3 and 4 Generation Optical Discs

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What Is an Optical Disc?

In computing and optical disc recording technologies, an optical disc (OD) is a flat, usually circular disc which encodes binary data (bits) in the form of pits and lands. It is encoded on a special material on one of its flat surfaces. The encoding pattern follows a continuous, spiral path covering the entire disc surface and extending from the innermost track to the outermost track.

Reading And Writing on Disks

The data is stored on the disc with a laser or stamping machine, and can be accessed when the data path is illuminated with a laser diode in an optical disc drive which spins the disc at speeds of about 200 to 4000 RPM or more, depending on the drive type, disc format, and the distance of the read head from the center of the disc (inner tracks are read at a faster disc speed).

First Generation Optical Discs

First generation optical disks compromises of : CD (Compact Disc), Laser Disc and lesser known discs such as GD-ROM, MD (Mini Disc), Magneto-optical drive Initially, optical discs were used to store music and computer software. The Laserdisc format stored analog video signals for the distribution of home video, but commercially lost to the VHS(videocassette format), due mainly to its high cost and non-re-recordability; other first-generation disc formats were designed only to store digital data and were not initially capable of use as a digital video medium.

Second Generation Optical Discs

Second-generation optical discs were for storing great amounts of data, including broadcast-quality digital video. Such discs usually are read with a visible-light laser (usually red); the shorter wavelength and greater numerical aperture allow a narrower light beam, permitting smaller pits and lands in the disc. Second generation optical disks compromises of : DVD, Super Audio CD, Enhanced Versatile Disc, Data Play, Ultra Density Optical.

Third Generation Optical Discs

Third-generation optical discs are in development, meant for distributing highdefinition video and support greater data storage capacities, accomplished with short-wavelength visible-light lasers and greater numerical apertures. The Blu-ray disc uses blue-violet lasers and focusing optics of greater aperture, for use with discs with smaller pits and lands, thereby greater data storage capacity per layer. Second generation optical disks compromises of : Blu Ray Disc, HD DVD, Forward Versatile Disc, Fluorescent Multilayer Disc.

Blu-Ray Disc

Blu-ray Disc (BD) is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs (50 GB) being the norm for feature-length video discs. Triple layer discs (100 GB) and quadruple layers (128 GB) are available for BD-XL re-writer drives.

HD DVD
HD DVD (short for High-Definition/Density DVD) is a discontinued highdensity optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format. However, in February 2008, after a protracted high definition optical disc format war with rival Blu-Ray Disc, Toshiba abandoned the format, announcing it would no longer develop or manufacture HD DVD players or drives.

Fluorescent Multilayered Disc

Fluorescent Multilayer Disc (FMD) is an optical disc format developed by Constellation 3D that uses fluorescent, rather than reflective materials to store data. Reflective disc formats (such as CD and DVD) have a practical limitation of about two layers, primarily due to interference, scatter, and interlayer cross talk. However, the use of fluorescence allowed FMDs to operate according to the principles of 3D optical data storage and have up to 100 data layers. These extra layers potentially allowed FMDs to have capacities of up to a terabyte, while maintaining the same physical size of traditional optical discs.

Fourth Generation Optical Disc

The following formats go beyond the current third-generation discs and have the potential to hold more than one terabyte (1 TB) of data: Holographic Versatile Disc , LS-R, Protein Coated Disc.

Holographic Versatile Disc

The Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) is an optical disc technology developed between April 2004 and mid-2008 that can store up to several terabytes of data on an optical disc 10cm in diameter. The reduced radius reduces cost and materials used. It employs a technique known as collinear holography, whereby a green and red laser beam are collimated in a single beam.

LS-R
LS-R, or the Layer-Selection-Type Recordable Optical Disk, is the term coined by Hitachi in 2003 for a next-generation optical disc technology which allows much larger data storage densities than DVD, HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc, by allowing the use of a large number of data layers in a single disc. In previous optical disc technologies, only a relatively small number of data layers can be incorporated in a single disc, since the reflections from the different layers interfere with each other.

Protein Coated Disc

Protein-Coated Disc (PCD) is a theoretical optical disc technology currently being developed by Professor Venkatesan Renugopalakrishnan, formerly of Harvard Medical School and Florida International University. PCD would greatly increase storage over Holographic Versatile Disc optical disc systems. It involves coating a normal DVD with a special light-sensitive protein made from a genetically altered microbe, which would in principle allow storage of up to 50 Terabytes on one disc.

CONCLUSION
Various techniques and compression patterns are being adopted by the various companies to bring into the commercial market, more optical discs of higher storage capacity coupled with faster reading rates, and surely the advancement of technologies in various fields would help their development.