At the NAB New York tech confab this week in the Big Apple, Maxell is showing its holographic storage technology that can be used, among other things, to store HD movies and other massive files. The technology is currently in beta testing by several unnamed broadcasters, but it's due to ship to equipment manufacturers in December.

Maxell said its first-gen cartridge will provide 300 GB of data storage, and in conjunction with InPhase Technologies, it's developing second- and third-gen cartridges to provide 800 GB and 1.6 TB of data storage, respectively.

Maxell Holographic Optical Recording Technology records through the full depth of the medium (not just on the surface) and allows a million bits of data to be written and read in parallel with a single flash of light--allowing transfer rates far higher than current optical storage devices, Maxell said.

Maxell is also displaying its wares related to Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats that are capable of storing several feature-length HD motion pictures (and special features) onto one storage unit, or many SD movies. The company's usual tape products on display at NAB New York include D-5, HDCAM, DVCPROHD and DVPRO HDV.