Blu-ray Discs are getting a step-up, after the Blu-ray Disc Association announced two new specs for the format—BDXL, and IH-BD. There’s bad news however—you’ll need to buy a new player/recorder to use the 128GB discs.
The new BDXL specification describes High Capacity Recordable and Rewritable discs which will write up to 128GB of content on each disc. These are write-once capacities, with the rewritable discs allowing for 100GB of storage. For now it’s just for commercial usage, but the BDA will be launching consumer BDXL discs, which will be handy for those of us planning on investing in a Blu-ray recorder in the near future.
The IH-BD format will contain two layers of 25GB capacity each—one for BD-ROM use, and the other a BD-RE layer, designed for viewing but not overwriting data.
While the extra storage capacity for the BDXL discs is welcome, it’s not all good news—as the BDA has warned that they won’t be compatible with existing hardware. Look out for BDXL and IH-BD supported Blu-ray players and recorders soon. [BusinessWire]
