LS-R economically viable. The need for the disc to be meticulously constructed from many layers of different materials, and the need for the drive to be able to electrically address each layer specifically, may make this solution too expensive for commercialization. In the next generation LS-R may compete with other next-generation optical disc format such as the Holographic versatile disc and Protein-coated disc formats. LS-R LS-R, or the Layer-Selection-Type Recordable Optical Disk, is the term coined by Hitachi in 2003 for a next-generation optical disc technology which allows much larger data storage densities than DVD, HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc, by
Optical disc data, a DVD about 4.7 GB, and a CD about 700 MB. Initially, optical discs were used to store broadcast-quality analog video, and later digital media such as music or computer software. The LaserDisc format stored analog video signals for the distribution of home video, but commercially lost to the VHS videocassette format, due mainly to its high cost and non-re-recordability; other first-generation disc formats were designed only to store digital data and were not initially capable of use as a digital video medium. Most first-generation disc devices had an infrared laser reading head. The minimum size of the laser