Blu-ray Disc brains think up high-capacity disc spec

The Blu-ray Disc Association has taken a couple of new disc formats out of their wrappers, one aimed at the broadcasting business, the other at consumers.

Not, we have to say, that there's a compelling reason for ordinary folk to buy into IH-BD - it stands for Intra-Hybrid Blu-ray Disc. It combines a single-layer pre-recorded BD with a single-layer rewriteable BD-RE disc.

Presumably, the notion is that publishers can release a movie on IH-BD and give the buyer space to store downloaded content relevant to the main feature.

Except punters will need new hardware, the BDA admitted, and why do that when so many existing BD players now let you connect a cheap USB Flash drive to them?

The BDXL spec also requires new hardware, but that's because to up to the storage capacity to 128GB for write-once media and 100GB for rewriteable discs, all thanks to the inclusion of three to four recording layers.

But the BDXL format is aimed at content creators and broadcasters, who generally have the budget for new stuff like this. The BDA said it will be pitching BDXL to these folk as an archive medium. ®