Yamaha CD-RW Drive Writes Images In Substrate

johnny5 writes: "Yamaha has recently demonstrated a new CD-RW drive that can write images into the unused space on a CD-R disc after the data track is written. The technology, called DiscT@2(TM), is due out in Japan in July. The images print on to the CD at approximately 250dpi, making graphics as well as text possible. More info can be found at Yamaha's CD-RW site (in English) as well as at Akiba PC Hotline (in Japanese, with better pictures. Babelfish for suitably akward translation). No word on a timeframe for U.S. availability"

Comments

This can be done now...

[qurob]

Don't you know the value of PI, some specs on CD diameters, track separation distances....copy a bitmap over...

Re:This can be done now...

[MjDascombe]

Yeah, it could be done now, but you'd end up with a pretty useless CD - the point is that this graphical information goes in UNUSED space...

Re:This can be done now...

[Bamyazi]

Why ?? if you made the last (outer) track on your cd your image track, then you simply need to correctly encode the data in that track to produce an image. You would need to know the total amount of data in previous tracks and the data density to be able to calculate your starting radius. But as the first poster says from that point it's a matter of maths and a correctly formatted file to burn to disk

Re:This can be done now...

[arivanov]

Assuming it is as you say it is not so easy. You need to insure that the writer will not barf. After all you feeding it with some data which according to the red book is garbage or pretty close to garbage. So the writer should allow turning off all error and sanity checks.

Alternatively it is very good software that merges an image on top of data that is acceptable to a normal CD writer.

In either case it is not just PI, elementary calculations and a bitmap.

Re:This can be done now...

[purpledinoz]

Just means you can fit more porno on the CD, I wouldn't mind seeing a naked woman every time I plop in a CD into my drive.

Re:This can be done now...

[Merlin42]

Actually no. When real data is written to disk there are 3 layers (iirc) of error correcting/detecting that would disrupt the pattern. In fact if I understand the format correctly data is written in such a way that it can be recovered from multiple physical locations on the disc (to prevent a single scratch from ruining things). So writting long strings of 1's and 0's wouldn't quite do it. You need to be able to tell the laser when to turn on and off. This is something that normal drives don't allow. For the conspiracy theorists out there this is in compliance with the wishes of companies like Macrovision ;). Hmmm could this be used to create perfect 'backups' ;) of games?

Re:This can be done now...

[iangoldby]

The visibility of the burned track depends on the kind of substrate used on the particular CD blank. Green ones show up best. Pale yellow ones are often almost invisible.

Does this mean that the Yamaha drive will only be effective on green CDs, or does the laser use a different strength to burn the piccies?

Re:This can be done now...

[Bamyazi]

Yup you're right...i tried a quick experiment building a file with 100k of '0' followed by 100k of '255' but there's no obvious patterning visible in the disk at all.

Re:This can be done now...

[Basje]

assuming that 650MB fills the whole of the 33mm of disk you have available, 200k would only take up approx. 0.01mm, or 0.005mm per 100k band. Have you used a microscope to check? Reality is even worse, as more than 650MB fits in it.

The content of a cd probably won't show in it's outer appearance, but you would better test this with 100MB files, instead of 100kB files.

Re:This can be done now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, won't work, due to the encoding used to write CD's.
The CD-Readers don't read the holes themselves, just the edges between the between a platau and a hole. The encoding used (EFN - Eight Fourteen, witch encodes 8 bits into fourteen.) ensures that there are no more than a given number of (6-7ish) zeros before a one comes along.

Why do I know this? (; I had the same idea a couple of months ago, tried it with a couple of 100MB files of 1's and 0's, burned them, didn't work, went to do my homework to find out why.

--
EM

Re:This can be done now...

[yawnmoth]

...or what about black CD's?

Re:This can be done now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Sega own a patent on that already ? They had Sega written that way on their Dreamcast disk.

Re:This can be done now...

[ikewillis]

Finally CDs are catching up to LPs. Anyone who owns Styx's Paradise Theater knows that this technology has been available for over 20 years

Re:This can be done now...

[Prof.Phreak]

Wait till they get the idea of spinning them in a different direction...

Re:This can be done now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even using larger data block there is no banding visible on the cd, with the smaller blocks I was hoping to see spiral fringes but the surface appears uniform to the naked eye.

Re:This can be done now...

[NomNet]

> Alternatively it is very good software that merges an image on top of data that is acceptable to a normal CD writer

On top of data ? Um, Yamaha's solution will only write on the unsused part of the disc !

Re:This can be done now...

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to spin a cd in a different direction. The data can be played backwords.

Re:This can be done now...

[PsychoI3oy]

about a week ago i had the idea of burning pictures into CDs (before i even heard of yamaha's thing which i just found out about today) and tried it by making a perl script build 6 files of 100MB size, each filled with either 0 chars or 255 chars (doublechecked with a hex edoitor, 0000 and FFFF) and burned them alternating into a CD but coulnd't see a thing.

from other stuff i've learned today (8 to 14 encoding and such) it becomes more of a laser on/off spin to this area move head to here type deal

guess it'd be like using a burner as a radial printer with a stylus

Re:This can be done now...

[Prof.Phreak]

yeah, maybe, but that's not as newsworthy.

Finally!!

[OmniVector]

No more losing my WaReZ cd keys!

Re:Finally!!

[forged]

You know, this does actually make sense.

Imagine that instead of editors sticking a label with your CD-key on the casing, why not engrave it on the CD.

Re:Finally!!

[NickV]

You can't do this on mass produced CDs for two reasons:

1) Mass produced CDs are pressed, not burned. So I don't even know if this process will work for a pressed CD which uses a different authoring process.

2) Even if this was possibile in that regard. Having a unique CD key pressed onto each CD would result in creating n templates (where n=number of cds pressed) which is too expensive to be useful. This is sorta the same reason as to why we see CD Keys on cd cases, but never printed onto the front label side of the cd.

Re:Finally!!

[OmniVector]

What about official Microsloth CDs? I've seen real ones before (I know, I know, I only copied, didn't buy). It has a holographic number in the inner most ring of the cd. Now whether or not this is different for each CD I cannot say.

Re:Finally!!

[Anonymous Coward]

apparently someone doesn't own a sharpie!

Re:Finally!!

[Fez]

2) Even if this was possibile in that regard. Having a unique CD key pressed onto each CD would result in creating n templates (where n=number of cds pressed) which is too expensive to be useful. This is sorta the same reason as to why we see CD Keys on cd cases, but never printed onto the front label side of the cd.

Or, as is the case here at a university, n=number of unique keys for a site licensed product=1. We get CDs that have the keys printed on the label from a parent university that has deals with various software companies (including Microsoft).

However, having the key on the label does one little good when it is asked for during installation, because you have to eject the CD to read it or copy it down beforehand, both of which are more work than looking at a label on a CD sleeve or case.

Re:Finally!!

[dfenstrate]

There's no reason they need to make N templates for N CD's. That would be a huge waste of resources. all they gotta do is put all the alphanumeric characters they use on a series of wheel-presses (think of it as an odometer, with letters on it)that spin to the right Key each time a new CD comes along.

Though the mechanism would have to be very precise and very fast, it's well within the manufacturing capabilities of any company that makes CD's ( A high precision exercise anyway.)

Re:Finally!!

[morie]

sharpies are circumventiondevices under the DMCA. You can not own those...

Re:Finally!!

[LinuxGeek]

However, having the key on the label does one little good when it is asked for during installation, because you have to eject the CD to read it or copy it down beforehand, both of which are more work than looking at a label on a CD sleeve or case.

Somehow, I think the pirates are willing to put in that little extra effort.

Re:Finally!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Another obvious reason why the CD key is not on the CD...it can be rather difficult to read a CD key when it is in the drive. I've written them on CDs, but it tends just not to be useful, since you still want some form of external storage (both would be good though)

Re:Finally!!

[1g$man]

This is sorta the same reason as to why we see CD Keys on cd cases, but never printed onto the front label side of the cd.

And here I thought they didn't put the CD-KEY on the CD itself because it would be pretty hard to see the CD Key to type it in... when it's in the CD-ROM drive.

huh.

Re:Finally!!

[Anonymous Coward]

that why I always write the key on the second CD in multiple sets ;-)

Re:Finally!!

[crandall]

You can't?

Check out some PS2 games. The ones on DVD tend to have sony's plastation logo on the bottom of the disc. You have to catch the light correctly, but it's there.

Might be a different tech though, or even a low tech solution (hologram on the bottom of the label maybe).

But in the end... if it achieves the same goal, does it matter?

Re:Finally!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know how pressers work? .... Then STFU.

Re:Finally!!

[jkonrath]

The stamper for MS CDs has the holographic logo in it. You can't make a copy of the stamper, so it prevents a duplication plant from making a duplicate of the master and selling it off.

-J

Re:Finally!!

[Regolith]

Actually, what would be really cool would be software that could read the CD key printed on the CD by this burner and then display it on your LCD-modded case. Then you could have both the cool factor of having (and actually being able to use) this drive along with the convenience of not having to eject the CD to read the key.

Re:Finally!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll stick my presser in your mouth, and make you suck it, bitch.

Re:Finally!!

[zettix]

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gc i214118,00.html
150 kB/sec 200-530 rpm

start at 530 rpm assumed.

http://www.ee.washington.edu/conselec/CE/kuhn/cd au dio2/95x7.htm

4000 bits = 2.47mm

http://www.ee.washington.edu/conselec/CE/kuhn/cd au dio/95x6.htm

46mm diameter start
116mm end

all geometry assumed known

Checking: if 1) initial rpm 530 @ 46 mm @ 150kB/sec then 4000bits - 2.47mm

at 46 mm diameter, circumfrence is 144.5 mm.
at 530 rpm, or 8.83333 rps.

1.44 mm / r * 8.83333 r / s = 1204.167 mm / s

Note this calculation was off by about 35%. Yeccchhh.
In the ballpark, though, so time for an empirical test, yeah?

