Mempile to show off 1TB DVD disk

Israel-based Mempile Inc. said its TeraDisc DVDs will offer 1TB of storage for consumers in the next few years -- and corporations will be able to use the technology to permanently store data at a fraction of the price of spinning disk and tape, according to Dr. Beth Erez, Mempile's chief marketing officer. Today's high-definition DVDs hold a maximum of 50GB in formats such as HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc.

With 1TB capacity, a TeraDisc could hold up to 250,000 high-resolution photos or MP3s, or about 40 HD movies or 115 DVD movies. While that may seem like an unnecessary amount of capacity for anything but the largest professional needs, Tom Coughlin, a storage analyst at Coughlin Associates in Atascadero, Calif., said HD formats for movie distribution are already four times the current 1080-pixel resolution currently used for consumer HD retail movie distribution. Over the next 10 years, both studio and consumer HD products will multiply by 10 times the current resolution.