GB disc please and put everything on the 50GB with DTS-HD or PCM. I know whats coming with the 25... Crappy sound.

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