---- empirical averages -----

46 mm + 116mm / 2 = 81 mm.
254 mm circ. 1/2 into cd.

if 2.47 mm = 4000 bits, then one rev is 412095.55 bits
51511 bytes.
1000 bytes is about 5mm, visible for sure.
so construct 600 mb file with 1000 bytes of 00110011 x 1000 + 00000000 x 50511
and burn it.

Results: I can't see squat. Utter failure. Oh well.

Re:Finally!!

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Run the installation program
2) When prompted for the CD key, press eject on your CD-ROM drive
3) Type in the CD key from the CD
4) Close drive door and continue installation

Real hard, huh?

Re:Finally!!

[Anonymous Coward]

That has got to be the fucking stupidest idea ever. If its going to read the key off of the CD, why have it even be visible? Why not just place a specific file on the disc that contains the key?

Re:Finally!!

[Cryptnotic]

serial.txt

Re:Finally!!

[Yottabyte84]

Except for the eject button can be disabled via software to lock the drive.

Security?

[Anonymous Coward]

What are the security implications of this?!

Special logo for the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

How about burning in something like 'Fuck you RIAA' onto every CD-R. That'd make them happy.

Re:Special logo for the RIAA

[Alan Partridge]

beautiful!

Re:Special logo for the RIAA

[sulli]

Of course the RIAA would lobby for a requirement that your SSN and mother's maiden name be automatically printed on the disc. To fight terrorism, you know.

Re:Special logo for the RIAA

[jonatha]

You forgot the punctuation:

Fuck you - RIAA

what's the point of this?

[Anonymous Coward]

wouldn't it make more sense to develop better and faster optical media storage than to waste time creating a burner that will write images onto your cds? i guess this has some 'wow cool' value, but other than that i don't see what the point is.

Re:what's the point of this?

[jridley]

The "point" is that CD-R drives have become a commodity, and they're trying to stand out. Two years ago, I bought CD-R drives largely on brand, for the most part sticking with Yamaha and Plextor. It used to make a difference; I had cheap drives die on me after only a few hundred burns, whereas Plextor and Yamaha drives typically make it into the 10,000's.

However, for the last year or so, (at least, in my experience) a drive is a drive; they all work just fine and there's not much reason to get more than a $70 CompUSA-branded Sanyo or something. Yamaha and other higher-end manufacturers have had to cut prices drastically to remain competitive.

There are better and faster media being developed, but they're in the lab. When it comes time to develop a standard in the industry to utilize those media, I'm sure Yamaha will be at the table. In the mean time, they have to make money selling the product that's coming out the door now.

Having a drive that does something cool like this sets it apart and might make people spend an extra $20 for a Yamaha drive.

Re:what's the point of this?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're Japanese...

Re:what's the point of this?

[Anonymous Coward]

haha.

Re:what's the point of this?

[klui]

I hear that Sanyo is the OEM for Plextor. Sanyo also invented Burn-Proof.

Re:what's the point of this?

[Comrade Brightski]

I'll agree that CD-R drives have definitely become a commodity, but for the power user it still isn't to the point that "a drive is a drive". If you intend on making full use of that drive, it still pays to stick with a reputable vendor such as Plextor or TDK. For example, some drives are much better at others at backing up copy-protected games. Even the firmware revision can mean the difference between a successful copy and a coaster.

Plus, when it comes to audio CD's, any audiophile will vouch for the black tray and optimized power circuitry on the Plextor for reducing burn errors. In the end, if backing up data and burning the occasional audio CD is all you do, then by all rights "a drive is a drive". Buy the cheapest one you find. However, when it comes to making that burner sweat with ripping CD's, backing up games, or producing high quality audio.. spend the extra cash and buy a big name.

And yes, I do think burning a picture on a CD is a gimmick. But how fun would a geek's life be if all his pursuits had to be productive? =)

Re:what's the point of this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Yamaha had the black/dark tray first, and this was replicated by Plextor. I also heard that Plextor recently switched a paper based board with silver contacts, while Yamaha continues to use a glass epoxy board with gold contacts.

Finally, TDK OEMs their drives from LiteOn, and we all know how LiteOn always has to issue new firmwares because their media support is horrible.

I think this new feature is pretty cool, though I'm not sure I would use it all the time. We will have to see.

Hack

[Lord Ender]

For anyone wondering what the word 'hack' actually means, THIS IS IT.

Re:Hack

[sharkey]

HACK: Descriptive pronoun. See "JonKatz".

Re:Hack

[Anonymous Coward]

"Pronoun"?

Killer feature

[virve]

Any information on availability? This is a feature I would want to pay money for. Getting those CD-labels looking right is always a pain.

And these embedded pictures look cool too...

--
virve

Re:Killer feature

[servanya]

It seems nobody knows (I didn't read all the comments, but nobody replied to yours..)

It says the drive is available in Japan in July, meaning that we can see it here in the states ....next year?
I'd happily pay $200-$300 for this drive.
Its a very cool breakthrough. I don't think that regular cd-rw hardware can accomplish this... but I could be wrong. I know there's probably people working on a hack right now :)

Re:Killer feature

[Anonymous Coward]

July 15th

http://www.yamaha.com/yec/multimedia/customer/fe at ures/feat_prodsCRWF1_1.html

Why Hardware?

[hesiod]

Maybe I'm missing something, but Why is it the drive itself that is important? I would think most CDs are pretty much the same (correct me if I'm wrong), so after doing a bit of math, properly enhanced CD-burning software should be able to do this, right? Well, maybe not, I never claimed to be a genius.

Re:Why Hardware?

[sh00z]

I've had a little bit of experience with lasers, and I'm pretty sure that the modulation required to accomplish this is going to be orders of magnitude higher than what is needed to burn data, and the time required for the on/off function just ain't gonna happen at 12X (or possibly even 1X). I'm betting that there's a physical shutter mechanism involved.

Re:Why Hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had a little bit of experience with lasers,

You know, I have one simple request, and that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now, evidently, my cycloptic colleague informs me that that can't be done. Can you remind me what I pay you people for? Honestly, throw me a bone here!

Re:Why Hardware?

[Christopher Thomas]

I've had a little bit of experience with lasers, and I'm pretty sure that the modulation required to accomplish this is going to be orders of magnitude higher than what is needed to burn data

Not really. All they're doing is taking advantage of the fact that a burned part of a CD looks noticeably different from a non-burned part, and selectively burning.

As there's a visible difference between used and unused sections on a normally-burned CD, I don't see why you'd need any special hardware to pattern this difference.

Re:Why Hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

You want a shark with a frickin' laser beam to burn your CDs?

How large is the drive bay in your PC?

Re:Why Hardware?

[gmarceau]

Cd drives have a very mild notion of their absolute position along the disk. I bet this drive has an extra sensor for angular position on the spindle.

Re:Why Hardware?

[morcheeba]

Uh, they use relatively high-power lasers in fibre optics to achieve gigabit speeds easily. It's not that hard - usually diodes are driven with a constant-current source, and a fast-switching FET is used to short out the diode to turn it off. The power supply isn't shorted because the constant-current source limits the amount of current the circuit can draw.

Let's do some math: CD players turn at 1.2-1.4 m/s Constant Angular Velocity. To get 250 dpi at that speed (1X), each dot is 78 uSec, or about 12,800 dots/second. Gigabit speeds are literally a million times faster.

I'm not so sure that the laser is actually burning through the reflective backing, though - it looks like the pattern is only visible on the underside data area - just like you can see the difference between burnt and unburnt data.

Re:Why Hardware?

[VoiceOfRaisin]

Score:5, Insightful ???
he doesnt think a normal cd laser can make picture pixels that are hundreds of times bigger than the pits that are burned for data? think about it, the pixels in the pictures are visible to our eyes, try to imagine the size of the 0s and 1s. this is absolutely outrageous what he is saying and the fact he got modded as +5 is equally outrageous

Re:Why Hardware?

[hesiod]

I was hoping that I wouldn't have to yell about that moderation myself :)

Re:Why Hardware?

[LinuxGeek]

CD recorders took a great leap forward when burnproof was released. New drives most certainly do have a way to understand positioning, that is how they pause the burn process and resume it. They waste a little cdr real estate in the process though.

Re:Why Hardware?

[martyn s]

Sorry, but angular velocity is not measured in meters/sec it's measure in radians/sec or rotations/sec. That's what they mean by "angular". :)

Re:Why Hardware?

[i_am_nitrogen]

Perhaps he meant the linear velocity when spinning at a constant 1x angular velocity (which no CD-ROM drive does)?

Re:Why Hardware?

[martyn s]

Sorry, that doesn't really make any sense. If it were constant angular velocity, than the linear velocity would not be constant (it would change depending on where the laser was). Plus if you click on his link, they list the exact same statistic, but it says "constant linear velocity" not "constant angular velocity"

Re:Why Hardware?

[Physics Dude]

NOTE: CDs don't spin with constant angular velocity. Even when playing a music CD at 1x, the angular velocity varies between 200 and 500 rpm in an attempt to keep the linear velocity (data-rate) constant.

Re:Why Hardware?

[morcheeba]

Whoops. My mistake - thanks for catching that.

Traditional CD's (like when used for music) are constant linear velocity. CDROM players vary, but can be constant angular velocity - this means that they don't have to change speed of the disc when accessing different areas (which takes some time to do), but also means that the linear speed (proportional to data transfer rate) varies between the inside and outside. That's why drives are labeled as "max ##x" - that's the transfer rate at the outside; at the same CAV, the transfer rate will be less at the inner grooves.

I was just going for a ballpark number, so it's still a good estimate. As a side note, I'm not so sure that this could have been done purely in software with a traditional drive.

First, there's the position synchronization issue -- there's no way to reference what angle of the CD you're writing to. And since CDs vary in their pitch, either intentionally (the main difference between 74 and 80 minute CDs) and accidently, you couldn't reliably precalculate where along the linear track to burn.

