The Ultimate Solution?

The very word holograph – a three-dimensional image derived from two interfering laser beams – conjures up the sci-fi notion of chimeras emerging from thin air. As it turns out, truth is stranger than fiction-even science fiction-and holography has finally emerged as the basis of an entirely new and extraordinarily powerful storage medium for visual media.

How powerful? More powerful than a speeding bullet. Though initial holographic products will hold in the range of 200 to 300 GB of data-that’s about 16 hours of HD video-with transfer rates of around 20 MB/s, that capacity is expected to increase by 2010 to TB, holding the equivalent of 800 DVDs on a single disk. One of the additional benefits of holographic disks is that, unlike DVDs, they are relatively impervious to scratches. "The bits are aligned in the material itself," explains In-Star communications technology analyst Gerry Kaufhold. "Holographic films are flexible and less likely to get damaged in the way a CD or DVD would. You can sustain a certain amount of physical damage and still recover the data."

And the costs associated with holographic storage are also sweet for companies that routinely handle large quantities of data. "300 GBs for $50?" says Panasonic vice president, technical liaison, Phil Livingston, comparing holographic storage to other current options. "That’s ten times the storage for only twice the price." At Turner Broadcasting Systems, vice president of broadcast technology and engineering Ron Tarasoff has been working with InPhase Technology to develop InPhase’s Tapestry system for archive purposes and even the electronic delivery of movies. "Compared to the amount of capacity in HD tape, holographic storage is a bargain," he says. "As we move toward electronic delivery-and we are-I really don’t know how I will be able to handle electronic delivery of large D-Cinema files unless I have this kind of storage capability."

You can’t run out right now and pick up a six-pack of holographic disks (usually transparent and round, and housed in varying cartridge shapes that OEMers determine). But that day isn’t far off. In fact, it will come as soon as the end of 2006. The two companies going full steam ahead into the industry have laid out aggressive plans for the debut of the first real products. InPhase, founded in 2000 as a spin-off of Bell Labs, will be the first out of the gate. Its initial systems will be beta tested this summer, with the first OEMed products available by the end of 2006. Japanese optical company Optware plans to begin beta testing next spring.

Holographic storage represents an entirely new technological paradigm for storage. Up until now, all storage-be it magnetic or optical-has worked by changing the surface of the material. Holography is the first technology that works by recording information throughout the volume of the material, "multiplexing" or superimposing information-laden holograms in the same volume. This "three-dimensional" aspect of holography is based on scientific principles (Bragg selectivity) discovered over a century ago. Since the mid-1960s, the idea of holographic storage intrigued scientists, but they had neither the materials nor devices to bring it to fruition.

That all changed when InPhase Technology invented what CTO Kevin Curtis calls "a whole new class of materials." InPhase’s 2 Chemistry material makes the material that forms the actual disk independent of the chemical that photochemically changes to store the media. InPhase also invented the Zero wave manufacturing process to optimize the optical quality of the stored imagery. The company also just closed a $32.1 million third round of funding (from a variety of sources including Bayer MaterialScience, Hitachi Maxell and Nanotech Partners, a venture capital firm sponsored by Mitsubishi Corporation). The added funds are being used to commercialize the initial product, InPhase Tapestry. InPhase Technology says it has purchase commitments from 30 companies, some of which will OEM the technology and others who will be direct users. This "Early Adopter Program" includes Modern Video Film, Pappas Broadcasting, Turner Broadcasting and NLT.

Optware is taking a different tack in developing holographic storage. Unlike InPhase’s method, in which light is recorded from two laser sources placed at an angle to each other, Optware has developed its patented Collinear Holography technique that uses two beams but combines them into a co-axial light path displayed onto a digital mirror device. Collinear holography makes the entire process quite robust, notes Algie Abrams, who is executive consulting architect for film and electronic media, for Optware. "You’ll be able to pay back the disks on multiple devices," he says.

Optware formed an HVD (Holographic Versatile Disk) Alliance of six companies including Fuji Photo Film and CMC Magnetics Corporation. The HVD Alliance is seeking standardization for the format from Ecma International, an international standards body founded in 1961 to monitor global ICT ( Information and Communications Technology) and CE ( Consumer Electronics) standards. The first-generation Optware disk has 200 GBs of storage with an I/O speed of 200 Mb/s. The goal is to be able to store 3.9 TB with I/O speeds exceeding 1 Gb/s.

Some entertainment/media companies have already jumped on the holographic bandwagon, buoyed by the confidence that all professional video formats can be transferred to holographic media. At Turner Broadcasting Systems, says Ron Tarasoff, 20,000 commercials and over 32,000 promos are in the active library, which is stored in a central cache to feed the different networks. Long-range plans are to add feature films to the file-based cache, first at standard definition, then at HD and ultimately at D-Cinema resolutions. "We need something capable of storing a huge amount of data with a huge throughput," he explains. "And we want to be able to retrieve files and move them quickly to the air server and have random access capability to find them. Holographic storage seems to be the answer."

Panasonic has highlighted its P2 memory-based acquisition system for news and production-and has been "cheerleading" InPhase’s progress for several years. "The reason we developed P2 is the same thing – why not use memory and never buy any more tape?" says Livingston. "We think it’s a perfect match for where our systems are going."

Both InPhase Technology and Optware are targeting similar markets in the entertainment and media space, where studios, post production companies and archives, they say, will logically gravitate to holographic storage for both nearline and offline storage. Kevin Curtis, InPhase’s CTO, says OEM prices for the drive will likely be about $10,000 to $15,000 initially, with a media cost of $100 (even less for volume ordering). That’s already dramatically less expensive than current high-end archival tape products like Magstar 9840, which cost about $27,000 a piece. When you consider the media’s long shelf life-both InPhase and Optware say that holographic disks have about a 50- to 60-year life span-the return on investment is dramatic.

For the near future, holographic storage will most likely be used as a nearline and offline storage solution for owners and purveyors of massive amounts of media, such as Turner Broadcasting. But this unusual storage medium also holds promise for multiple uses in the production and post pipelines, including as a digital source master for high-end dupes or as a means to copy, share or archive video at every point during the workflow. If holographic storage actually becomes a consumer format-and rumblings suggest it might in the more distant future-then it could also neatly leap over the battling next-generation DVD standards to become a home media format of choice.