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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. :)"
Been there, done that. They're just buying time until DVD media takes over (which it is already beginning to).
So, history repeats itself again - higher density on older media.
When do we start punching holes in them and flipping them over?
www.eFax.com are spammers
You just have to create your own CD filesystem, and cope with the fact that it's incompatible with all other CDs in the world
That's okay. Here on Slashdot, you can't have subjects longer than 50 characters (as you can see above).
This will probably flop, unless it becomes an integrated standard in all DVD +/- RW drives. No one wants to buy a special cdrom drive just to read high-density CDs, especially when better (read: DVD) technology exists.
Well, sortof, with their DD-CDR or whatever, using new tech to get 1.2 gig per disc.
If the two formats were compatible, it might almost be useful. Of course that's doubtful. So I cant really see the usefulness of this.
I thought maybe for archiving or something, but then the cost of the Sony drive is comparable to a DVD-R, so why would I want 1.2 gigs instead of 4.5?
These little fart in a jar techs will no doubt go the way of the zip drive. A day late and a dollar short - unless the industry works together for a standard thats cross compatible, and makes it ubiquitous.
Fuck it, I'll just burn two cds.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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.
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
we stop worrying about sticking more data on CDRs and DVDs and start creating INEXPENSIVE (free) software for DVD authoring?
When I say "DVD Authoring" I mean a FULL feautured suite including menu creation and beautiful buttons, etc.
Joe Blow (and for DVD burning this includes me) wants to buy a DVD burner, take it home, and put his movies onto a DVD with a purty menu. He doesn't want to pay $330 for a nice DVD+-R/RW drive, take it home, and find out that the ULead Demo software does NOT work. He then does not want to shell out $200 - $1500 for DVD authoring software.
If DVD burning is to catch on software has to be created that is free and that works well.
DVD-RWs are cheap enough (and going to continue to drop) that we WON'T need to find new ways to store more info on 700mb CDs.
Sounds fishy to me. "To read these new DVDs you must upgrade the firmware on your DVD. Oh, by the way, the region coding firmware will be installed too. Happy reflashing!"
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
I'm a little unclear as to who the target audience for this is. I can't remember any time I've sat down and thought "Damn, if only I had 300 more megabytes of space I could cram all my pr0n into ten cds instead of fifteen". Add in the firmware bit and you're targeting a non-existent audience.
The Plextor GigaRec sounds similar to the tweek that Sega did to the DreamCast CD-ROM drives to read GD-ROM disks. I was wondering how long it would take for such a tweek to become mainstream.
So now I can record 2x the data on a CD-R but I still can't have filenames longer than 64 characters. :)
:-)
Why not? Don't you have a Macintosh?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
The trouble is that since it's not a ubiquitous standard, it's not really all that useful. Compare to old optical media standards - there were plenty of optical medias that you could record to (and even re-record) long before CDR came out. But CDR took off like all crazy because it was standard media you could play back anywhere.
It allows the drive to burn up 1.4GB of data using a regular 700MB blank CD-R blank.
I rewrote my drivers some time ago to provide exactly this level of performance, through the simple but clever technique of only writing 1's to the CD and skipping all the 0's, which the CD drive never reads anyhow.
Well, okay, I rewrote the "write" portion of the code. The "read" portion is still giving me trouble, but I'm confident it's just a matter of time.
but I still can't have filenames longer than 64 characters. :)
Use different software. DiscJuggler on W32 for example will allow you to override the normal file system limits to your desire. The resulting disc may not be compatible will all OS's but it will allow you to do it. Another solution is to pack up the files into an archive (gz, bz, zip, rar etc..) and just burn the packed file. Although the files are not directly accessible from the cd, it will maintain the names once extracted. The ability to maintain the filenames is sometimes more important then convenience.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
ThisIsA64CharacterFilenameBoyIsItLongImSureDespera teToUse65.txt
Yea, i'm worried :)
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Our top scientists are working overtime to outpace the expansion of bloatware. This bold advance should help defer the need to ship everything on multiple CDs for at least another six months! :)
With the steady decline in DVD-R prices, expect this to be a novelty, especially the version that needs a firmware upgrade for the drives. We'll be buying bulk packs of DVD-R's for $12 bucks very soon.
What's the read / write speed? I confess I didn't RTFA.
but I still can't have filenames longer than 64 characters...
f teenandthirteenseconds.tar.gz'r tyfirsttwothousandthreeelevenfif teenandfourteenseconds.tar.gz'
Yes its such a bitch to pay 20 cents for a CD-R and not be able to name your backups 'thursdayaprilthirtyfirsttwothousandthreeelevenfi
'thursdayaprilthi
Get paid to code OSS
64 characters eh? Back in my day we only had eight. And we didn't have any of your fancy pants lower case letters to fool around with either....Bah!