The other issue is actual control of the laser. Since recording is done by varying the pit lengths (or something like that), there is always a burn mark and the the only variation that your data causes to this is at a microscopic level.

FINALLY

[rattler14]

So not only can we make pirated CD's, we can now put copy protected images on them as well... you probably can't see it, but I'm doing a little dance for joy over here, knowing that I can piss off the RIAA even more

Next step, incorporating this wonderful gadget into your fridge/freezer/1970's jukebox

what will they think of next

Cute

[Mr_Silver]

Very cute, however for the home user this won't be a hit, unless it's reasonably priced. Otherwise most people will just stick with a perminant OHP pen and write on the CD. It's cheap and it works.

For smaller companies, now that is a different matter and something likw that would be rather neat and useful.

Plus, isn't the market moving more and more towards DVD burners? I have a 4x CD burner at the moment and when I upgrade i'll be looking more and more at a hybrid CDR/RW/DVD combination job and not a 32x CDRW with the ability to burn pictures on it.

Re:Cute

[PEdelman]

Yes, but as I understood those kind of pens can be used to circumvent the copy protection of some CD's. So now the RIAA can point to this thing and say that those pens should be made illegal since an alternative is available. Yeah, that's it, it's one big conspiracy ;-)

Re:Cute

[Jucius Maximus]

"For smaller companies, now that is a different matter and something likw that would be rather neat and useful."

Do not underestimate the 'gimmick marketing potential' of this idea. Let me explain:

I'm not talking about marketing this actual Yamaha drive. I am talking about using graphic-ized CDs as marketing tools in themselves to sell other products.

If a company wants to sell something and have their marketing materials stand out, the marketing materials must have some sort of neat quirk. This can be in the form of a keychain with a built in puzzle, those business card shaped CDs, or whatever. They're neat things. The first time I got a business card shaped CD (marketing from MSFT no less) I did not believe when someone told me it was a real disc so I put it in my machine, and played the marketing video on the CD. Lo and behold it worked. And I ended up watching their marketing video.

I think that CDs with graphics burned on the back of them would have similar appeal.

Re:Cute

[Anonymous Coward]

But imagine those sexy deathboy demo's with a nekkid piccy of the deathboy on them.. Mmmmmm

Ooh, I'm getting all moist thinking abut it.

Re:Cute

[funky womble]

I am talking about using graphic-ized CDs as marketing tools in themselves to sell other products.

Problem with this is, the average person you give them to is gonna put them picture-side-up...

Re:Cute

[NanoGator]

"Otherwise most people will just stick with a perminant OHP pen and write on the CD. It's cheap and it works."

Hmm... I dunno if this'll be a hit with consumers or not. I kind of thought the CD burner market was already saturated.

However, I would pay extra $$$ for a DVD burner that has this feature. It could make auto-backups a hell of a lot easier because I could skip the labelling step. One of the things I want to do is burn a CD of all my Lightwave projects. It'd be cool if the burner software was smart enough to get all the folder names and burn those into the disk.

In other words, I could burn and forget instead of trying to decypher my handwriting later. ;)

Who knows, it may very well be a hit with the organizationally impaired such as myself. I damn bought a dedicated CD-Label printer.

Re:Cute

[Jucius Maximus]

"Problem with this is, the average person you give them to is gonna put them picture-side-up..."

That's what cd caddies with dual transparent sides are for.

Re:Cute

[nichomoff]

I'd imagine it will be priced reasonably. I can't see this as something people would pay extra for, at least not in the US. This reminds me of all the competing Minidisc makers that put cute little designs on the plastic and charge for it. It seems to be a hit in Japan, but in the US, we'll buy the best combination of price and reliability.

The names got weirder every Year

[Kong the Medium]

So its

the revolutionary DiscT@2TM Laser Labeling System,

pronounced as Disctatoo trademark LLS

How do normal people know how to pronouce this or non-english speaking people like me. In German it would be "DiskTatzwei" trademark LLS. So Marketing only focuses on the english speaking clientel or what ?

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[Anonymous Coward]

pronounced as Disctatoo trademark LLS

Heh, I thought it was
Disc, Tea at 2:00
But yours makes more sense. :)

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[fmaxwell]

So Marketing only focuses on the english speaking clientel or what ?

Marketing focuses on maximizing sales and English is the most widely spoken language in the industrialized world. Despite Germany's best efforts between 1939 and 1945 to convert all of Europe to a German-speaking country, there are still only about 1/8 as many German speakers as there are English speakers.

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[ocbwilg]

Heh, I thought it was
Disc, Tea at 2:00
But yours makes more sense. :)


You weren't the only one. I couldn't figure out what "Tea at 2:00" had to do with burning CDs. Unless Yamaha had been recently purchased by an British company or something.

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[Pig Hogger]

So Marketing only focuses on the english speaking clientel or what ?

That's because dim-witted morons (the majority of people out there) think that the yankees are the best thing since sliced bread, so if you want to sell anything to the majority of dim-witted morons, you kave to make it look like it's a merry can...

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[operagost]

Didn't know that only Yanks spoke English now. Hmm!

I can't figure out how you got enough Karma for a +2 post with inflammatory posts like that, not to mention a pessimistic and trollish sig.

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you've found them out. Its a big conspiracy againts you and your German speaking brothers. Fight the power.

Honestly, it is because most people are English speaking, if only a little. Case in point, you claim that you are German, yet you understand English. They have also probably figured that their largest market will be in the USA.

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[NanoGator]

"You weren't the only one. I couldn't figure out what "Tea at 2:00" had to do with burning CDs..."

My girlfriend's into crafts. I'm sure she'd love to burn me some coasters. heh.

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[lhdentra]

Tea is at 4.

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[ncc74656]

So its "the revolutionary DiscT@2TM Laser Labeling System, pronounced as Disctatoo trademark LLS." How do normal people know how to pronouce this or non-english speaking people like me.

Hell, even some of us who do speak English found the name just a little too clever. "DiscT@2? HTF do you pronounce that?" Cleverness like that is OK on license plates, but I'm not sure it's a good idea for a product name.

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[Pig Hogger]

The rest of the world speaks english because the yankees are too stupid to learn other languages, everyone (but the yanks) know that...

As of the Karma, that's because yanks aren't alone on Slashdot; plenty of folks here know that the yanks have their head shoved into their arses quite far...

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[operagost]

I happen to also know French and a little (Mexican) Spanish, so that I can converse with my "neighbors". Your allegation is simple bigotry, as most of the people who actually leave the U.S. do learn at least one other language... it's a requirement of every halfway decent college. You don't seem to have a sense of the scope and size of the United States. Just in the lower 48 states, there's such a variety of climate and terrain that most people never feel the need to join the jet-set.

I haven't strayed from the western hemisphere yet, because there's too many haughty fucktards like you across the pond. Keep working on your New World Order, and don't bother us idiots when some despot overruns your country again.

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[Pig Hogger]

Ah, mais c'est très bien, ça, au moins, vous êtes un peu moins endoffé que le reste des amerloks.

Quant à VOTRE "nouvel ordre mondial", celui que dubya & ses petits amis (lire: "mondialisation" qui, en réalité, n'est que de l'amerdicanisation), vous pouvez vous le foutre dans l'oigne.

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[Anonymous Coward]

My, my. Aren't we a little bitter. And what country, pray-tell, do you hail from (my guess would be either England or France)?

Re:The names got weirder every Year

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, you'd notice if all of a sudden everyone at Yamaha where inbred white boys with horrible teeth.

Specifications Reqirements

[Anonymous Coward]

For the specifications, it complies with the standard E-IDE/ATAPI interface. Also, it lists a certain set of operating systems as required. What does the brand of operating system have to do with hardware compatibility?

Re:Specifications Reqirements

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a pretty safe bet that the engraving part will need special support in the software, and that software is not available for all operating systems.

Re:Specifications Reqirements

[esper_child]

The reason is that you will need some software to convert the bitmap into a writable image for the burner to work with. However, this is almost certainly going to be closed-source only endeveror, doing this open-sourced early in the ball game would only make it easier for competators to understand how exactly you are doing things, and possibly make a feature as good or better. You can of course burn all you want with your non-windows operating systems, but my guess is that you can only use the picture drawing tool in side of windows. This is like the case with some of my network cards that only state that they work with windows 9x and windows NT, but still work just fine in the various *NIX operating systems out there (worked with all the ones i got my hands on: FreeBSD, various flavors of Linux, and solaris).

Practical application

[forged]

Wanking while watching pr0n CD's just took another dimension.

Re:Practical application

[horza]

Wouldn't that make you dizzy?

Phillip.

It�s a cool feature but...

[fabiolrs]

is there any actual use for this? Id rather buy a drive that burns faster than one that prints images on my CDs. That thing must cost lots of money, and its not a actual new feature, I already saw some presentation CDs here in the company I work for with text printed but I believe those were done with MUCH professional (expensive) equipment.

Re:It�s a cool feature but...

[HowlinMad]

yeah faster is always better, but with the speeds of todays burners (40x) I can spare the few seconds to make it look really cool.

Re:It�s a cool feature but...

[krb]

I haven't decided that this feature really should cost more... it *will* of course, but it seems to me, this should be possible with regular cdr drives, given the proper software. This is something i've been thinking about for quite a while, but never got around to looking into. Looks like Yamaha beat me to it. Not that us poor americans will get it within the year.

Re:It�s a cool feature but...

[Anonymous Coward]

This burner burns at 44x, reads at 44x and re-writes at 24x. How much faster do you want? There's a limit on how fast a CD-Rom can spin before it shatters the disk (see previous slashdot article on the matter); speeds we are fastly approaching.

Not to mention we currently have no idea how today's speeds are deteriorating disks.

2 mins to burn a CD... a year ago I was still using my 2x (30 mins)... If you can't wait 2 mins for a CD to burn, you really need to re-evaluate things.

Re:It�s a cool feature but...

