The Blu-ray Disc Association announced a new format called BDXL that will push the capacity of Blu-ray past 50GB limit. Current two layers Blu-ray disc stores 25GB of data on each layer, whereas new BDXL format will not only allow 4 layers, but also increase storage to 32GB on each layer. For rewritable Blu-ray disc the format will top out at 100GB.

Along with the BDXL format, Blu-ray Association also introduced new Intra-Hybrid Blu-ray Disc (IH-BD). According to Electronista, “the IH-BD would give users a way of customizing a disc but keeping some data permanent. One of the 25GB layers would be a full BD-RE surface that could be re-recorded, but a second would be read-only.” On the re-recordable part of the disc users can store apps, games or even movies related to the content on the disc.

Both the new formats BDXL and IH-BD are not compatible with current Blu-ray drives, as Blu-ray drives can only read disc with two layers. However, drive based on the new formats will be backward compatible, as they will play current two layers Blu-ray disc also. Blu-ray Disc Association will release official specs for the new formats in next few months. Players based on the new format should come to the market by end of 2010.