The Blu-Ray format is still largely in its infancy and with the relatively breakneck technological breakthroughs that the blu-ray has been gaining, its full potential remains a mystery.

With most blu-ray readers on the market limited to single and dual layer disk reading, the new developments being made by Hitachi should make other blu-ray hardware manufacturers scrambling for a piece of the pie.

Aside from the much hyped dual layered blu-ray disks currently out on the market, Hitachi has finally garnered another blu-ray first: a four layered disc with 100GB of data capacity. Although it is still far from being perfect, expect it to be the next big thing within a year, with perhaps a 200 GB blu-ray disc in another couple of years.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Even though the technology is perfected by Hitachi, what needs to be followed through is a blu-ray reader capable of playing these 4 layer blu-ray disks. Perhaps even a 4 layer blu-ray disk burner will not last too long after that. Then take into consideration, the necessary software to be able to play the newest high definition media. After all, what’s an expensive piece of paper without the necessary pencil?

With this news, this should render all “new” market blu-ray entries as obsolete, at least until they successfully put the new generation 4 layer blu-ray disks on public sale which shouldn’t be too long from now.

This would make Panasonic and Sony’s efforts to bring world class innovation in blu-ray cutting edge technology to naught, as they have just become yesterday’s news with the recent announcements of the 4 layer BD’s. Panasonic’s recently launched 1 terabyte blu-ray recorders might just as well be collector’s novelty, as its “cutting edge” dual layer support is incapable of doing more than just that.

At least Samsung has realized it own folly as well by canceling the release of some of its blu-ray players. They are still probably trying to make one that is capable of handling at least some future potential blu-ray disk breakthrough, and stave off obsoleteness for a few more months.

Sharp’s just-released BD-HDW15 & 30, 500gb and 1 terabyte single layer recorders respectively, should at least do well in the market for the next year. Only the BD-AC10 v2.1 will be able to support dual layer blu-rays, but neither does it have a hard drive. I guess the real question that burns is, once you pony up the dough for this, what will you do next year with your $3,000 pile of yesterday’s news? Every techie’s nightmare is every novelty buff’s dream.

But I guess we will cross that bridge when we get there. With all the new blu-ray mania cropping up every now and then, there’s really no hurry to jump in the blu-ray bandwagon. Blu-ray is here to stay, personally I am just waiting for the media hype to stabilize, at least until there’s a clear winner for the blu-ray multi-layer format race. GP