[Jucius Maximus]

"is there any actual use for this? Id rather buy a drive that burns faster than one that prints images on my CDs. "

Colour and physical appearance are important to many. Remember when the Yellow Gameboy Advance came out? People swarmed the stores to get them because of the pokeyman video game. Similarly, those transparent Diamond 56K USB modems sell real fast because they are transparent blue. Btw, do you wonder why the iMac sold so well? And have you seen the new iMac - it *looks* sweet. Asthetics and gimmicky appearance effects sell products.

Re:It�s a cool feature but...

[kontos]

• is there any actual use for this? Id rather buy a drive that burns faster
  than one that prints images on my CDs.

Actually, Capacity is my biggest concern. How much data space does one of these images consume. I'd rather have 650 MB of my MP3s on a disk than have 300 MB and a cool picture.
600 MB and a cool picture...That might get me interested.

Re:It�s a cool feature but...

[Alan Partridge]

that's 40x MAX, BTW. If you check out Yamaha's range, you'll see that they are well endowed with speed features - partial CAV and everything.

Re:It�s a cool feature but...

[stuffman64]

If you took the time to read the article, you would notice that the drive burns at 44x, which is pretty darn close to the fastest cd burners (48x). Plus, this drive shouldn't cost much more than typical cd burners. Nobody will pay a $75 dollar premium in a market this saturated.

Re:It�s a cool feature but...

[i_am_nitrogen]

I tried writing on the bottom of a CD with a marker to create a shadow in the burned data of a second session. Unfortunately, the drive interpreted the marker as a signal to move the laser to the end of the disc... instead of burning through the "defect," it skipped it, and began writing again, creating a blank band on the disc followed by another ring of burned area.

Re:It�s a cool feature but...

[i_am_nitrogen]

I'm sure it depends on how large your image is.

Future art ?

[Mathness]

Neat idea, now I can make my own CD themed wall-watches with art.
Those microwaved CD's are becoming a bit boring.

Re:Future art ?

[Mathness]

If this becomes avaible for multi layer DVD's or a similar media, would it be possible to make holograms or holographic effects?

Re:Future art ?

[Oculus Habent]

Holographic effects aren't possible with this technology - there's nowhere near enough data.

Holograms require the interference pattern and light dispersal of an actual object, as well as a "control" beam, simultaneously hitting a photographic material. Without the incoherent light caused by a physical object, holography is impossible.

However, something like 3D images might be accomplished with multi-layer discs. I'm not sure how successfully the process would convert to multi-layer - CD burning doesn't have to worry about writing/reading to a layer above/below. If it was converted, I don't know how "deep" the images would appear to be.

--
Zig.

Re:Future art ?

[afidel]

Without the incoherent light caused by a physical object, holography is impossible.

Not so, virtual holographic images that are made without any physical model have been around for years. There is nothing magical about the physical model blocking the reference beam, pulsing the laser in the correct maner will be just as effective as an actual object blocking its path.

This is a home run product

[i_luv_linux]

This product is cool and extremely useful.

Neat but

[Sc00ter]

"The CRW-F1 is the first CD-RW recorder to offer the revolutionary DiscT@2TM Laser Labeling System, which allows graphics and text to be burnt onto CD-R disc, eliminating the need for labels. Customers can put graphics, such as signatures, logos, memorandums, and photo images onto CD-R's unused area after data writing. This unique feature will certainly enhance the CD-R recording experience for many users"

So it will only "draw" on unused parts of the disk, basically taking up space... crap.

Re:Neat but

[tswinzig]

So it will only "draw" on unused parts of the disk, basically taking up space... crap.

Don't they mean literally the unused part -- the space in between the pits that the laser writes?

Look at this picture here:

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/akiba/hotline/20020 622/image/nya2.html

Re:Neat but

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not convinced by this -- it looked to me like they ruined a whole CD to draw pictures all over it, and by "unused" they mean the part not written.

Re:Neat but

[Anonymous Coward]

I already overburn my CD. Where is this going to go ?

Re:Neat but

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Actually, probably there's differences in the number of 0's or 1's in the blocks anyway. Therefore if you were to take all of the blocks of data on one CD, sort them by intensity, you could arrange for the data blocks to be positioned to approximate to the image you wanted to write, on the data portion of another CD.

Of course doing this would completely scramble the disk data up, so the poor CDROM laser would be jumping around like a lunatic; and CDROMs are peculiarly slow at jumping... So accessing the data would work, but really, really sllllllllllooooowwlllllly.

Still, it would be very cool ;-)

Re:Neat but

[drix]

Now what would be really cool is if they could interleave the "data" and "picture" on the CD. I imagine the density of a typical CD-R (in terms of raw pits and lands) is probably several orders higher than 250/inch. If that's the case, then shouldn't it be possible to alternate data and picture sectors at some ratio, say 1:3, and still come up with a legible picture spanning over the whole CD? A space tradeoff of 1/3 isn't really that high, and who knows, perhaps it could be pushed even further. I realize this probably annihilates every standard for CD--data, audio, video, whatever--in the book, but this burner sound pretty souped up as it is. Perhaps it could me modified to support this?

AOL's way ahead of them.

[Christopher Thomas]

AOL stamped their logo by similar methods into a wave of CDs a while back.

I was keeping a few as extra-pretty coasters, but they were thrown out behind my back...

Re:AOL's way ahead of them.

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember that too, it was way cool back then. It was not long after they stopped sending out floppies if I recall correctly...

the only thing that could make this better is...

[paradesign]

making it external as well, USB2 or Firewire, and adding Mac and *nix support. Although i wouldnt be supprised to see some free hacks of this soon, now that the idea is out there.

finally

[tps12]

This is the technology that CD users have been clamoring for since the invention of the disc.

As soon as there are Linux drivers for this, I'm going to burn me some Debian CD's featuring Tux!

Microsoft: prepare to be Tuxified!

Whee

[Enry]

I was doing that 10 years ago with optical cards. You could print an image on the optical surface in a similar way as the CD-RW. Of course, you couldn't put any data on there...and the writers/readers cost $10k each...and they were SCSI only...

Re:Whee

[yatest5]

I was doing that 10 years ago with optical cards.

Whoopee-do - I was doing it twenty years ago with paper and pen - after I'd finished my school work, I'd draw hanged men, penis, boobs and that girl lay back with her legs spread open - beat THAT!

Re:Whee

[Ooblek]

I drew plans about how to electrocute a co-worker using the tube from a computer monitor. I left it sitting on my desk when I went on vacation. It even had the coworkers name and some stuff that looked like amperage calculations (making sure the jolt was deadly of course). I heard my manager photocopied it and put it back on my desk.

I'm sure it wouldn't have worked....

Re:Whee

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL!

Also featuring: booth girls of the future...

[netsharc]

What's up with the girl on the left side of this picture, is she a new digital booth-girl they're demoing? Full digital!! Currently available with only very low resolutions, but check out the framerate!!

Re:Also featuring: booth girls of the future...

[Anonymous Coward]

The full resolution girl is only available if you register.

Re:Also featuring: booth girls of the future...

[Anonymous Coward]

no no, they blurred her for her own safety... seeing as she was the only girl at the entire geek show and it's a given that nobody seriously interested in those pictures has a gilrfriend.

As easy as a floppy!

[Jerky McNaughty]

I like this text from the product info page:

Allows you to write, rewrite and backup data on CD as quickly and easily as you would on a floppy disk.

Yea! Yippee! Those floppies sure are quick! And with the amount of data loss I've seen, those floppies are easy, too! Someone should sit down with their marketing people and show them that most of us probably wouldn't interpret that sentence as a compliment to their product.

Re:As easy as a floppy!

[GutBomb]

they are not trying to sell it to you. they are trying to sell it to people that currently use floppies for data storage.

Re:As easy as a floppy!

[jandrese]

Wow, that's a lot of work to get like 4 people worldwide who still backup on floppies.

What is cooler?

[RollyGuy]

My black Playstation-like CD-R's or an image burned onto the bottom of my disc?

decisions, decisions

No special hardware required (?)

[Tune]

How long 'till this hack, or a similar one will be available for any CD writer? It's an incredible idea - I love it - but it can't be that hard, can it? Just a matter of finding out a where which bit goes and then writing a descent piece of (open source) software, right?!?

Let's go!

Re:No special hardware required (?)

[Basje]

Just a patch for mkisofs should do the trick. Tux only would be nice to begin with :)

The distance from the middle should be fixed for every data entry point on the cd (distances of the pits are fixed (except for burnproof, but those margins are slim enough, within 50 nm) && distances between tracks are fixed). Mmmm. Nice summer holidays experiment for my new CDburner.

Re:No special hardware required (?)

[Tune]

Nice summer holidays experiment for my new CDburner.

...A few weeks and a LOT of them shiny disks! ...Or at least, I'd guess you won't get away without the mandatory trial & error phase ;-)

You're probably right about the CD specs. Things like rotation speed and the varying number of tracks per "cylinder" might be complicated, though. And so is the fact the tracks are in a spiral rather than concentrical. Still, I'm confident that with some endeavour the whole trick could be done hacked into mkisofs to work with regular hardware.

Ooh. This thing is bound to become mainstream shortly!

Re:No special hardware required (?)

[Basje]

CDRW.

-
This sentence is only to fool the slashdot lameness filter.
-

Re:No special hardware required (?)

[Mike McTernan]

Doesn't mkisofs make a file system, i.e. the data on the track, making the ISO format completely the wrong one for describing the data between the tracks?

Or are you considering adding an extra ~25nm to the start radial offset of the recorder and then burn a second track with the image between the first?

Damit I don't know!

Mike

Re:No special hardware required (?)

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably never. You just don't have that level of control over the hardware. The burner firmware handles reed-soloman coding, subcode channels, frame headers, the TOC, and many other low-level details of the cd format. For the most part, the APIs you deal with only expose you to the high level details of the burning process (subcode channels are user writable on some burners).

