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CD Burners with Built in Compression
EconolineCrush writes "Bored of new CD-R/RW drives that only seem to decrease burn times by a few seconds over their predecessors? Check out this review of Plextor's PlexWriter Premium over at The Tech Report. With an advertised CD-R burn speed of 52X, the PlexWriter is certainly fast, but its ability to encrypt the contents of burned data CDs and squeeze nearly a Gigabyte of data onto a 700MB disc is what sets it apart from other high-speed burners."
Can it compress already compressed data? That would be tricky.
IMHE most ppl use CDs for backup or video burning, in which case it is already compressed, to compress it further would take another dimension (which a CD writer could conceivably do, but then we're in blue laser territory etc)
?
A bit OT maybe, but a while ago I heard some rumors about Philips (or maybe another company) making a burner that would copy disks "protected" with any technology. Did that ever become reality?
Price(street): US$107
Considering that you can get a DVD burner for under $200 now why would you want a CD/RW that burns disks that are unreadable(at 1:1.4 setting) in other drives?
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
The Tech Report also notes that the LiteOn LTR-52246S that they compared the Plextor to, costs over $50 less and is just as fast. So if you don't need the compressed CD's that don't work in most other drives. This is a good high end drive for bargain hunters. (They noted a price of $43).
Or for $50 more than the Plextor go and get a DVD-RW drive.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
It's not just this drive. Even things with the most basic interfaces like labelers and signs, even if they wrote their little gizmo interfaces in Java. Sure here you probably need a driver or an ioctl(), but it's not rocket science.
I'll buy the one w/ Linux/Unix/Mac support.
You have 720MB of data, or some other amount that's just over the 700MB limit where it feels wasteful to burn another CD. I bet the 110% setting will produce burned cdrs that will work in most any drive. Anything more merits burning two discs or buying a DVD+/-R(W) burner.
Linux and Windows both have compressed file systems that can be applied to CD rom.
Besides making the data disk readable from only one os I see no sereous draw backs to this software solution.
So this hardware solution is not OS dependent but it appears to have issues with reguards to other CD rom drives.
If someone wanted to they could put the Linux compression in a Windoes driver or add windows compression to Linux.
and Mac Os X support should be easy enough.
I don't actually exist.
This reminds me of a situation around ten years ago. Just before harddrives became 'huge'.
Most of you probably remember DOS extensions that allowed packing the harddrive content, so that you got 'a way more free space'. Yeah, sure. It worked somehow until you had to switch to other OS or packing system. None of the packed data, could be used anymore, unless you reinstalled the same version of the same packing program that was originally used. I remember how I lost a whole harddrive of data, because I couldn't find the original DOS version I had used when installed the packing system.
Not being able to read the data is just one of the problems. Have you ever packed 1GB of data? It takes a Long Time and you Have To pack it even if you are not going to burn it, if you want to know whether it fits in the CD.
There are dozens of reasons why this 'invention' is not going to work. But most of all. In my opinion, this is the sign of the end of the CD age.
PS. If you ever have packed MP3 or Divx files, you know already that they might even take more space when zipped/rarred/etc. Plextor is not a miracle worker!
You think Sony is more innovative because they hold the patents on DVD+R and that is exactly why they invented teh DVD+R format. They already made DVD-R drives, and added DVD+R support so they would become the drive on the block to have. Silly isn't it?
Simple fact is that you should NEVER buy a Sony drive, or anything made by sony for that matter. The DVD+R/W format is the most ridiculous format on the planet, and anybody using it is feeding money into their pockets so they can invent more useless formats as alternatives to things that already exist. Then they sell it to dell to try to make it standard issue. Give me a break.
In the end, DVD-R/RW is the standard format, and the format of choice for most of the industry. Unless you buy only dell computers, you are likely to be using DVD-R/RW exclusively. DVD-R media is cheaper than DVD+R. DVD-R media is carried in every computer shop in town whilst DVD+R media is hard to find anywhere in more than a 3pack or single pack. Joe Schmoe knows what a DVD-R is, and they don't want to be confused with WTF a DVD+R is. When people buy a new Dell and find out they need to special order the DVD media for it, they tend to get fucking pissed.
Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
CD-Rs degrade over time just like any other media. If you "compress" the data on it (i.e., use less of the media surface for each individual bit), it's more likely that a bit will become unreadable over time.
Suppose you're squeezing an extra 30% of data on the disc. I'd expect it's at least that much more likely that a scratch, excessive heat, time, or whatever would turn your backup into a coaster.
This is a bit different than the increase in HD platter density. With HDs, where the product includes both the rw mechanism and the media, the manufacturers had to implement stricter quality controls and test their media to tighter specs as they squeezed more data on the same amount of surface area. (And even still, reliability of IDE drives is poorer). In the case of these "compressed cds", the media is the same, and the manufacturers haven't tested its reliability when used with higher-density pits.
Maybe over time we'll see CD-R media that's been tested/certified for this standard (just like we now have media that's certified for various burn speeds). But until then I certainly wouldn't trust a compressed CD-R with any important data. (Or, I'd at least trust it far less than I do an uncompressed one)
Can it draw an image on the data surface of the disc?
void*x=(*((void*(*)())&(x=(void*)0xfdeb58)))();
I recently bought an rs232 plotter, a historic one, just because its manual had example source code for usage. The code was BASIC, but it was more than enough to get a plotter app written in Linux.
Before Bill Gates "0\/\/nz0r3d" a computer on every desktop in America, companies had to make stuff open. Before hard disks and resident operating systems were common, you had to release example code so that developers would make their software compatible with your hardware.
Now, many hardware manufacturers are only beginning to support alternative platforms again.
For the record, this thing's blatent violation of the CD-ROM standards would keep anyone with a brain from buying it. If these discs would work in all drives and the burner was worth the money, there would be Linux drivers within a few weeks.
For the company's sake, I hope they recoup their development costs. As for me, I have compatible cdroms, compressed ISO if I need it, and a tape drive whose capacity puts and disc to shame.
People won't sacrifice compatibility for a measly 44%. Well, I will with compressed ISO just because my backups will never be read outside a Linux system.
Did that article check the MD5 sums of the files? I suspect there was massive data corruption on the 3rd party drives.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I don't see other drives being able to read these discs. This would reduce the portability of these giga-rec discs, as you'd have to use them on your computer or find another computer with the plextor drive.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
> So if it does not interoperate with other devices it is not really a CD/RW breakthrough but rather an extension to the hell that has become CD-R.
...
:-)
It supports all other formats as well, is faster than many other CD writers and can also read copy protected music CDs. Plextor is back to its old heights in providing a quality product and moves all OEM stuff back into in the shadow.
They were the first who recognized that a black interior decreases the bit error rate. They also provide good support. They once sent me a new ROM for no price.
They also have DVD writers and the only reason why they do not support this variable pit length feature there is probably because they haven't ordered bigger flash ROMs yet.
Yes, the pit length can be set in such a way that 1.2 GB fits on a CD-R or you can change it to 900 MB and get a good chance that it can still be read by others CDROM drives.
They also sell the CD writer with analyses software, so you can check the quality of your burnings.
They don't leave you with much arguments to call them a bad company
In other words: they never cared much about what you call hell
Sven
The Linux Knoppix CD hosts 2Gb of data, that is a whole distribution of linux with all the applications a desktop user needs (and more) on a normal 700Mb disk that all CDrom drivers can read. This is actually twice better than what plextor offers, plus it you don't need a special drive to read the CDrom (like plextor) and there's no company controlling it, the cloop linux kernel driver is open-sourced and can be ported to anything by a skilled programmer... Just another attempt of a huge company to squeeze some money from the poor suckers who buy anything blindly without having any idea what they're buying. And yeah of course, there's DVD-writers which kick plextor's attempt to steal money from the average computer user.
If you read the article to your own link, there are many reasons why you make your claims... The only real problem that makes DVD-R technically inferior is that some of the bits are not protected by ECC parity bits.. Every other conclusion made by the article only promotes features in DVD+R(W) that are extra fluf having nothing to do with read/write quality on specific media and drives.
