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Linux Supported DVD-RW Coming Soon

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the gigs-and-gigs-of-burnable-space dept.

Obiwan Kenobi (you're our only hope!) writes: "This article located at Business Wire tells about how the second generation Panasonic DVD-RW's are going to be supported in Unix and Linux by Tracer Technologies software." 9.4 gigs baby, yeah!

3 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Re:9.4 GB? by Jason+W · · Score: 5
    FYI, The Matrix, after being run through DeCSS and stored on disk, is 6.3 GB. This includes all chapters and intro movies (including the menus that you might not even think were movies, but they are).

    --

  2. I using 5.2GB DVD-RAM with Linux right now! by BitMan · · Score: 5

    [ Please moderate this up because I am using it right now on Linux, and have been for almost 6 months! ]

    I have been using my Panasonic/Creative DVD-RAM drive for almost 6 months now under Linux (and have had the drive for ~18 months). RedHat kernels since 2.2.12 have detected it and installed a SCSI generic disk driver (as /dev/sda since I have IDE drives). The reason why DVD-RAM was supported so quickly in Linux is because much of the firmware is similar to the old Panasonic PD drives (remember, rewritable CD before CD-RW? ;-).

    Ext2 works fine on it if you decide to format it. Otherwise, a simple download and compile of Ben Fennema's UDF driver (no complicated kernel patch necessary, just ./config, make, make install installs the VFS module necessary) and you're cooking with an OS independent filesystem on media that lasts 30+ years! 2.6GB per side (with newer 4.7GB drives/media as the above pointed out). Again, it's simple. Just put the "/dev/sda" line in your /etc/fstab as normal with "udf" as the filesystem (assuming you've done the above). I assume you can do similar with CD-RW drives and the UDF driver as well (SCSI CD-RW drives at least).

    For those of you not familiar with rewritable DVD, there are various formats. DVD-RAM was supposed to be the "standard." Of course that didn't stop Sony, Philips and others from breaking away from Panasonic, Creative, Matsushita, Pioneer and others to create their own, proprietary standards. The reason I choose DVD-RAM is because unlike most other DVD drives (most of the DVD-ROM drives of the time, fall 1998) is because they had trouble reading CD-RW media, and even some 2nd generation drives had trouble reading CD-R media (DVD-RAM reads all media: CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW and CD-various formats). But understand that no rewritable DVD-RAM I know of allows you to burn DVD-R, nor even CD-R/RW (although it was rumored that Philips had a proprietary 3/6GB DVD-rewritable that could also CD burn/re-write as well? But I never saw it myself). Another reason why I went with DVD-RAM is because some 2nd and most 3rd generation DVD-ROM drives could read it physically (at least the non-cartridge, single-sided version) and non-Panasonic/Creative/Matsushuita/Pioneer drives only needed a firmware upgrade to do so. And DVD-RAM is rewritable at 1,350KBps (1x DVD, 9x CD) whereas many CD-RW (and even some other DVD-rewritable formats) are a measly 300-600KBps (2/4x CD).

    Anyhoo, while other vendors talk about rewritable DVD sizes and capabilities, Panasonic delivered a long time ago. And now they are boosting the size to 4.7GB/side with the possibility of CD-RW compatibilty. You can get Panasonic 5.2GB DVD-RAM drives for $200-250 nowdays (and I only paid $500 for mine in fall of 1998), with the 2.6/5.2 single/double-sided media for $20/30, respectively. It's not hard disk speeds, but it is massive storage at cheap prices. With Pioneer and others finally giving Panasonic/DVD-RAM a boost in portable video equipment within the last 12 months, I'd say DVD-RAM will become the standard that it was originally spec'ed to be. With a 30+ year shelf life, it's a great archiving format for 10+ years where magnetic tape is not. And unlike other optical formats, DVD-RAM is an open standard which means that future drives should be able to read it -- a very important factor when considering long-term archiving because who cares if it lasts if you won't have a drive that can read it!

    DVD-RAM is great for video editing systems, for which, I bought my DVD-RAM drive to complement my brand new Matrox Marvel G200-TV at the time. Again, much, much cheaper than magnetic disks per MB/GB.

    -- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

    --
    -- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
    Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
  3. Re:Nice backup tool by Snocone · · Score: 5

    could we encrypt our own movies to be played in a normal DVD player?

    No. To do oneoff DVD-Videos you need something like the Pioneer DVD-R machines, which were running between $5-15K last I checked.

    DVD-RAMs are phase change devices with 2.6 GB per side. There are Typ1 and Typ2. Typ1 you cannot take aout auf the catridge, but Typ2 you can take out and play with DVD-ROMs (e.g. 8253 from Panasonic). But you cannot play them in DVD-Video consumer players.

    DVD+RW is a mutually incompatible phase change device, there are mutterings about it possibly being compatible with DVD-Video. We shall see.

    Fuckin' "standards", eh?