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Sony Announces Upcoming 1.3GB CD Products
jedi_jeffrey writes: "Check out the Sony 1.3 Gig High Density CD/CDRW --
They say it can't be copied :-)" Higher-capacity CDs might be nice, but many comments in the attached Talkback forum (like this one) gripe with reason about incompatibility, particularly given Sony's track record with closed-standard storage devices, and the much larger capacity of DVD.
I don't know why hjames scored 0 (moderated down, not A.C.?) but he had the point right. Sony had no involvement in the audio cassette patent. Philips patented it around 1963, with a license policy that was basically "free to anyone but you must conform to the spec". That made it a hit, guaranteeing compatibility. Eventually (post-patent expiration) there were some oddball half-speed cassette drives for voice transcription.
Sony is famous for the Beta fiasco. They didn't license it to other makers, so JVC came up with VHS. Just different enough to escape the patents, and licensed to any and all comers. Sony got 100% of a dying market; JVC with its slightly-inferior VHS ended up winning.
So will Sony follow its own precedent or have they learned?
Imation is a 3M company. It's not just a "brand".
Superdisk is an open standard championed by 3M/Imation.
Neither one has anything to do with Sony.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sony is famous for the Beta fiasco. They didn't license it to other makers, so JVC came up with VHS. Just different enough to escape the patents, and licensed to any and all comers.
That's actually a common myth. Sony did license Betamax (in 1977), but only after they noticed all the licensees JVC and Panasonic were getting by licensing VHS (in 1976). Sony abandoned its long-standing policy of "no third-party licensing", but they didn't get as many licensees as JVC/Panasonic. There were other factors involved in Beta's downfall besides licensing.
Take heed.
This format is 99% likely NOT TO BE backward compatible. Your AudioCD player, PSX, Dreamcast, (insert your own consumer device here) will NOT be able to read these discs.
The format is a nice idea and will probably make a pretty good showing. To the people griping about "well we already have DVD-RW DVD-RAM et al." remember that this format isn't designed to replace DVD. DVD requires not only a different disc format but also a different redbook/orangebook/whitebook spec. The 1.3GB CD's will be different media but still work with normal CD-style stuff (e.g. CDDA) which you can't do with DVD.
I really hate this whole idea though and I wish they would have spent all that money on figuring out how to maximize the storage capacity of existing CD equipment (Like the new 99 minute! CDR's coming out soon - these use the thinner spiral of 80Min CD's along with a better and more reliable method of manufacturing the disc which allows for the media to be overburned reliably to 99 minutes.)
Consumer CDROM readers and many commercial players already have accurate enough laser assemblies and motors that by virtue of tweaking the firmware, you could easily handle thinner track width and/or smaller pits/lands on a disc.
Which is another interesting point. After sony introduces this format, It's likely that we'll see a plethora of firmware upgrades to every CDROM reader under the sun to support this stuff and the format will take off and soar.
We'll have to wait and see.
~GoRK
Did anyone else realise that this new media is about the size of a Dreamcast GD-ROM (which is 1.2GB)? Perfect for making those pirated copies of DC games on one disc.
And who is making these discs that are used to pirate games? Why, Sega's arch-rival.. SONY!
Co-ink-ee-dink? I think not!
What a world we live in.
Rami James
Guy who sees possibilities.
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rJames.org - illustration
MD also uses ATRAC lossy compression, which immediately made it unacceptable for its only real potential target market at the time -- Grateful Dead tapers, who stuck with DAT, and moved from there to CDR when the recorders came along.
Computer accessability is a non-issue. MD recorders have SPDIF digital I/O, and every computer SPDIF card I've ever seen ignores SCMS, so you have always been able to get data off of an MD. However, the ATRAC compression degrades the signal quality, so why use it? Also, MD has a 74 minute limit, which makes the recorders a pain in the ass in a field recording situation -- one of the big advantages of moving from cassette to DAT was that you didn't need to worry about the tape flip anymore. With MD, you need to change media in the middle of the set.
MD is an excellent example of a poorly thought out technology. They created a digital format with all of the disadvantages of cassettes -- short media time and degraded sound -- and tried to compete with DAT, with linear, uncompressed audio and a 2 hour running time.
Bad planning.
What makes you so sure it'll be able to find the high-density data past the couple-millimetre long gap that comes after the normal low-density stuff? Maybe reading the normal data on a GDROM would set the drive into a normal CD reading mode, and keep it from seeing the high-density area even if it could skip over the gap between sections.
