I’m not a massive collector of DVDs. I have a pretty good memory, and between Netflix, the internet, and my In Real Life friends (I keep telling you they exist!), I’d much rather spend my money on something that ISN’T Oceans 12. Yeah, it’s an okay movie sandwiched between it’s sequels that I can watch multiple times, there’s just no reason for me to own it. I can YouTube the best parts.

My (current) external hard drive is also filling up with different copies of my directing-partner’s reel, the X-Men Origins: Wolverine leak I still haven’t watched my copy of, a couple of PDF scripts and…well, some DVD rips.

But now all your storage problems might be solved as G.E. announces that it’s experiments in holographic disc encoding has allowed them to expand the space on DVD and Blu-Ray disc by 100x. In layman’s terms: 100 DVDs on 1 disc…

From NYT:

To date, holographic storage has not been on a path to mainstream use. The G.E. development, however, could be that pioneering step, according to analysts and experts. The G.E. researchers have used a different approach than past efforts. It relies on smaller, less complex holograms — a technique called microholographic storage.

A crucial challenge for the team, which has been working on this project since 2003, has been to find the materials and techniques so that smaller holograms reflect enough light for their data patterns to be detected and retrieved.

The recent breakthrough by the team, working at the G.E. lab in Niskayuna, N.Y., north of Albany, was a 200-fold increase in the reflective power of their holograms, putting them at the bottom range of light reflections readable by current Blu-ray machines.

“We’re in the ballpark,” said Brian Lawrence, the scientist who leads G.E.’s holographic storage program. “We’ve crossed the threshold so we’re readable.”

In G.E.’s approach, the holograms are scattered across a disc in a way that is similar to the formats used in today’s CDs, conventional DVDs and Blu-ray discs. So a player that could read microholographic storage discs could also read CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs. But holographic discs, with the technology G.E. has attained, could hold 500 gigabytes of data. Blu-ray is available in 25-gigabyte and 50-gigabyte discs, and a standard DVD holds 5 gigabytes.

“If this can really be done, then G.E.’s work promises to be a huge advantage in commercializing holographic storage technology,” said Bert Hesselink, a professor at Stanford and an expert in the field.

When Blu-Ray came out, it’s restrictive price made it the unlikely winner of the format wars. The Blu-Ray technology cost about $1 per gigabyte when it was first developed. Since Blu-Ray pounded HD-DVD into the ground, the price has dropped to about half what it used to be, but still remains pricey for companies reluctant to switch formats.

The way G.E.’s experiments with microholographic storage, gigs could get as cheap as $0.10 a pop. Nice.

Then, I’d only need, like 5 DVDs to hold all my movies.

Smiley-face emoticon.