Swinburne University in Australia, has research that leads to DVD’s storing 2000 movies, this great dealing with issues of archiving, storage of video related material as the industry is increasing using tapleless formats and backup, media asset management and retrieval our key to success in handling large volumes of data relevant to the media, government and entertainment sector.

This seems good news for those who either manage or administrate data migration policies to future proof material and were wondering if Blu-ray was the only large format optical storage option available.

The research, carried out by Mr Peter Zijlstra, Dr James Chon and Professor Min Gu was published in the scientific journal Nature. In the article it describes how the researchers were able to use nanoscopic particles to exponentially increase the amount of information contained on a single disc.

The researchers were also able to introduce an extra dimension onto the disc using polarisation. When they projected light waves onto the disc, the direction of the electric field contained within them aligned with the gold nanorods. This allowed the researchers to record different layers of information at different angles.

“The polarisation can be rotated 360 degrees,” Chon said. “So for example, we were able to record at zero degree polarisation. Then on top of that, we were able to record another layer of information at 90 degrees polarisation, without them interfering with each other.”

Some issues, such as the speed at which the discs can be written on, are yet to be resolved. However the researchers are confident the discs will be commercially available within 5 – 10 years.

The discs are likely to have immediate applications in a range of fields. They would be valuable for storing extremely large medical files such as MRIs and could also provide a boon in the financial, military and security arenas.

Taken from Swinburne Media centre press release.
http://www.swinburne.edu.au/corporate/marketing/mediacentre/core/releases_article.php?releaseid=1330

Nature article
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7245/full/nature08053.html

For the techies and geeks you can send correspondence to: James W. M. Chon1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to J.W.M.C. (Email: JCh...@groupwise.swin.edu.au), to find out about the “Five-dimensional optical recording mediated by surface plasmons in gold nanorods” that make all this possible.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7245/full/nature08053.html

http://www.swinburne.edu.au/corporate/marketing/mediacentre/core/releases_article.php?releaseid=1330

Great to hear your views and thoughts on this.

The Return of the Sponsor: Programming Brand Integration Keeping production budgets afloat with the help of Corporate America.

Speakers, lineup, contributors and moderators include:

Adam Armus, Executive Producer, Heroes (NBC), talks about the role of Brand integration in Heroes and also how the internet and mobile have affected how the show is produced and how brands benefit from the extension, from the net and mobile handheld audience, long after the programmed has finished airing via broadcast.

With companies looking to reassess and re apportion their marketing and ad spend instead of buying airtime between programmes, they look to be involved in spending and investing in tv or films to connect with their audience and have a cheaper way of reaching a more targeted demographic or consumer.

This becoming an important way to get production funding for projects and will play an increasing in AFP (advertiser funded productions/programmes). As Adam Armus, Executive Producer of Heroes pointed out this does not allow the sponsor to dictate or revise scripts or influence production in way to dilute the programme offering.

It would be great to hear your views especially those of you involved in production and creating branded video projects.