Sony and Panasonic announced they have formulated specifications for their 'Archival Disc,' which they position as a new standard for professional-use, next-generation optical discs, "with the objective of expanding the market for long-term digital data storage."

Both companies aim to launch systems with a recording capacity of 300GB per disc from the Summer 2015, onwards. In addition, they plan to leverage their respective technologies to further expand the recording capacity per disc to 500GB and 1TB. The roadmap comes complete with a bespoke logo.



The companies say that, of late, demand for archival capabilities has increased significantly in the film industry, as well as in cloud data centers that handle big data, where advances in network services have caused data volumes to soar.

Both Sony and Panasonic have experience working on the development of Blu-ray Disc technology. While some press coverage speculates that these developments point to a possible next-generation home entertainment Blu-ray disc format to accommodate emerging 4K content, both companies make it clear this high-capacity optical disc standard is targeted to the professional sector.

This technological milestone is the result of a research agreement signed in July 2013.

Story filed 22.03.14