As an example, if you're writing an image containing nothing but binary 1 as the data, that doesn't mean the disc surface will just be one continuous peak. Far more happens on the surface.

This hack seems like it's a special mode in the firmware, and probably not accessible through standard command sets. Don't quote me on that though.

It seems highly doubtful that you'll ever see this working on burners not specifically designed for it.

Re:No special hardware required (?)

[Tune]

Wow. Why didn't I think of that when it was mentioned even in the original post... (Seriously, I forgot)

...Now with a futuristically fast CDReWriter and a flashing light source, wouldn't it be possible to display moving pictures on a rewritable disk? WOW!

Reclaimed space!!

[planoie]

What about this idea... make the software work such that you could use all that unused space on toasted CDs. I have loads that crapped out after just a few meg, thus the crap track is only a tiny width, and there's lots of real estate left for pictures. Now THAT I might use!

Re:Reclaimed space!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but then it would n't be CD anymore.. besides we already have that it's called DVD.

*Sigh*... gotta flip it to see the images

[Goldenhawk]

Unless I'm misreading this, the image only appears on the data side of the disc. And the last time I looked, even on a bare no-label CD, I couldn't see where the data ended from the label side.

I don't know about you, but I'd never label the data
side of my CD-R.

Whenever they figure out how to show it on the LABEL side, call me.

Re:*Sigh*... gotta flip it to see the images

[joel8x]

There are CD printers out there, but they are prohibitively expensive. It would be nice to have a cheap all-in-one drive that enabled you to created a professional looking disc for a consumer price - now that would be a home run product.

Re:*Sigh*... gotta flip it to see the images

[loply]

You stick a CD-Label on the non-date side. Duhhh. The whole *POINT* of this article is that it can non-destructively burn a visible image in amongst the data, and someone makes a post about the data side not being the label side. omg.

Re:*Sigh*... gotta flip it to see the images

[swb]

Not a terrible idea, but it'd be tough to do in the traditional PC single-height drive form factor.

I could see it in a double-height device (small print head that could write on top of the disc), using the "upper tray" for loading consumables. Most of the standalone labeling systems even kind of look like a double-height CD labeler.

I'd bet it'd be tricky to get this into some PC cases, though.

I'm guessing that the sticky labels and their little centering gizmos are probably good enough for most people and for those that they're not good enough for will have the money for one of the many inkjet/heat labelers, often with integrated duplication.

Re:*Sigh*... gotta flip it to see the images

[Wakko Warner]

Whenever they figure out how to show it on the LABEL side, call me.

This new and exciting technology is just what you are looking for!!!

- A.P.

Re:*Sigh*... gotta flip it to see the images

[ocbwilg]

You stick a CD-Label on the non-date side. Duhhh. The whole *POINT* of this article is that it can non-destructively burn a visible image in amongst the data, and someone makes a post about the data side not being the label side. omg.

Errr...no. For those of us who read the article, the point was that you can burn images into the data side of a CD in the unused space . All of you fantasizing about burning images of Tux into your distribution CD's can pretty much forget about it since your data will consume all of the usable space. You absolutely cannot use this device to "non-destructively burn a visible image in amongst the data". omg.

Re:*Sigh*... gotta flip it to see the images

[shmert]

Unless your CD has 2 sides! If you can print images on the data side, I see a lot less reason for the current one sided CD standard.

Re:*Sigh*... gotta flip it to see the images

[SWTP]

Heard about this tech late last year in some mag.

Like you I was think if they could make a dual layer CD-R that you would flip and burn the label on then they have somthing. Wold be worth it also would protect the disk since both layers would be under plastic instead of only one and the other laquere.

But its a Marketing geek item over value type of thing.

Wonder if they will move it over to DVD Burnner when they get cheeper?

Re:*Sigh*... gotta flip it to see the images

[Anonymous Coward]

You should really learn to spell.

Free CD Art

[tweakt]

Yes. But I couldn't justify the expense JUST for doing that, but that's the first /practical/ use I've read yet. CD clocks would look uber-l33t with graphics burned into them... but for added hack value, why not just put together something like a GIF2ISO... er, I mean PGN2ISO program so everyone can do it for free?

Problem solved, no need for a usable CD, it's just artwork =) No extra cost, just grab the free program.

Re:Free CD Art

[PsychoI3oy]

i thought about burning pics into CDs about a week ago and have been seriously pursuing it since then (i just got a new plextor 24x10x40) and would like to build a ping2ISO type program

anybody interested email me please, if i can i'll even start a sourceforge project if we figure it to be doable

PsychoI3oy@(ihatespam)linkline.com

I`d rather

[MrFredBloggs]

Yamaha worked on their quality control. My Yamaha burned stopped working just outside the (12 months) guarantee period, and so i`ll have to buy a new one, as no-one fixes this stuff.
Anyone think of a good make that`ll work for 2 or 3 years?

Re:I`d rather

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a 12x TDK Velocd bought 3 years ago and it still runs fine.

Re:I`d rather

[Anonymous Coward]

A company called Backpack

(dont know the link, sorry)

Re:I`d rather

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to have an old 4X yamaha, it died just after a year as well. If you want a reliable burner get a Plextor!

Re:I`d rather

[Anonymous Coward]

personally, i recommend the plextor plexwriter.

Re:I`d rather

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, as soon as they stop treating us SCSI people like garbage and start giving us some of the toys that show up on the IDE and USB (!) side, sure thing.

Until then, I'm looking for another manufacturer. I used to swear by Plextor, but they're leaving me in the dark ages with stuff that is downright prehistoric compared to their modern products.

Re:I`d rather

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares about Scsi - especially on something as slow as a cd writer? Waste of money, surely?

I love it... useful and innovative

[dpbsmith]

Genuinely useful, genuinely innovative, not just some more "we're 8% faster using our own benchmarks on a good day with the wind behind us, and really almost pretty much compatible" nonsense.

Partial solution to a perfectly real problem.

The computer industry has gotten ossified... there are so many problems that have now been around for so long that nobody sees them as problems any more.

Of course, I know all of YOU are religious about labelling your media and are neat and tidy, so I'm sure none of YOU have ever been guilty of saying "You can recognize that diskette, it's the one with no label on it..."

Re:I love it... useful and innovative

[Pig Hogger]

The computer industry has gotten ossified...

Ossified??? You say ossified??? Have you had a good look at the music "industry"????

Combine this with that Aphex Twin graphic...

[colmore]

Ahhh cool non-musical tricks for music.

It would be cooler if someone would design a disk that could display a picture in the area where data is stored (perhaps store data on a lower level, like on double-density DVDs) so you could have art on the underside of a full-length album.

Frankly I think all of this is a little bit cheesy, and while cool every once in a while, would get old fast if put into general use.

Double Sided?

[falser]

What would go along well with this is double sided CD-R disks. I've always wondered why they aren't around. Have one side completely free to write these pretty graphics, text, warez keys, and the other side for the data or music.

Re:Double Sided?

[White Shade]

double sided cdr disk would have to be twice the thickness (and consequently twice the mass...) of a regular disk, because the data is actually recorded on the 'upper' side of the disk; the plastic actually helps focus the laser onto the grooves. This is why it's far easier to destroy a CD-R (and a regular cd too) by scratching the label side than scratching the 'data' side.

A double sided CDR would have to be exactly like two CD's stuck on top of each other, or they'd have to do some extremely fancy tricks to get the laser to focus properly through a data layer.

Re:Double Sided?

[loply]

AFAIK it writes the image in the UNUSED space - between bits of real data. Not in the empty space if you only use half the CD. But in the gaps between the pits.

Re:Double Sided?

[reidbold]

What?
Hogwash!
The plastic doesn't help focus the laser, it's completely flat, and the laser shines straight up. No diffraction of any sort occurs. The plastic is only there for protection.

Re:Double Sided?

[yawnmoth]

then what about double sided DVD's? Though I can't find any major retailer selling them right now, I have seen them. And, if you want more proof that they exist, why do you think they always make a distinction for "single sided dvd's"? go take a look on amazon.com for dvd-r's - every listing i saw also said they were single sided. now why say that if they could only be single sided?

of course, for all i know, double sided dvd's might be twice as thick, but... they do exist, and if they exist, why can't double sided cd-r's?

Re:Double Sided?

[yawnmoth]

What would go along well with this is double sided CD-R disks. I've always wondered why they aren't around. Have one side completely free to write these pretty graphics, text, warez keys, and the other side for the data or music.

they're called coasters :p both sides are equally useless.

Re:Double Sided?

[foobar104]

I have several double-sided DVDs at home. Amadeus has the movie on both sides of the disc; you flip the disc halfway through to watch the whole movie. Other discs have the widescreen movie on one side and the pan-n-scan on the other, or movie on one side and extras on the other. They're everywhere.

I don't know if you can do double-sided double-layer discs, however. That may not be possible at all, hence the recent proliferation of two-disc sets that include two single-sided discs.

Re:Double Sided?

[yawnmoth]

Actually, I was refering to DVD-R's, but... there are double-sided double layer discs, as this "advertisement" of sorts, sorta shows. I also think they only had the DVD be double sided for the first few DVD's of this, because I have this set, and it's on two seperate DVD's - not one two sided DVD. I think the main reason for this is simply that double sided discs don't sell. No one likes them, and so only the early DVD's had them, or the newer, really cheaply made DVD's (ala Babylon 5). In order to sell more copies, I bet the people behind the T2 DVD redid it. Of course, for burnable CD's, this drive could help make a come back! :)

Re:Double Sided?

[stienman]

This is what high refraction index plastic is for. You get a plastic that has exaclty twice the index of the regular CD-R plastic (which probably has a range that it can be, so we have some wiggle room) - one layer of plastic, one layer of CD-R material, a thin layer to sepertate the foils, another layer of foil, another layer of high index plastic.

They haven't done it because you can get several CD-Rs for the cost of one double sided CD-R, it's only a gimmick, and anyone who needs more than 650M and less than a few Gig is going to get DVD-R pretty soon.