Another hack that is too little too late. I already have my DVD burner, and it already burns 4.7 GB discs.
No thanks!
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Two years ago I would've told anyone who was getting a burner that it was extremely difficult to require more than 1 CD to back up all of a person's data (not apps, just the documents and other data created by them), especially on a Windows box that begs for a clean re-install every 6-12 months. However, nowadays with people having multi-gig MP3 collections being commonplace, it seems 640KB is in fact NOT enough for everyone.
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
Actually, cutting the notch on a 5-1/4" disk would turn it into a "flippy", where you could flip it over and use the other side in a single-sided drive. 360k 5-1/4" drives were already double sided. It did not trick the drive into thinking that double density media (360k) was high density (1.2MB).
Yet another proprietary method of storing more information than was originally intended on a media (format? type?) that continues its inexorable descent into obsolesence.
Start pushing that Blu-ray DVD technology, people. At 4.7Gb, even standard DVDs are starting to look at little bit tired; with any luck, Blu-ray will become affordable around the time DVDs really start to seem limited, where storage capacity is concerned.
Floptical disks were floppies that used an optical tracking mechanism to align the magnetic head with the floppy tracks to achieve increased track density.
A trick which, of course, wouldn't help with optical media to begin with, although didn't Bernoulli drives use magnetism to increase the CDROM track density?).I remember systems such as the Dreamcast had their discs designed to hold more than 700MB specifically so people pirating them couldn't do a perfect job, requiring audio tracks and cutscenes to be surgically removed from the game to fit on a normal CD. I know some PS2 games are just out of reach for CD pirates due to their > 700MB size as well. It seems to me it's quite possible for a soldering iron based firmware upgrade to put those games within reach for pirates now.
:).
Pirates are always the early adopters of these kind of technologies
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
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.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
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.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
My favorites collection is something that I backup along with my normal data. It's quite easy to go > 64 characters with the ways some web pages title themselves. The easy solution of course is to just zip 'em up in a file, or export to bookmark.htm, but it's still one more step that I have to do becuase of some arbitrary 64 character filename limit.
It seems as though a new data recording standard comes out every week. Until all major computer and hardware manufacturers agree on a single new standard, all of these new data recording technologies are just going to be niche products like the Iomega zip drive.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
Sanyo's technology shouldn't stand a chance in surviving, much like Iomega's 250MB disks/drives. I would bet that most people (excluding techno-elitist) who are still using Zip drives regardless of their drive capacity, use only 100MB disks, since sharing them utilizes the much wider installed base of 100MB drives. Since CDR and CDRW has replace much of Iomega's usefulness, 250MB drives are pretty useless, especially in a cost/size comparison.
Likewise, why would anyone bother to use a technology with a very limited install base to double the capacity of a CD when DVD's are getting cheaper, hold even more data, and the installed base is much more prevalent.
However, plextor's solution should be more ideal despite the smaller 'overburn' rate. Since people can use it right away on the existing install base without worrying too much about compatibility when they go to share their media.
Everyone is going on about interoperability. Of course it's not compatible, these companies are just "making stuff up."
But there is a use - what about backups and other offline storage that are generally not shared, or shared only with coworkers? This could save lots of money on media among such users.
Don't knock it! As long as it doesn't cause rampant data corruption, that is..
Justin
"Why would God give us a waist if we wasn't supposed to rest our pants on it?" - Rev. Roy McDaniels
The statement "but dos only uses" is misleading, DOS uses all available disk area, it's just that the tracks and cycles are spaced further apart.
The TSR/formatting program "2M" simply ordered the data closer together on the disk, in fact quite similarly to these cdr-techniques.
(worth noting that error rates go up when density goes up, so don't think you're getting something for nothing)
In dual layers they can, but a consumer dvd burner cannot burn 2 layers. The layers are physically glued together after burning I believe so that can't be done at home.
You forget why region codes were introduced in the first place
No, you just haven't realized that it's an excuse, not a reason.
There's no reason movie studios can't release movies simultaneously in all regions.
This can lead to a situation where a movie is available stateside on DVD before it has even been shown in Europe.
If international distribution is really the reason region codes exist, why are movies like Jaws (1975), Gone With the Wind (1939), or The Maltese Falcon (1941) region-coded? Are you suggesting that these movies have yet to be released in Europe?
