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New DVD Burners To Double Capacity
clester writes "CNN reports that new dual-layer DVD-burning drives will be released very soon by Philips and Sony that will double the capacity of DVD drives, making a complete copy of your dual-layer DVDs theoretically possible. It will use dual layer technology that will hold up to 8.5GB, and will cost around $230 for an internal and $330 for external, burning all 8.5GB in approximately 45 minutes."
I'm just waiting for the media prices to drop.
.ahem... backing up of ... well, you know. But, what I'd like to see is dirt cheap media that I can rely on for about a year and then re-burn on newer media -- my full album rip backups. Then I'd be set.
Given, a spindle of Ritek G04's (50) are about 46$ on newegg.com, and price/gig of data is actually quite good compared to a spindle of 50 CD-R's.
I've been doing a lot of..
So far, I've not used any media but Ritek's, since the price isn't like CD-Writables are now. But... this will just help the single-layer prices!
Karnal
Blue lasers are really what's letting this technology take off! Here is some backgroudn info from this snippet off USA Today:
Most lasers use red or infrared. Blue lasers exploit the benefits of blue light, which has a smaller wavelength. Consequently, blue lasers can get into much tighter spaces than other lasers, and do jobs others can't, or at least do them a lot better and faster.
Blue lasers are only now starting to fledge from some of the world's leading commercial R&D labs, with several major American and Japanese electronics companies reporting plans to use them in the next year or so in some of their consumer products and specialized professional devices.
Blue lasers are able to do this because of their wavelength - the distance between the peaks of two successive waves - which is one of the most important qualities in defining a laser.
see them pictures
Also, press release from Philips and press release from Sony with even better pictures.
According to the CNN article (which is the nutritional equivilent of sugary cereal), Sony's format is "DVD-R DL". Does this mean:
A) it's the -R (as we've all come to know -R) equivilent of dual layer technology? What happened to Pioneer's -R DL effort? Does this moot it, add to it, or surpass it? Will Pioneer ALSO release a -R DL format?
B) Or is this just a marketing name used by Sony for what is in fact the same DL technology used by the +R group, and the discs/drives will be basically interchangeable among the Sony/Philips standard?
C) Will the -R DL discs be readable in set tops or computer drives that cannot read +R/RW media but can read existing dual-layer media?
$5 per disc smells kind of expensive. I'm impressed enough with the job done by DVDShrink that I don't know if a direct copy of a DVD-9 means much at this point. It WOULD motivate me to replace my Panasonic E80 set-top DVD recorder if SP mode would now mean 4.16 hours of recording, or XP at 2.16 hours, or, if I'm willing to tolerate it, *16* hours at EP mode.
The Sony and Philips drives will use somewhat different discs. Sony calls its variant DVD-R DL. The Philips equivalent is DVD+R DL. Both disc types should be readable in standard DVD drives and players.
You should find the thing much faster when used with FireWire than with USB2. Even plain ole FireWire a (400Mbps) is much faster than USB2 (at 480Mbps) due to latency type issues. I'd _love_ to have an external Firewire b (800Mbps), Firewire a (400), USB 2, USB 1.1 drive cage to maximum portability/compatability.
My NEC drive isn't the best 8x on the market, but I'm _amazed_ at how quiet it is. It also doesn't heat up the discs at all, unlike most every other burner I've ever used. It'd be great for a HTPC project. I think the price has dipped even lower than the $110 I paid for it (from newegg.com).
I'm one of those early adopters ( bought the 6x DVD-R Pioneer drives right after it debuted ). IMO, it is unwise to splurge on this. The early versions produce few good DVDs & a large proportion of coasters. It took 2-3 months for Pioneer to resolve all the errors & issue a firmware patch, & in a few more months, the 8X drive was out, cheaper than 6x, but with problems of its own :)
Best to wait.
They will be marketed only for Windows PCs, but the external one should work on Macintosh computers with the proper third-party software.
Well, if history proves anything, any -R compatible drive will work internally (or externally via FireWire) in a Mac with no drivers. "SuperDrives" are basically standard Matsushita or Pioneer hardware.
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
Where I come from, 10 * 8.5G = 85G
There we go, site is up - but damn slow:
93% of the players tested play DVD-R
87% of the players tested play DVD+R
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Except, according to Sony's press release, Sony is using DVD+R DL for the dual-layer, and the drive is +/- for the single-layer formats.
To my knowledge, there is no dual-layer standard from the -R group. In fact, a lot of the claims of +R compatibility issues seem to be just FUD from the -R people, though my current drive is -R only (the +/- drives were much more expensive back then), the next will be +/- with dual-layer support.
Just have to choose, Sony or Phillips....
Apparently the issue is that to be read as a DVD-ROM the top abd bottom layers have to have exactly the same amount of content other wise the player will misread it. This is not a huge problem when the size of the content is known before the burn starts, but presents problems for dynamically created media like video recording from a camera or streaming source (like a TV signal).
