All the news focus maybe on the battle between HD-DVD and Blu-ray, but both could pale in significance to a holographic storage system that could be on sale by the end of next year.

Developed by InPhase Technologies and Hitachi this technology, dubbed "Tapestry holographic memory technology" uses laser light interference to store 300GB on a single disc.

The disc, which would be around 13cm in diameter and a little wider than conventional DVD promises to hold more than six times the maximum content promised from Sony and Toshiba for their next generation formats.

The greater capacity would mean that up to 26 hours of High Definition content could fit onto a single disc.

The holographic storage system uses light from a single laser split into two beams: the signal beam and the reference beam. The hologram is formed at the intersection point of these two beams, in the recording medium. By varying the reference beam angle, wavelength, or media position, several different holograms can be recorded in the same volume of material.

>> Hitachi - Official website of Hitachi