BDA: No Discs Bigger than 50GB for Movies

With recent announcements from Sharp and TDK regarding increased capacity of Blu-ray discs (100GB and 320GB respectively), the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) was asked to comment on the possibility of Blu-ray movie titles utilizing the new technology. Andy Parsons, Chair of the Blu-ray Disc Association Promotion Committee in the United States, made it clear that this would be unlikely to happen any time soon.

"I think there will be applications for larger capacity recordable discs, but it would be difficult for [discs larger than 50GB] to achieve compatibility with the installed base of players," he said. "This is because player manufacturers design players to meet published specifications that define maximum media capacity, which in the case of Blu-ray Disc, is 50GB on two-layer media."

For those hoping to get the every episode of Seinfeld on one disc, however, there is some hope. Much the same as how VHS added larger formats that were incompatible with existing hardware, Blu-ray could eventually do the same. Parsons was again cautious, however, stating, "But interestingly, virtually all published content in VHS was released in two-hour SP mode, since it was the lowest common denominator among the installed base of tape decks."

For now, these larger discs are being positioned for use as BD-R/RE for storage of data rather than film playback.