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The Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) is an optical disc technology that was expected to store up to several terabytes of data on an optical disc 10 cm or 12 cm in diameter. Its development commenced in April 2004, but it never arrived due to lack of funding. The company responsible for HVD went bankrupt in 2010. The reduced radius reduces cost and materials used. It employs a technique known as collinear
holography Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other applications. In principle, i ...
, whereby a blue-green and red
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The ...
beam are
collimated A collimated beam of light or other electromagnetic radiation has parallel rays, and therefore will spread minimally as it propagates. A perfectly collimated light beam, with no divergence, would not disperse with distance. However, diffraction p ...
in a single beam. The blue-
green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combin ...
laser reads data encoded as laser interference fringes from a
holographic Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other applications. In principle, i ...
layer near the top of the disc. A red laser is used as the reference beam to read servoinformation from a regular CD-style
aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...
layer near the bottom. Servoinformation is used to monitor the position of the read head over the disc, similar to the head, track, and sector information on a conventional
hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with mag ...
. On a CD or DVD this servoinformation is interspersed among the data. A
dichroic mirror A dichroic filter, thin-film filter, or interference filter is a color filter used to selectively pass light of a small range of colors while reflecting other colors. By comparison, dichroic mirrors and dichroic reflectors tend to be characteriz ...
layer between the holographic data and the servo data reflects the blue-
green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combin ...
laser while letting the red laser pass through. This prevents interference from refraction of the
blue-green Blue-green is the color that is between green and blue. It belongs to the cyan family of colors. Variations Cyan (aqua) Cyan, also called aqua, is the blue-green color that is between blue and green on a modern RGB color wheel. The ...
laser off the servo data pits and is an advance over past holographic storage media, which either experienced too much interference, or lacked the servo data entirely, making them incompatible with current CD and DVD drive technology. Standards for 100 GB read-only holographic discs and 200 GB recordable cartridges were published by ECMA in 2007, but no holographic disc product has ever appeared in the market. A number of release dates were announced, all since passed, likely due to high costs of the drives and discs itself, lack of compatibility with existing or new standards, and competition from
video streaming Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...
.


Technology

Current optical storage saves one bit per pulse, and the HVD alliance hopes to improve this efficiency with capabilities of around 60,000 bits per pulse in an inverted, truncated cone shape that has a 200 
μm The micrometre ( international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: μm) or micrometer ( American spelling), also commonly known as a micron, is a unit of length in the International System of Uni ...
diameter at the bottom and a 500 μm diameter at the top. High densities are possible by moving these closer on the tracks: 100 GB at 18 μm separation, 200 GB at 13 μm, 500 GB at 8 μm, and most demonstrated of 5 TB for 3 μm on a 10 cm disc. The system uses a green
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The ...
, with an output power of 1
watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...
which is high power for a consumer device laser. Possible solutions include improving the sensitivity of the
polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + '' -mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...
used, or developing and commoditizing a laser capable of higher power output while being suitable for a consumer unit.


Competing technologies

HVD is not the only technology in high-capacity, holographic storage media. InPhase Technologies was developing a rival holographic format called Tapestry Media, which they claimed would eventually store 1.6 TB with a data transfer rate of 120 MB/s, and several companies are developing TB-level discs based on 3D optical data storage technology. Such large optical storage capacities compete favorably with the
Blu-ray Disc The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
format. However, in 2006, holographic drives were projected to initially cost around US$15,000, and a single disc around US$120–180, although prices were expected to fall steadily. Since InPhase Technologies was unable to deliver their promised product, they ran out of funds and went bankrupt in 2010.


Holography System Development Forum

The Holography System Development Forum (HSD Forum; formerly the HVD Alliance and the HVD FORUM) is a coalition of corporations purposed to provide an industry forum for testing and technical discussion of all aspects of HVD design and manufacturing. , the following companies are members of the forum: *CBCGroup * Daicel *
FujiFilm , trading as Fujifilm, or simply Fuji, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, operating in the realms of photography, optics, office and medical electronics, biotechnology, and chemicals. The offerings from the ...
* Konica Minolta Inc. *Kyoeisha *Pulstec *Shibaura Mechatronics Corporation *
Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...
* Teijin Chemicals Ltd. *Tokiwa Optical Corporation , the following companies are supporting companies of the forum: *Kodate Laboratory


Standards

On December 9, 2004, at its 88th General Assembly, the standards body Ecma International created Technical Committee 44, dedicated to standardizing HVD formats based on Optware's technology. On June 11, 2007, TC44 published the first two HVD standards: ECMA-377, defining a 200 GB HVD "recordable cartridge" and ECMA-378, defining a 100 GB HVD-ROM disc. Its next stated goals were 30 GB HVD cards and submission of these standards to the
International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in A ...
for ISO approval.


General Electric

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable ene ...
Global Research Centers created a holographic disc that could hold many times the data of a Blu-Ray — up to 500  GB. As the technology is quite similar to CD, DVD, and Blu-ray technologies, the players were to be cross-compatible with these formats.


See also

* DVD *
Compact Disc The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in O ...
*
Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...
*
HD DVD HD DVD (short for High Definition Digital Versatile Disc) is an obsolete high-density optical disc format for storing data and playback of high-definition video. Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the ...
* Ultra Density Optical (UDO) * Professional Disc for DATA (PDD or ProDATA) * Holographic memory * 3D optical data storage *
Magneto-optical drive A magneto-optical drive is a kind of optical disc drive capable of writing and rewriting data upon a magneto-optical disc. Both 130 mm (5.25 in) and 90 mm (3.5 in) form factors exist. In 1983, just a year after the introduct ...
(MO) *
Holographic Versatile Card The Holographic Versatile Card (HVC) was a proposed data storage format by Optware; the projected date for a Japanese launch had been the first half of 2007, pending finalization of the specification, however as of March 2022, nothing has yet surf ...
* Stacked Volumetric Optical Disk (SVOD) * InPhase Technologies


References


External links


DaTARIUS signs agreement
wit

of Tapestry Media hardware and media to ship starting in 2007 (300 GB WORM discs) with 600 GB discs and re-writable technology in 2008 as well as 1.6 TB media available in 2010.
Optware
creator of HVD format.
InPhase
a now bankrupt, company that developed a competing holographic storage format.
Video explaining holographic storage
nbsp;– PC Magazine, October 4, 2006
Holography system rides single beam
EE Times, February 27, 2006 – interview with Hideyoshi Horimai and Yoshio Aoki of Optware Corp.
Holographic storage standards eyed
EE Times, February 28, 2006 – article about the upcoming technical committee meeting to begin standardization of HVD.

explains how HVD works.
Elusive Green Laser Is Missing Ingredient
Wall Street Journal February 13, 2008
General Electric unveils 500GB optical disc storage
{{Ecma International Standards Audiovisual introductions in 2004 120 mm discs Ecma standards Holographic data storage Rotating disc computer storage media Vaporware