-Adam

Re:Double Sided?

[foobar104]

I think the main reason for this is simply that double sided discs don't sell.

As a moderately avid collector of DVDs, I don't think I agree with this. I don't personally care whether my DVDs are one-sided or two-sided, except in cases like Amadeus where the film itself is split across the sides. I don't care for "flippers," and you don't see many of them these days.

I'd imagine the real answer is simpler: it's probably cheaper to manufacture two SS-DL discs than one DS-DL disc.

Re:Double Sided?

[SWTP]

Also a "stamped" cd is multil layer. They just pick the side with the least amount of error on.

So a double sided -R may be possible and still be in spects.

Re:Double Sided?

[klui]

Actually, data on a CD is not multilayer. The data is on one surface. If you look edgewise on a CD, notice that the data side is very very close to the label area. If there weren't any labels, and you tried to play the CD label-side "down" you won't be able to read it because the laser won't be able to focus on the data since it's now too close to the optics.

Re:Double Sided?

[jimsum]

The plastic does help focus the laser, or maybe more correctly, affects the focus. The laser beam is focussed on the pits, that means that the laser beam is not parallel. Since the refractive index of the plastic is different than air, it WILL have an effect on the focussing. Besides helping the focussing, the plastic is also there to hold the pits :-) The top of a CD is simply a thin layer of lacquer which is much easier to scratch than plastic.

This fact that the plastic affects the focussing caused a problem when the DVD format was originally being developed. Because of the decision to make DVDs double-sided, each layer is only half as thick as a CD (since the DVD as a whole is the same thickness). This means that a normal CD player physically can't focus on the layers on a DVD, and it is impossible to make a dual-use disk that can be played in both a normal CD player and a DVD player. This would have been handy for the DVD audio music format. If DVDs were not double-sided, it would be possible to create a dual-use music disk that could be read by both DVD and CD players: the CD pits in the normal position, and a second semi-transparent DVD layer. Sony's SACD format does support dual-use disks.

Re:Double Sided?

[i_am_nitrogen]

The plastic thickness has to be a particular fractional multiple of the wavelength of the laser being used, to prevent the coherent laser light from cancelling itself out.

Purpose?

[Tune]

Sometimes, you might use a CDR for something other than just data storage. Distribution of your own demos, for example.

On any occasion where you have a little space left on your CD (and a little time in your tight agenda ;-) you might just want to make it look a bit less dull.

Sounds familiar

[Dooferlad]

I am sure I have heard of someone doing this before in software, but I can't find a link. It should be quite simple to do if you know bit widths and track diameters I guess. As long as Yamaha haven't patented it I can see this turning up as a plug in for CD writer software quite quickly.

This will probably start turning up on ISO's soon, and it would be cool to have a nice Debian mini-CD ISO hacked to say "Woody" in the unused space! Of course, now we have the possible pain of ISO adverts...

How about nonspinning drive ?

[mystran]

I never understood what's the use for printing things on cd's really..

I mean, when you put it in a drive you can't even see it, and if you could, it would be spinning too fast anyway. When you remove it from your drive, you better put it to the case if you are going to use it again, so you can't watch it then either.

neat, but totally useless..

Re:How about nonspinning drive ?

[Ando[evilmedic]]

neat, but totally useless..

...like all the best hacks.

Why not just print on top?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't they design a cd-r that would simultaenously print the label on the top of the cd? Who cares about the bottom?

Good marketing

[af_robot]

I think that marketing deps just looked into numbers and figured that 90% of all CDR made by teenagers (mainly porn, divx and warez stuff)
So they named new technology according to their target group preferences.

- Hey l00k DuDe, That DiscT@2 sounds KooL :)

Re:Good marketing

[servanya]

[I]90% of all CDR made by teenagers (mainly porn, divx and warez stuff) [/I]

Really? Where did that number come from?
I would think that 90% of CDR's were made by people burning CDA. Remember, only about 5% of computer users are geeks, and not even all of them know what "divx" or "warez" is. (IMHO)

one word.

[Rhinobird]

cool.

DiscT@2

[wheany]

I get it, Disc Tattoo.

Somebody call A&M Records!

[Anonymous Coward]

You Styx fans can finally have a CD of "Paradise Theater" that looks as cool as the LP. Of course, there's still no hope for the actual music...

Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather fit more data into the spare space that I have paid for than a useless picture.

Pronounced as...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every single f...ng time I see some weird combination of letters or something and "pronounced as hot grits" or what fucking ever, it makes me want to barf.

If they can't name it so that the pronounciation is obvious without extra instructions, I will prefer to call such products as s7UFF, pronounced as "piece of shit with a name given by people who haven't got an inch of imagination".

No software workaround?

[Launch]

I don't know much about CD burning protocols... but it seems to me that this type of feature could be added at the software level?

Does anyone know why this wouldn't work?

Re:Disc Tattoo

[Speare]

the revolutionary DiscT@2TM Laser Labeling System,

...pronounced as Disc Tattoo Laser Labeling System.

[Google doesn't show a German word for tattoo.] A tattoo is a permanent marking by stippling ink designs into living skin. Or in this case, a permanent marking by stippling burn designs into compact disc designs.

Stupid ASCII Rebus puzzles. Leet Speek trademarks.

They do have the technology now!

[mekkab]

Look! You can make your own front side labels on your computer!

I know becuase I did a lot of research on this. I went to Best Buy and talked to their knowledgable staff and they told me this was the thing we needed. And they said it was "Sweet" so I had to get it. They also told be I should buy the extended warranty contract, so of course I did- you never know when some "new technology" is going to break and you won't be able to fix it.

Re:They do have the technology now!

[Peale]

Nice click-thru ad you got going on there!

Re:They do have the technology now!

[|<amikaze]

I got one of these Neato things with my burner...HP 8250i. I've never used it though... I use a permanent marker.. Makes all the labels I need.

This is old hat

[Anonymous Coward]

Maximum PC Magazine had this information like last month. And I cant find the link but I think Tom's Hardware had information as well.

People use floppies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the people I've been around in the last six years have moved to using things besides floppies. Most have used Zip or CD-R/CD-RW media. Part of this could be that I'm mostly around more computer literate people. I graduated from college in 1998 and even then, Zip disks were pretty popular.

I'd be surprised if many people really use floppies anymore, but I'm pretty out of touch with society.

Re:People use floppies?

[Monkey Angst]

I'd be surprised if many people really use floppies anymore, but I'm pretty out of touch with society.

More than you'd think. I work tech support for a company that (rather famously) stopped shipping floppy drives in their computers FOUR YEARS ago, and people still buy third-party drives in droves to pick up the slack. It's a dreaful little format, but it simply refuses to lie down and die.

People grabbed at Zip when it came out, but then everyone realized that Zips had the same reliability problem as floppies. What good is a new format with 100MB capacity if all you're going to get when you stick it in is a clicking noise?

Also, BTW, a lot of consumers are under the impression that CD-RW's work just like the aforementioned formats... it's pretty tough explaining to them that they can't use them as larger floppies.

Re:People use floppies?

[Yottabyte84]

Also, BTW, a lot of consumers are under the impression that CD-RW's work just like the aforementioned formats... it's pretty tough explaining to them that they can't use them as larger floppies.

Yeah they can, that's whta packet writing formats are for.

Wait!

[arban]

Don't fall for this. It's just a ploy to get us to buy more CD-RWs to feed our artistic habits. :)

Now that I think of it, an intesting art display might be a wall full of these making up a complete picture. Might have to find a bunch of those ractangle CD-RWs tho. Are those even produced? Ah, nevermind.

Fantastic!

[Sapphon]

Now I don't even need a computer to enjoy my pr0n collection ;-)

Use rikai.com instead of Babelfish

[MaPfJa]

Hi, those who want to understand more of the Japanese text should try Rikai's free Japanese->English web reading tool. It fetches the Japanese page and inserts DHTML to provide information about the words, that simply pops up when the mouse hovers over an unknown word.

To read the page mentioned in the article simply cut-and-paste the URL.

Re:Use rikai.com instead of Babelfish

[jmichaelg]

Darn near useless. I typed in the japanese url, pressed the Go button and Wowie! I get a Japanese web page with a little popup window that gives me an English translation of the word under the cursor.

I suppose if I was willing to move my cursor over each and every word to try to figure out what each and every word was, it might be useful but I think I'll stick with Babelfish.

OTOH, Babelfish yielded this Gem...However, as for this besides the fact that you cannot use in the CD-RW media, light and shade expression to differ, cannot use with the product " of the CRW-F1 " time before even with CD-R/RW drive of the same company with the media.

More Pr0n

[Lobsang]

So, it means that now I can have a CD full of pr0n and still squeeze one more picture in by printing it in the media. Cool! :)

Just what we need...

[Eosha]

yet another way to attach "fine print" to software...

an other question for physics inclined readers

[lfourrier]

Text and pictures are nice, but what would be nice would be holograms.
Given the size of patterns in CD, is it possible (theorically)?
Can we programmatically make it?

You're wrong

[af_robot]

"Customers can put graphics, such as signatures, logos, memorandums, and photo images onto CD-R's unused area after data writing."

Look closely: there is a very small data area (inner circle) on the picture, all other space is unused.

Re:You're wrong

[The_Laughing_God]

There also appears to be a small (ca. 1/4" = 6mm) data band around the outside edge of the normal CD data area. It's harder to see because of the light reflections (etc.), but can be made out at the cardinal points (top, bottom, left, right edges)

On certain CD formats, use ot the outer track may be required, but I can't rattle them off off-hand.

Undoubtedly authoring software will be written to allow more sophisticated embedding of images in the data area (e.g. leaving sectors that will be tattooed blank, and using the rest of each track).

