400,000 songs on a single disc?

Three hundred DVDs on one disc? How about 400,000 on one disc? That may sound unlikely but one university in Australia has made it possible with a new optical recording method.

Imagine having all your favorite films on one single disc or every single song in the history of your favorite genre on a compact disc. Now it may be possible, according to one group of experts and researchers. Researchers at the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia have discovered a new optical recording method that could transfer hundreds of thousands of songs on a compact disc, or hundreds of DVDs on one single disc, which equals to 1.6 terabytes, (1,600 gigabytes), according to the BBC. Co-author of the research study, James Chon, told the BBC, reports Digital Trends, 'The optical system to record and read 5-D is very similar to the current DVD system. Therefore the industrial scale production of the compact system is possible.' This 5-D recording method uses nano-particles of gold as a 'recording medium and manipulates the light pointing at them.' Previous recording techniques used were through polarization or color and now this new 5-D effect method will combine the two. Optical data storage expert Tom Milster, at the University of Arizona, believes what makes this unique is in its elegant simplicity, 'For example, a Blu-ray player is not an easy system to realise; they've got some wonderful optics in there. People thought that would be pretty difficult to do, but others managed to do it.' The cost for recording these discs are about one nickel each; however, that could increase the factor by 100.