If the size is not known before writing then the burner must write the second layer out with dummy data before finalization, potentially doubling the burn time. In the case of a video camera it would be unacceptable to make the user wait an hour after filming before he could change or view the DVD.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
does anyone know of an effective DVD burner that runs under Linux
.iso under Linux so long as you use this software.
All the burners I've tried work fine for
Blue lasers have nothing to do with dual-layer DVD burning. DVDs are based on red lasers, period.
How about k3b?
It burns DVDs and CD-R/RW and has evolved quite a bit since the last time I used it, no weird configurations or root privileges required
in mandrake type as root: urpmi k3b
Encrypted DVDs store the encryption key in a special area on the disc that is not writeable on DVD-R/+R discs. So you can't make a bitwise copy that works. You have to use DeCSS to decrypt it first, thereby circumventing the copy protection scheme.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Does anyone know what DVD burning support is like for linux?
Better than Windows (well, at least in my opinion). And by that I mean you don't need to purchase any tools to make DVDs.
You can burn DVDs, make menus, etc., all with open source tools. It may not be as `simple' as point-and-click Windows tools, but at least you know exactly what's happening at every step, and how each little bits work.
Best of all, you can do everything via the command line (except possibly for creating menus---you can use GIMP for that).
There are a bunch of tutorials online about how to do pretty much everything.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
I haven't seen any reliability studies of DVD media that include good numbers as to what to expect. However Kodak did publish some accelerated aging studies of CD-Rs where they showed gold stabilized phenothiazine dye (licensed by them from Mitsui) could be expected to last 200 years or so. Of course the stuff you get from CompuUSA for $2 per 100 isn't that dye system at all, it's whatever is cheapest that week.
Unfortunately Kodak isn't in the CD-R business any more (pushed out of the market by the cheap stuff) so if you want the Mitsui gold dye system you have to get Mitsui media.
If I had really critical data I would still burn it multiple times - CDs can are subject to problems in other ways than dye layer degradation, but I would do the burning onto Mitsui gold media.
DVD recordables? Not for critical data storage until I see some data on longevity.
Always use myway.com for AP and Reuters articles, they don't have any banners, popups, or registration.
Check here for info on how to run DVDShrink using Wine.
I'm the urban spaceman babe, but here comes the twist... I don't exist
No, not "Too... many... letters..."
silly, no letters will be found on the specs.
It will be like 48x8x48x16x4x8x8
No. Both pressed and recordable dual layer discs are 8.5GB. The reason being is that the track pitch had to be reduced for the inner track because the laser doesn't have as easy of a time focusing through the upper layer when it reads the bottom layer. All single layered DVDs, pressed or +-R, are actually 4.38GB, and all dual layered DVDs, pressed or +-R, are 7.9GBs.
If you purchased a 6X DVD-R (probably DVR-106) from Pioneer, sorry, you're not an "early adopter." Early adopters bought the DVR-101. The 106 can be considered a 3rd-generation DVD writer. While it is Pioneer's first dual-format writer, but it came out quite a bit later than Sony's offerings.
Jesus man, don't split so many hairs. Of course burning a dvd is a physical process, but a laser doesn't feel very physical does it?? It has no weight or density. Stamping a piece of plastic against a metal plate seems much more a "physical" process than using a weightless tool to burn out holes at a microscopic level, but it's all a a matter of perspective.
That's pretty good, seeing as there is no such thing as a 6x DVD-R drive; the jump went from 4x to 8x. Plus, anything in this speed range is considered fairly new.
BTW, the early adopter had a $3000-$5000 1x DVD-R drive (discounting the DVD-R format that went on to become the DVD-R Authoring format, because it uses a different laser wavelength and started at a 3.95 BB size).
Not only in the labs. They were showing it off at CES (using a stock DVR-106 drive with modified firmware, to boot). People might have missed it, though, because they were showing it in the Internation CES section.
Allegedly, they are waiting for some sort of official standard (probably also working out the major kinks).
DVD+R9 (The dual layer plus spec, I have no idea about minus, we're doing the same as we did with single layer minus and burying our collective corporate heads in the sand) requires MUCH tighter tolerances.
Reading shouldn't be an issue - a DVD+R (if you close the session) is supposed to be identical to a DVDROM. Of course 'supposed' is always the problem.
Anyway. Yes, you need a more responsive die and a lot less wobbly disc. We are having a really hard time finding discs that give reliable results burning right to the outside edge.
It's really nifty, but I can't in all conscience advise buying them until someone starts producing decent quantities of media.
Something similar applies for 12x and 16x writing, by the way - the media needs to be that much better. But several suppliers are making 8x media with 16x tolerances already (and will probably start branding it as such soon)
Posting anon from philips.com