Researchers create a “Super DVD”.

DVD is dead, long live “Super DVD”.

According to a new article in nature magazine, Chinese researchers have managed to create a DVD-like disc with hundreds of layers – increasing the disc capacity to the petabit level.

Researchers at the Shanghai University of Science and Technology published their results a few days ago. Using a 54-nanometer laser, the team was able to record hundreds of layers of data onto an optical disc, with each layer of the 3D beam separated by just one micrometer.

The result is a 1.6 petabit DVD-sized optical data storage (ODS) solution – which translates to about 200 terabytes (Tb) or 200,000 gigabytes (Gb).

To put that into perspective, a regular DVD only has 4.7GB on one layer, Blu-ray has 25GB (single layer) or 50GB (dual layer), and a 4K UHD disc maxes out with a multi-layer disc with 100 GB. A movie like “Blade Runner 2049” displays on UHD watches with a file size of about 70GB.

This means a single disc capable of holding thousands of feature-length movies in 4K resolution. The technology is seen as a potential game-changer for archivists and large data centers.

This progress also comes at a time when retailers are reducing or eliminating their physical media offerings altogether.