However, before this added sophistication can be implemented, some mark will ahve to be created to allow the disk to be precisely oriented (e.g. a data pattern on a specific tract, or a mark made during blank manufacture). Current CD burnerss do not have this requirement (most formats can start writing anywhere around the CD, so it may be limited to second generation tatoo burners.

It would be easy to hack an existing CD-burner and software to orient and perform sector sparing, but for a hardware maker whose success relies on cost and high reliability, it's a much bigger job.

Re:Disc Tattoo

[Kong the Medium]

The German word for tattoo ist "Tätowierung". I love the umlauts :-)

Hi-res

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you get higher resolution by using 80-minute discs, because the spiral is wound tighter :-).

Actually, why bother recording data at all? Just MIME-encode the data you want to store, write it to the disc as graphics, then scan it back in, and OCR it when you want to access the data :-)

Also, when are we going to see double-sided CD-R discs? Maybe I'll have a go at glueing two conventional discs together Laserdisc(tm) style, (it might work :-) ).

WTF!!

[EddydaSquige]

It's windows only? Is there any indication of other OSes or platforms?

I don't know if this is good.

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

I mean, it's cool and all, but I don't want it to automatically put images of Rocco on my "back up" CDs. It would make them easier to find in a pinch, but...

PS2 Copy protection is history?

[Anonymous Coward]

The one thing lacking has been the ability to cross-modulate the burning of a track to emulate Sony's copy protection.

Looks like this drive can do it.

All that is required now is software that will allow you to control the burn across the ATP section of the disc.

The Forum Speaks

[cybermace5]

"Plus, I know from experience that if you hold CD's up and just start reading them, many earth creatures become confused and/or alarmed." -- The Cube SOMAD

Woohoo!

[intermodal]

now when i get a bad burn, i can make it into an even more decorative coaster than I would have before! thanks, martha stewart!

Re:Woohoo!

[emilami]

That comment was much along the lines of what I was thinking when I read this. Only more of "now the cds that crash without data can have data... that should save me about $10 a month or more". Martha Stewart scares me...

going a bit OT, but..

[caveat]

...as a maccie (at least i assume you are from your sig), you of all people should know Mac *is* 'nix. Although for writing CD-R drivers, it probably isn't...
bleh...i hate mondays, i'm always at loose ends and posting garbage.

Writes Images?

[lertl]

When I first read the story title I thought: "What's so new about burning ISO images to CD-R?"

Re:Writes Images?

[Anonymous Coward]

LTROL

LaCie/Sony

[caveat]

i have a lacie (sony mechanism) that i got for xmas 1996...granted it's only 2x and won't write DAO, but the sucker's probably burnt at least two discs a day for over five years, and it still works just as well as the day i bought it. even without a fan (that died about a year ago). not the fastest or prettiest writer, but DAMN reliable.
just my $0.02...

Re:LaCie/Sony

[MrFredBloggs]

Cool - thanks, i`ll look into them. They look a little more expensive than Yamahas...then again, if they`re made properly, they probably would.

Hmm, Christmas ornaments

[tejarz]

Actually, that'd be fun to just have a few of those, IMO. Since cd-rs usually have rebates now, you end up paying practicially nothing ($1.34 I think if 5% of $20 is $1 and stamps are $0.34). But any-how, the chance of me getting one of those is in the slim-to-none range.

you'll need cd-r/rw with dark blue colored dye

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a drawback to its feature. You'll need cd-r/rw with dark blue colored dye to be ale to see images/texts better... light green, silver and gold cd-r/rw are no good. Thus, yamaha website uses very dark blue colored dye disc.

Re: Whee - Another Example

[ayden]

There's an old story circulating among my geekier friends about someone who figured out how to do this with disk packs while working as a third shift a systems operator. Disk packs used to fail at a fairly high rate and it was not possible to tell a good pack from a bad one by looking. This operator figured out how to use the read/write heads to chip sections out of the top platter so that the word DEAD could be read at a glance.

double sided cd's

[yawnmoth]

now, not only with CloneCD can you make identitical copies of the data on the Windows XP CD's - you can make almost identitical copies of the cover with this Sony drive! All they have to do, now, is make double sided CD-R's.

but.....

[_avs_007]

I think they both died a few years ago. I think they were still clenching those 8" floppy discs in their cold hands.

But you wise men don�t know

[Anonymous Coward]

how it feels to be thick as a brick.

Re:the only thing that could make this better is..

[ocbwilg]

the only thing that could make this better is...making it external as well,

On the Yamaha site they show an internal and an external model...

It can only do it on the outer unused sections

[EnglishTim]

http://www.yamahamultimedia.com/press_02.htm

When reading the original writeup it sounded like it was being burnt between the tracks or something - apparently this is not so. It also begs the question of whether this could be done in software with current CD burners...

Sister

[RAMMS EIN]

This is what my little sister has been trying to invent for years...only she used more conventional methods for painting images on CD...

Practical use

[ajs]

If you or anyone you know has a green card, work or student visa, check the back side that has the optical data stripe.

Now you know how they do that. This is old tech, but is just now making it to the consumer market.

I just happen to know this because I did a little bit of work on the green card printer system.

For those of you who don't have access to them, they print the images of the first 32 presidents on the back. In uber-DPI, it's not much of a challenge to fit them all. I think there's other stuff too, like your picture. It's one of the many features of the new green cards that helps to discourage forgery.

Recordable analogue laserdiscs(tm)

[Anonymous Coward]

If, by using this drive, the user can turn the laser on and off at will, it might be possible to record in analogue laserdisc(tm) format on CD-R discs! I know you'd only get 8 minutes of video on them, but that would be cool.

Copy protection by complements

[heroine]

Users would happily pay for copy protected CD's if enough extra features were added to the CD. The copy protection becomes less of a drawback if the number of extra features grows.

Useless

[bobf]

So now I can write an image, on the bottom of the CD, in the unused data area. I don't usually make a CD that has a lot of unused data area. Make a CD-RW drive with buit in ink jet printer so I can print my label on top and I'll be impressed. Or (any printer mfgrs. listening) give me printer with some sort of tray that a CD fits in to be printed.

Re:Useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are a few:
http://www.insc.com/pages/cdprinters.htm

Diffraction grating stuff? Quasi-holography?

[crosbie]

Didn't read it too carefully, but are they using diffraction grating effects to create colours? Or encoding different images at different viewing angles?

If not, anyone else thought about the possibility of doing this?

Re:Diffraction grating stuff? Quasi-holography?

[anotherone]

Wow! Sounds fascinating... write the code and get back to us!

TECHNICAL INFO

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had experience putting images on mastered CD's, so I'll give you some technical facts.

Firstly it is not easy to do through software, although it is technically possible (and has been done already). Basically different CDR's have different track pitch and pit length, which means you'd need some way of calibrating for the media. The pitch and length are the important parameters in determining where a bit in an image will end up on the CD. The further out on the CD the greater the number of bits per rotation, because CD was designed for CLV. So software has to be very precise and know these parameters EXACTLY.

Also, from a software standpoint, the most data you can send down per sector is 2448 bytes RAW. Note that RAW data is not all of what ends up getting written on the disk. There is still C1&C2 error correction that gets written physically on the disk that you cannot control (it is generated by the chipset). The stream also has scrambling applied, and the result is an image that is pretty much correct, but is fuzzy because of the C1&C2 that are out of the control of the software.

The good thing about the Yamaha is it writes in constant angular velocity. This makes it easy to write the image because one line of the bitmap can be applied per rotation. CAV is the way the images are written at mastering. Also, I'd assume that the Yamaha drive is in control of the full stream, so you'll be able to get perfect images because it won't be generating any error data.

One last fact is that images look a LOT better from the top of the CD. This is because the plastic part of the CD is underneath and distorts the reflection when viewed from below. So quite a few companies burn the images in reverse (so they are viewed correctly from above), and only print near the center of the disc. The question is will CDR manufacturers remove the label on top so you get the best effect.

Re:*Sigh*... gotta flip it ONLY IF CDR IS LABELLED

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a CDR that has no printing on the top (like cheap blanks), then you can see the image perfectly from above. Of course you must invert the image before burning so it appears the right way.

There sell double sided CDR's

[RedFX]

You can buy a double sided CDR and burn an image on one side and put the data on the other. Here's a link to a merchant selling Sony double sided CDR's: http://www.mycoolgift.com/cdq-13g1.html

As for in America, DVD might be the answer

[lingqi]

There is something similar -- not CDRW, but still interesting enough that i was surprised to find:

take a PS2 DVD (i am assuming it's on all of them -- i personally was looking at FFX) and look on the bottom: you can see playstation logos burned into the disk.

I suppose this uses a similar technology -- but may not be exactly the same, since DVD has multiple layers -- which means that the image can be visible even when there is data there (or at least, on a different layer at the same physical location) -- how many of us are willing to sacrifice half the capacity for purrty images on the bottom of disks, eventually, when this technology comes around for DVDs and whatnot?

Re:As for in America, DVD might be the answer

[Tokerat]

If i'm not using that capacity, I'll galdly put images on my 2nd DVD layer, or outer CD ring.

Storage will defenitly come before decoration, however.

Digital's PDP-1 paper tape did it first!

[dpbsmith]

Obligatory complaint: why, this is barely news at all; a very similar story was reported in Slashdot just a few decades ago, in 1961.

The PDP-1 used eight-channel punched paper tape as the predominant storage medium, punching at a speedy 60 characters per second and reading at an ungodly-fast 200 characters per second.

On program tapes, prior to the start of the actual binary program data, the assembler would punch a human-readable label in which the title was spelled out in human-readable format in the block letters made out of patterns of holes. IIRC a 5x7 matrix, a little ugly because a horizontal line of little feed holes ran through the center of the character which meant that not only did the characters look "overstruck," but the spacing between rows 3 and 4 was a little wider than the spacing between other rows.

I wonder what the earliest use of "kludging directly human-readable data into a medium that was intended only to be machine-readable?"

I seem to recall that IBM card decks had a couple of preamble cards in which the punches spelled out a code number in block letters.