I can imagine lines of people, somewhere in $EUROPEAN_CITY, desparately waiting in line to see Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen, 35 years after it was released in the US.
Region Coding is simply a way for movie studios to create artifical boundaries, to practice predatory pricing.
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
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Are there technical reasons to use ISO9660? Does it have some special error correction, or could I just burn ext2 or something?
Actually, there is NOT. Even if the studios didn't release the movie simultaneously in all regions - I own the player, I should be allowed to pay extra and import any film I want and watch it on the player.
If I am willing to go the extra distance to import, I should be allowed to play it. Plain and simple. Or, as others have stated, they could just release worldwide with the same or comperable features... Or would that make sense?
Sounds like it'll work, but make a more disk...
--
T
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
Isn't this similar to Sony's DDCD format (that also never left the ground) ? Okay so now they're using a DVD-Rom laser to do it, but it's the end result is the same.
This is another almost-good idea that's just five years too late. And I don't plan on waiting for Pioneer to release a firmware upgrade for my drive, it's already hard enough getting support as it is.
What I really want is high-speed DVD-9 burning. Yes, 9.4gb with at least 4x speed, preferably 8x. Now get rid of these inbred 1x DVD-R media manufacturers who haven't realized nobody has 1x burners anymore, and let's get cracking!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Couldn't you use the "1 only" write technology
to further compress the 32 4-byte number(32 bits)?
It would then only take 5 bits.
You could then just memorize the number and you wouldn't need a CD at all.
Be sure to keep your Romeo mode and Juliet mode disks close together, or both will suddenly stop working.
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
I wrote a similar one (atfmt100) back in '92. The main trick was canceling the double head movement for 360K floppy and writting 80 tracks instead of 40. For all the standard format you could write several more sectors on each track by reducing the gap in between, 10 instead of 9 for DD or 21 instead of 18 for HD. However, then you had to interleave the sectors to give FDC a chance to catch up. This made I/O twice slower though. Finally, you could "overburn" a few tracks more, although some drives would make loud clicks trying to read your floppy! All told, you could put 850K on the old DD floppy.
Oh yes, and you needed to run a small TSR to access these floppies because DOS insisted on standard sizes. This TSR also had to patch a boot sector every time it was written. Basically, point the leading JMP to the end of the sector where your code set the initial values for the BIOS geometry table before jumping back to the original address.
At that time, I was proud of myself because I found out you could use the data rate usually used for 360K floppies (300Khz) for 720K floppies, which usually use 250Khz. Then, you could write 1072K without punching any holes. But then, Linux drivers and a program (2m) for DOS went way further by filling the same track with different sector sizes!
The question is, can CDFORMAT be written, by patching firmware if necessary? I know, for example, that VideoCDs store 800M on a "700M" CD by not using error correction. Shouldn't I be able to do the same thing with my MP3 and DivX CDs that could also tolerate some errors? Also CD "sectors" are awfully small. How much capacity can be gained by growing them? Anyone who beats Plextor and Sanyo in their own game will be our hero!
Now, first things first (but not necessarily in that order). Unicode is not a standard from Microsoft, and using the two bytes 'm' and '$' does not make you cooler, nor does it make me cooler to nag about (darn).
Claiming that a filesystem should use 8-bit values for all their files is like going back to the times when there was no internet for the common computer user, when each computer used only one character set all of the time. Today, I come across both US-ASCII, ISO-8859-1, 8, 16 and 32-bit Unicode and the good old codepage 850 daily. What would happen if an OS had support only for one of these character sets? Believe it or not, most computer users are not natively English speaking, and most users get in touch with many different funny looking characters or languages each day. At least so I presume.
Regarding the choice of encoding, I suppose 16-bit Unicode maybe isn't the best choice for storage. UTF-8 would seem appropriate to me, but then, there might be some issues with Thai filenames, reducing the numbers of allowed chars to 32 or so, for Thai filenames, while 128 for the American. That might be considered unfair.
All in all, we need a common character set. Unicode is the solution (although some characters codes don't have the most optimal order) and it's here to stay. At least I think it's funny to have Thai filenames on the Thai MP3's I've got, and the Icelandic names for the Icelandic.
But if you're putting programs or even DivX movies on a CD, believe me, you want that error-correcting information.
Which is why you encode your Divx movies not into AVIs, but into OGM ogg file containers. Not only do they have error correction, so you can use 800 meg mode 2 cds, but they have multiple audio track, multiple subtitle track, and chapter support. Divx 5 with Vorbis audio, subtitles and chapters, and you got near dvd quality on one 800 meg cd. Its great, and not used nearly as much as it should be.
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