What would you think if you could have more movies than you can handle at your disposal at all times? Yeah yeah, that’s what we all thought streaming services were supposed to do before we realized that even our purchases are temporary. Well that dream is coming to fruition, as scientists have developed a disc that can hold the equivalent of nearly a quarter-million DVDs aka more content than you can even fathom.

This so-called “super DVD” can hold — ready for this? — approximately 125,000 gigabytes. For reference, single-layer DVDs hold around 4.5 GB of data, while a double-layer can hold about 8.5. And for those wondering what the term for this massive amount of data is, the word you’re looking for is “petabit.”

As for how they can even put so much information onto one DVD, according to a new paper published in Nature (via Newsweek), “We increase the capacity of [optical data storage] to the petabit level by extending the planar recording architecture to three dimensions with hundreds of layers, meanwhile breaking the optical diffraction limit barrier of the recorded spots.” OK, that’s a lot of jargon, but basically they print the information in 3D.

While this is a major breakthrough in data storage, those behind the study also pointed out that there is another perk for the environmentally conscious, as it would also help the minimize carbon footprint. 

But for most of us, it’s the draw of having everything we could ever need readily available on one DVD that is hard to pass up. While we are huge supporters of maintaining and building your home video collection, it does feel like this “super DVD” would be the ultimate combination of both physical media and streaming. Gone would be the days of figuring out which service has this show or that movie; it would be right there (although we do wonder how cataloging would work). Granted, your shelves would be a lot emptier, and just imagine the stress of figuring out the first 20,000 movies you’re going to load on this sucker!

What do you think of the “super DVD”? Is it a feasible move forward in the world of digital technology or something that wouldn’t work in the mainstream? Give us your thoughts below.

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