I was thinking about my small, messy CD/SACD/DVD/Blu-ray library and stumbled across this upcoming media format: https://news.panasonic.com/global/stories/2017/49438.html

Looks like Sony and Panasonic have been working on yet another optical standard: Archival Disc. They don't plan to sell them in the consumer market, but anyone who lived through the 90s is going to get déja vu reading this article... the same ambition, the same complex, expensive jukebox solutions, the same media/library customers...

Edited November 25, 20187 yr by HiWire

History does tend to repeat itself, yeah ^^ And not alone either as it appears.

https://www.techspot.com/news/82624-microsoft-successfully-archives-warner-bros-uperman-movie-piece.html

 

Far as data retention went, we only had two issues with CD/DVDs.. moving parts, and material deterioration/fragility. If either approach listed here is what they say it is, welcome news to me.

USB flash drives never managed to replace traditional external storage units, as past a controller, that's exactly what they are. And said same old storage solutions all come with issues; spinners are still susceptible to failures (at rates far higher than the average consumer would think) and are brittle/vibration sensitive; SSDs can't even go that far, as past a set amount of time without power they lose all their data (also unbeknownst to many), plus at 1 grand last time i looked for a measly 4TBs.. yeah.

 

This is purported to be extremely hard to break (they threw it on the floor during the demonstration), unsusceptible to rays or magnetic fields, capable of significant storage capacity and most of all, in no need of any moving part.

* personally, never really minded the copyright wars as i called them; 'cause i never really bit into the products behind them. You want to have many toys, you need also be prepared for additional headaches; was never a toy collector. I'd say that if anything, my tech/gadget/PC usage scenarios were far simpler in the nineties than they've become now. Plus, a closed storage format? Today? Not seeing it.