High Density CDs

goofrider writes "Sanyo introduced a new format called HD-Burn, supported by their new DVD+/-RW chip. It allows the drive to burn up 1.4GB of data using a regular 700MB blank CD-R blank. The resulting HD-Burned CD-R can only be read by supporting DVD/DVD-ROM drives and CD-ROM drives. Most DVD/DVD-ROM drives can support the format via a firmware upgrade. It's unclear how easy and how likely will it be for future drives to support this format. In contrast, Plextor released their new GigaRec technology in their new PlexWriter Premium (read a review here). GigaRec also records on regular blank CD-Rs, allows up to 1GB of data on a 700MB disc. however, the disc can be read on any modern good-quality CD-ROM drives with no firmware upgrades required. So now I can record 2x the data on a CD-R but I still can't have filenames longer than 64 characters. :)"

Comments

rockridge

[Cyn]

yeah if you keep burning it joliet you don't - feel free to burn in a different format and you can have the longer names.

OT, may the mods have mercy on my karma

[operagost]

Let's not confuse punching a new write-protect hole on a 5 1/4" double-sided floppy with punching the HD hole on a double-density 3 1/2" floppy. The former was perfectly acceptable, as most Commodore and Apple II floppy drives were only single sided and the only way to write on the other side was to flip the diskette. However, most diskette manufacturers didn't bother to put a write-protect hole on that side, so you had to punch your own. I remember using legit educational software that was double-sized and required flipping on the Apple II.

Now, punching the high-density hole on a DD floppy- that was risky. Sometimes the manufacturer's DD media was good enough to hold HD tracks, but often not. Usually you found out a few months down the line when your "HD on the cheap" floppies started having data errors.

Re:OT, may the mods have mercy on my karma

[evilpenguin]

Okay, let me really show my age. I used to punch extra index holes in my SSSD 8-inch floppy disks! Really. I'm not just doing one of those "I had to walk uphill to school both ways" things. The single sided drives had the index hole off to the side, so when you flipped the disk over, the hole didn't line up with the sensor, so you had to punch a second index hole.

Fun.

8-inch disks. CP/M. Punch-tape! Those were the days!

pip a:=b:*.com

Ahhh!!

Special drives / software for the Mac ...

[adzoox]

Personally, I'm going to miss Yamaha now that they've gone bye bye with their Disc@2 labelling laser drives. has anyone heard if they plan to license or sell that technology?

Eventhough a novelty, it did allow me to personalize CDRs like business cards.

The new Plextor mentioned in the article sounds interesting. I wonder if I can access that feature on a Mac?

I know there's this program for OS X to overburn Firestarter - I use it often.

Hopefully, Roxio will make it availible in the next version of Toast.

As a note, firmware on optical drives, especially DVDs is risky due to region coding. If the firmware goes slightly wrong your region could get messed up. I know on the Mac you just reset open firmware and that usually takes care of that.

Re:You can have filenames as long as you like

[91degrees]

mp3s. I don't really want to have to abbreviate "Ray Stevens - Jeremiah Peabody's Poly Unsaturated Quick Dissolving Fast Acting Pleasant Tasting Green And Purple Pills" just because if an inadequacy in the filesystem.

Re:Get a Mac

[MikeVx]

I live in Canada and one day discovered that my wife had been playing both region 0 and region 1 DVDs in her TiBook. One day, she asked me why her laptop was now locked into region 1.

I'm confused. Region 0 is a misnomer of sorts, it essentially means all-region. It should not be necessary to re-set your drive to read a "Region 0" disc. Now if you are switching from region 1 to 2 and back, then you have a problem. If the software is switching around from 1 and 0, the author should be lashed with a wet noodle.

VCDs and Redundancy.

[Grendel Drago]

Because the extra data is there for a reason. Regular data is burned in "Mode 1", which takes 2048 bytes of data per sector. It then pads this out to 2352 bytes (or something close to that; I forget) with error-correcting information.

VCDs are burned in "Mode 2", which uses all 2352 bytes per sector. If there's some kind of chip or scratch, you're SOL. With VCDs, which use MPEG-1, this isn't a problem. But if you're putting programs or even DivX movies on a CD, believe me, you want that error-correcting information.

Here's an article that's not up, but the Google cache is still working.

--grendel drago

Explanation on compatibility (pit length)

[MeerCat]

This lifted from a post by "CD Freaks on 13 March 2003" on this page

HD-Burn will just *halve* the pit length on the CD, so double the data (and effectively half the error correction).

However, plextor will only reduce the pit length by 40%, and assuming the drive produces no jitter, then this means the resulting CD will still be readable by normal CD drives, as the red book standard allows for 40% jitter in either direction, so think of it as like Yamaha's Audio Master, but in reverse

Sounds like it'll work, but make a more disk...

--
T

Re:how about this...

[raygundan]

I can't believe I'm feeding the trolls today, but this one really got my goat. Macs are great. Macs are expensive. Just accept that both are true, and quit arguing over it. PCs are also great. PCs are cheaper. PCs are less stylish and poorly integrated.

I'm not sure where you pulled your PC price numbers, but the box I'm using cost less than $900 last year, and has an XP2000+, Radeon 9500 Pro, 512MB RAM, 5.1 sound, 2x80GB RAID, 8 USB, 3 Firewire, 40X CD-RW, 3COM LAN, and a DVD-ROM. Adding the DVD burner would add $180. IF the software is truly $500, we're still WAAAAAAY ahead. Windows XP Pro is far cheaper if purchased OEM, and I paid a whopping $50 for it via a MS promotion. Even $300 machines come with windows, though, so unless it's a homebuild, you get it "free". $400 *PCI* (!?) video cards and $200 sound cards are not the norm. A 9500 Pro runs about $180, and an Audigy 2 can be had for $80.

That was me building from parts. If you want to look at what's available today, Dell has a P4 2.2GHz desktop w/17" monitor, DVD writer, XP, and all your basic other stuff for a whopping $480 shipped free. Add whatever you want to that, and I guarantee it beats any mac price.

Now, that said, the mac is prettier, comes all in one box ready-to-go, and has very well-integrated software. And you pay for it. Whether it's worth it is up to each person, and does not need to be the subject of massive back-and-forth flame-o-ramas.

So, to reiterate: Macs are nice for some people, PCs are nice for some people, and despite the poster's noble cross-platform efforts, he paid too much for his PC parts.