For instance, The article claims that because of the pre-pits used for media information sent to the drive, you must use a dual laser setup to be able to burn, but then the article slips in that many manufacturers nowadays are switching to single beam lasers. So it looks like they found a way to fix that problem. So after the first "pro" for DVD+R, he doesn't offer any REAL world disadvantage for DVD-R (Nobody cares what the paper-world advantage is if it is not translated to real world advantages) Not only this, but the claim that the pre-pit method reduces drive speed is a lie. In the real world, DVD-R is just as fast as DVD+R. Until there is proven technology in DVD+R that proves its superior burning speed, any point against the DVD-R pre-pit method is invalid.
Lets go onto "Pro" number 2 for DVD+R. (I'm skipping ECC bits because I admit that one) Defect management has not been implemented in any commodity DVD+R drive to date. All it is is fluff added to the specification and could also be added to the DVD-R specification in time. The claims that you can only get these features with DVD-R using software is true, but they are also true for DVD+R. There is nothing preventing DVD-R future specifications from including defect management on the hardware level (save patents, which are already a problem with DVD+R) Not only this, but since when was it better to implement such items in HARDWARE when it could just as easilly be implemented in software (especially considering you need special mastering software for either drive in the first place) Including hardware to do software's tasks just increases the cost of the drives and patent licensing for drive and media manufacturing. To quote from the article: "This makes DVD-RW not well suited for simple file storage or image burning, as it requires a complete file system to benefit from defect management." Duhh, this is what we have been doing in the CD-R arena since the begining! Why use more expensive media (DVD+MRW) and drives to accomplish something that software can accomplish for far, far cheaper and much more robust(if desired)?
Lets go onto "pro" number 3 for DVD+R... "Also a DVD+R(W) disc allows a drive to achieve better writing quality (independently of media quality), because it gives more information to a drive than a DVD-R(W). " This quote is backed up by nothing, and just shows how much less this reviewer truely understands. There is no evidence presented that DVD-R drives NEED that "more information" DVD+R drives provide to their drives. Not only this, but so far, it looks like current drive models are having NO PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER with the "limited" 7088 sector test area of the disk.
Now on to DVD+R "advantage number 4: Linking... Nothing in this article explains why using loss-less linking (used for things such as buffer-underrun protected recording) has any advantage over 32k wide linking. In fact, there is a very good and useful reason for this DVD-R method. Why on earth would you need perfect exact loss-less linking when your media is 4.7GB long and you are going to waste a measly 32k? Who cares? This variable sized linking used by DVD-R makes buffer-underrun technology simpler, and cheaper to manufacturer. It requires less precision by the drive, and therefore means drives can be manufactured for less money. Because the drive does not have to align gaps perfectly like the DVD+R specification requires, DVD-R drives do not have nearly as many problems with slicing level deviations as described in the article. (note that the article tries to make this as a negative for DVD-R. This is where the reviewer's poor engineering skills show through)
Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
you could *potentially* crack a secure install program
The install program can use exactly the same encryption that the CD drives uses. If there were a way to "crack" the installer without having the password then then there would also be a way to "crack" these encrypted CD's without having the password.
there are a lot of un31337 people
If you are "un31337" then you are way out of your depth in critisizing any encryption method, or in critisizing someone who critisizes any encryption method. The security/insecurity of encryption is extremely sensitive to technical and "31337" details and knowledge.
The benefit of doing the encryption they way this CD company does it is that it saves a tiny bit of space on each disk. The major drawback is that it only works on computers that have their custom software pre-installed. That probably makes it more difficuly for "un31337" people to use it. There is absolutely no difference in the actual security provided.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
And that's the main reason why this probably won't go anywhere. Doubling data density from 720K to 1.44 M was accepted by the marketplace because the 720's hadn't really become dominant over the 5.25" formats yet. OTOH, the 2.88 couldn't put a dent in 1.44 because just doubling the density isn't enough to get people to pay for drives that support it, and until a substantial percentage of drives do, nobody would want to use the format. We can move along to DVDs for a big gain in density, once we have standards (to give people the confidence that other drives will support the format, once again).
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Why bother making the CD incompatible when you can just overburn to at least 900MB, and have it readable in almost all CD drives and get almost as much extra space?
Centralization breaks the internet.