Cool how long...

[oldstrat]

My first reaction to this was cool.
My second reaction was cool.
My third reaction was, couldn't something like this be done through changes in existing software?
I suspect this is far more a funtion of software than the burner itself, and hope to see it added as a 'feature' by Ahead -soon-.

I can see the pr0n collectors lined up to buy it.

The DOD should love it, FOU, EYES, etc could be more useful when it's not just on a label that can be pasted over.

For me it's the geek factor.

Re:Cool how long...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I can say for sure that this is based on Yamaha specific LSI, and cannot be emulated by other CD-R manufacturers. It is a function of the hardware, with appropriate software support.

Re:Cool how long...

[oldstrat]

Is this one of those legendary 'it cant be done' statements?
Code Hackers ... Start your compilers

#1 use

[Anonymous Coward]

obviouly, this is designed for writing CD Keys on :)

cool

[bilbobuggins]

so if i burn a picture of a felt tip marker slash on the edge can i make an un-protectable cd?;)

you've never seen a win2k cd?

[keepper]

have you?

They have the OEM number right on the cd...

Re:you've never seen a win2k cd?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but Magic Marker on the front of CDR media doesn't count :)

Re: Whee - Another Example

[Anonymous Coward]

That operator's pretty darned smart.

Of course, if he were REALLY smart, he would have saved some time and used a felt-tip pen. Or even better yet, put them in a separate bin for dead disk packs!

Integrated printer in CD writer

[Animats]

The next thing is obviously to put a printer in the drive and print the label side. You can get CD printers, but they cost about $2K and are bulky. There's a thermal transfer CD printer available that fits in a full-height 5.25" drive bay. But so far, there's no low-cost integrated solution.

Old news again!

[acoustix]

Apparently no one on here reads MaximumPC magazine. There was an article about this CD drive about 5 or 6 months ago.

Some of the stories on /. are about as fresh as meat sold at WalMart.

a better explanation

[Cynikal]

with a picture:

http://www.giles.com/yamaha1/pr/comp/crwrec/disc Ta 2_0602.html

Done w/ existing hardware?

[bobthemuse]

Why can't this be done with existing hardware? I mean, how difficult is it to calculate what would have to be burned to create an image, taking into account the circular pattern.

Re:Done w/ existing hardware?

[SchmittHouse]

While probably not quite as hard, it's on the same order of difficulty as writing a poem who's MD5 checksum is the first 32 characters of the declaration of independence.

First off, the CD-R writes pits whose edges are detected, so you have to translate edges into pixels.

Also, you'd be limited to pits/lands that are between 2 and 10 bits long (if memory serves), since the data you feed it are eight-to-fourteen modulated (eight bit data coming in are translated to the set of fourteen bit numbers with strings of 2 to 10 zeroes -- note that there are a few extra suitable 14-bit values, which is where the subchannels (p, q, etc.) come from).

But before you do that, the CD-R interlaces the data around the disc so that a scratch won't wipe out more than a few bits of a given byte. So you'd have to figure out in advance where a given bit will end up.

So it is probably theoretically possible to burn a certain set of images onto a CD-R. If you pull this off, you might send a copy to the NSA and maybe they will hire you.

3D Volume Holographic to OBSOLETE CD'S !!!!???

[geekster_2000]

Company says it wants to replace all 2D AREA
and solid state memory technology with an
"ALL IN ONE " memory approach.

http://colossalstorage.net/colossal.htm

Just Like I suggested...

[SchmittHouse]

...at the halfbakery.

Re:Useful application

[Anonymous Coward]

hahahahahhahahaha that was a good one!!

I wonder if ISOs can be constructed to do this

[Yottabyte84]

I actualy thought of this several months ago, and even submited an ask slashdot (rejected of course...) to find out if it could be pulled off through specialy constructed ISOs. Anyone ever tried doing this?

Re:I wonder if ISOs can be constructed to do this

[PsychoI3oy]

been thinking about it the past week since i got my new CD-R. i still want to do it.

Re:I wonder if ISOs can be constructed to do this

[Yottabyte84]

Well, I toyed with it (made an ISO with alternating bands of binary zeros and random data) and it looked like any other CD.

Pictures? How about plain old DATA!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be impressed if Yamaha could make a CD-RW that could write plain old data without $&%*ing up! After working with HP drives, I can say that the Yamaha CRW2100EZ I bought is a piece of $#!^. Reads fine, but can't write with either an 80-wire IDE cable or with DMA enabled, can't burn at 16x without buffer underrun, vibrates like a table saw at high speed, overheats and goes nuts after burning about 4 disks in a row and needs to cool down for hours before it will work again. Acts the same in two entirely different PCs, one a P4/1.6G w/ASUS mobo, other a TYAN K6-2/550 both with WD 7200rpm/ATA100 HDDs. Yamaha? Not for me!

Lace cards

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever punched a punch card which has a hole in every possible position? It usually gets stuck in the card puncher, much to the annoyance of the sysadmins.

Also, making old hard disks walk across the room by repeatedly seeking across the disk. All good fun!!!

I saw this a while ago

[duren686]

My friend pointed me to one of the pictures, and I remarked about having that idea a while ago with a funky iso on a standard cd writer (Yes, I know it wouldnt actually work) and also that it would be really great if it could burn over the data, so as to be visible to human eyes, but be transparent to a CD laser, so as to allow both data and pretty pictures to be in teh same place.

Re:I saw this a while ago

[Anonymous Coward]

...I USED preview, I read over it, and realised after posting that it was the most broken sentence I've ever written.oh well, can't win em all

Calling all starving artists

[BlueJay465]

How long after this drive becomes available in the United States will someone be on the streets of New York selling their artwork burned onto dirt cheap CD-Rs for $5.00 a pop? How long will it take for every pr0n retailer to start including pr0n piccie CD's with every sale.

Yikes, and I only thought AOL was bad about innundating the market with their wares.

Suggestion

[SecGreen]

Can we have the software automatically add the words "This Side Down" to every image so that we don't have to field excessive support calls? I'm not sure how many times I can say, "I'm sorry, but with this CD, the writing goes down..."

Double sided DVDs and CDs

[Mike_L]

I can see this technology as being very useful for double sided DVDs and CDs. It would let you use the whole disk area for a label instead of just the little ring in the center.

Now I wonder when we'll see high contrast disks...

-Mike_L

Holograms?

[another_henry]

Some guy has done it by hand using just scratches in plastic... could a similar system engrave a simple hologram in a CD? Maybe you could have 3d diagrams showing how to insert the thing into a CDROM drive.

Using it to identify CD Burners...

[Ranolf]

It seems to me that the most obvious use of this technology is to build it into all CDRW drives and require that the drive "Tattoo" it's serial number on to any discs that it burns. I relealize that even if they went to the length of requiring you to "personalize" your CDRW drive, you could still fake it out, it does seeem exactly like the kind of thing content companies might try to mandate (and it wouldn't have any implications viz Red Book compliance)

Double-Sided CDs

[Toxxy]

What I'm excited about is the thought of double-sided CDs. If I can now label (well, sort-of label) one side of a CD while still keeping data on it, I can use that top side for EVEN MORE DATA. This is a very exciting idea.

Instead of graphics

[peu]

Why not use that area for writting usefull data in scrapped disks (IE buffer underrun)?

This work better as a replacement for labels!

[infofreako]

Give me the ability to burn on the top side and don't mess with the data side (of ANY disc).

Those damn labels always bubble up after a couple of years anyway.

-info

slashdot fucknuts

[Anonymous Coward]

i submittied the same story only about a week ago.

maybe i didnt hit submit enough times?

Cataloging my porn collection

[AndyChrist]

I guess I have some reason to NOT try and fill every last byte on the disc even if I don't need another copy of the files I'm burning.

I can use all that extra real estate to burn thumbnails of my porn collection.

Reverse problem?

[Red Pointy Tail]

What if the manufacturer applied the reverse, and put an image detector (instead of an engraver) on the drive instead -- that will read, detect and autenticate holograms (which cannot be generated by the technology of the same drive)?

It won't protect against well-organized pirates who will copy the hologram image as well, but it would certainly damp 'retail' pirating... :>

AOL did this years ago!

[hackshack]

About 1997-1998, one of the many AOL CDs I came across had their logo "recorded" into the disc, all around the perimeter. About 1/4 the disc (inner ring) was used by the bundled software, but the remainder was taken up by 5 or 6 AOL logos, all neatly arranged around the central hole. These were "recorded," not stamped or printed, as upon closer inspection, the edges of the logos had a very fine "blockiness" to them which matched the CD groove pitch. I always wondered if software could be made to do this with a CD burner. What a great hack!

rejected

[adavidw]

Yeah, I submitted this a week ago and it was rejected. Now I guess I know how it feels.

-Aaron

Anybody home ?

[billcopc]

Warning: I know more stuff about CD-R than your mothers, but probably less than Yamaha's genii.

First of all, CD's aren't purely encoded as 0=high and 1=low; they go through a differential encoding process. A '1' corresponds to a transition between low and high, and a '0' means just stay at the same level, just picture an XOR process on the bits. Now there are rules, like having to break long strings of '0' bits to keep the reader from getting confused. You also need to break long strings of '1' bits because they create an up-down-up-down pattern that is also too regular. This stuff is done by the burner itself, by the fabled EFM encoder hated by all CloneCD users :)

To print these graphics on the disc, Yamaha probably just switches off the EFM and lets their software directly control the laser pulses uncooked. This means you won't be able to do it on just any old burner because even if you did use the proper software, the burner would fudge your graphics in-transit and smooth out the resulting image quite dramatically (remember, readers don't like long valleys).

Availability ...

[Viceice]

For those of yuo who are Malaysian/Singaporean, there was an informal communication between my company and our supplier that they will be bringing in this writer into our markets. but thats just the SEA market.

As for the rest of you, go bug IngramMicro.

one other word.

[Anonymous Coward]

moron.