Sony and Panasonic Monday announced a joint effort to develop a next-generation standard for optical disks for professional users.
The companies also said they intend to build a 300GB disc by 2015.
Sony and Panasonic plan to use technologies each developed separately in the new standard. The companies will continue to hold discussions regarding the specifications and other items related to the new standard.
"Optical disks have excellent properties to protect them against the environment, such as dust-resistance and water-resistance, and can also withstand changes in temperature and humidity when stored," the companies said in a statement. "They also allow inter-generational compatibility between different formats, ensuring that data can continue to be read even as formats evolve. This makes them a robust medium for long-term storage of content."
Both Sony and Panasonic have developed products based on the Blu-ray format, but have said they also recognize that optical disks will need to accommodate much larger volumes of data in years to come given the expected future growth in the archive market.
In 2012, Sony commercialized a file-based optical disk archive system in for its XDCAM series of professional broadcasting products, which houses twelve 25GB optical discs in a single cartridge.
Earlier this month, Panasonic launched the 'LB-DM9 series' of optical disk storage devices, which can house twelve 100GB optical disks. A maximum of 90 magazines can be stored, providing a total storage capacity of 180TB.