Fat chance of a silly gap stopping the drive. If a CD-ROM drive can read past the couple-mm gap on an Enhanced CD to get to the good stuff, so can a GD-ROM drive.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Which does me wonders when I'm trying to install printer drivers (a 2mb file) on a computer with a broken ethernet connection. Oops, can't use floppies for that one either.
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"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
This will be like many of the iomega products, flopticals, and the superdisk.
Almost obsolete when it comes out, not that great to begin with, closed so no one else can make them, and people won't even remember it a year from now.
Here's to beta!
Eh...
You can gripe about them for closed standards and DVD, but you have to give them credit for keeping the audio cassette tape standardized. A number of companies wanted to make proprietary changes to it, but Sony prohibited them from doing so (by owning the patent).
I get the feeling that this is doomed to failure. The capacity isn't ground-breaking and its only selling point seems to be that it is anti-consumer! No technical details on how it prevents "illegal" copying, but I suspect that it'll just be more encryption.
is what you'll be if you choose to buy this product. It looks like Sony thinks we actually WANT to be restricted as to what we can do with OUR data. It doesn't provide a signifigant enhancement over DVD, and you can accomplish the same thing with 2 CDR's so what's the point? If it will require a new drive, then the chances of this getting adopted are slim to none.
witty sig goes here
The problem here is that Sony is about 6 months later than they wanted to be on this product, and DVD-Ram has in that time taken a market hold because it's bundled with media creation tools like the new Mac G4's and advertized heavily. If they were 6 months earlier, they might have had a chance, but in that time the market penetration of DVD-Ram has doubled.
So when your customers start bitching endlessly about how their games skip or won't play. Don't say "we didn't know!". Dreamcast games do this. They use the full redundancy on the inner 1/3 of the CD to store the game program (which obviously must read perfectly), and toss the EC data on the outer 2/3 for "non-critical data" like the FMV sequences. But do you really think players will tolerate high rates of skipping/breakups on those FMV segments? Hell no. Some people play whole games just to get to see that cool ending FMV sequence! Expect lots of bitching as their consoles age and CDs get a few minor nicks that wouldn't affect real CDs and mess up their $75 games.
What's the current status of writable DVD drives, anyway? Are there any available that will work with Linux? I'd like to make 4 day MP3 discs rather than 13 hour ones.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Sony just loves to release their own proprietary format in the face of superior or more widespread technology. See also: minidisc (nice for digital recording, but definitely not the consumer music format they were pushing it as), superdisk (?????), etc.
Nothing wrong with new technology, but does anybody see any reason to buy this? Furthermore, I'm not clear on how a "read-only" CD could prevent copying. That's all you need to do to copy, read.
Incidentally, anybody always misread their brand "Imation" as "Imitation"? I know I do.
Something has. It's called Ethernet. :)
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Remember - keep this under your hat. I've got to get out of here, the minute B. Dalton finds out what I've told you guys, I'm in trouble.
-Denor
Just because they don't come pre-installed in consumer setups (and they can be requested from several companies) doesn't mean they're obsolete. We've got one Zip drive at the office, and I'm considering getting another, because it's come in handy many many times in the past couple weeks.
Floppies are obsolete. I'm surprised something better hasn't fully replaced them yet.
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"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
This is a flop waiting to happen. It has 2X the capacity of a CD and far less than a DVD. It is copy protected ( fat chance ) and requires new hardware to work.
What is the market for this thing ? How is it going to sell ?
Software authors will continue to use CD-ROM for anything that fits because copy protection is impractical for stuff users must install.
Movie people will still use DVD because frankly they own that format and have an installed base. Never mind that 1.3 Gig is too small for high res film.
That leaves users who want to make copies of there own stuff but alas CDR drives are down in the $170 range and blanks are rapidly approaching diskette price. $1 and less in bulk.
In order for this to move into the market it needs to be faster than CDRW and in the same price range even then there is a pretty good chance it will flop like LS120 and 2.8 meg floppies before it.
Dose anyone else remember 2.8 meg floppy ? Has anyone actually used a 2.8 meg diskette ? I have and it was the OS/2 setup disk for a high end PS/2. No 3rd parties ever adopted it as far as I know of. Compaq had the same prob with LS120 for some years until now it's irrelevant ( zip is cheaper too ).
In the removable storage business incremental improvements don't matter and less than DVD is no improvement at all. Sorry Sony, better luck next time.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
That's funny... I bought my DVD-RAM for the equivalent of just under US$400 last year. I doubt these Sony drives are going to be significantly cheaper than that at launch. If they sell well, then no doubt the price will drop, but then so will the writable DVD formats.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown