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Microsoft Research teamed up with Warner Bros. to store the 1978 movie Superman in a palm-sized glass plate storage device. This collaboration is the first test case for a new storage technology that wants to store video data such as Hollywood movies and TV shows over centuries.
Microsoft launched Project Silica in 2016 with the University of Southampton’s Optoelectronic Optical Research Center. Its purpose is to develop a medium for storing cold data that has not been accessed for decades by adopting glass as a recording medium. In other words, the frequency of access decreases over time, but the goal is to leave data that needs long-term preservation to future generations.
Founded in the 1920s, Warner Bros. has a lot of cold data, including audio from radio programs from the 1940s, Casablanca, and the Wizard of Oz. These films are also tightly controlled in temperature and humidity in refrigerated storage, and are monitored by means of a chemical decomposition detection sensor indicating a problem. Thanks to this storage, the Wizard of Oz 4K remaster is also possible. Recently, Warner stores all movies and TV programs, including filming, on 35mm film in digital form.
However, storage using such actual film has a locational limitation. However, the ease of damage to the hard disk and the ease of damage such as DVD and Blu-ray are highly likely to not endure decades. The technology Warner chose was Project Silica.
75.6GB of data containing the movie Superman is housed in a 75×75×2mm glass plate. The capacity is not so superior to Blu-ray, which holds 50GB in two layers on a 12cm disc, but its strength is in its lifespan and stability. The development team says that even if the glass plate is baked in an oven, soaked in a boiling horse, heated in a microwave, and scraped with a scrubber, the data can be read without any problems.
Project Silica burns voxels into glass using the same type of laser as it is used in LASIK surgery. You can think of a voxel as a 3D digital image unit with thickness information. This Superman movie is said to be stored in 74 layers. Access to this recorded data is read through the glass by analyzing the reflected light from a reader such as a microscope. Related information can be found here .
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