The State of Recordable DVD's 173
An anonymous reader writes: "The Tech Report has a review of two DVD writers, one from each of the two competing standards (DVD-R and -RW and DVD+RW). In addition to testing the performance of each drive, they also test a bunch of DVD players and DVD-ROM drives to see how well they read the different types of media."
DVD life (Score:5, Insightful)
But how will you read the data from it in 100 years? We don't even know if we will be able to purchase compatible readers in 2-3 years.
Backing up DVD's (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it that everyone thinks that the only legitimate use of DVD-R in relation to DVD is for piracy?
For god's sake, all I want to do is backup my DVD's so that my I don't have to buy it again after my kid scratches it up.
To be practical, though, we need higher storage capacity. Most of my movies won't fit onto 4.7GB.
<sarcasm>I just love the DMCA. Makes it illegal to do with DVD what I've done for years with VHS videos I legally own.</sarcasm>
Re:Where's my holographic storage? (Score:2, Insightful)
There are two layers on a DVD. When you look at it might seem 2d but there really is depth and thus it is 3d. The Laser on DVD reads the first layer (which is usually gold) which is semi transparent. This transperancy allows the laser to access data underneath the first layer.
Something else you might be interested in is that in order to have DVD and CD compatiblity a holograpic laser is used.
If you want more information on this try as a starting point. [audiolinks.nl]
BlueRay! (also known as Bob-o-rama) (Score:1, Insightful)
What a fantastic summary... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignoring for a moment the moral and legal implications of stealing content, this is all a huge PITA, and would in all seriousness probably take several hours for a typical movie. Is it really worth it? A practical example: I just picked up "Jay And Silent Bob Strikes Back" (sure, it's no "Clerks" or "Dogma" but I'm a fan of Smith's work). It has two DVDs crammed full of stuff. While I haven't checked, they pretty much have to be dual layer, because otherwise, why not just issue one dual-layer disc?
So there's four recordable DVDs worth of content, and a ton of time spent recreating menus and splitting content out over four discs, not to mention the cost of the four recordable discs themselves. When you're done, you have to switch between four discs instead of two, and you navigate them using crappy homemade menu screens instead of the cool ones on the original discs. Know how much this movie cost me? $17.99.
For the love of God, people, just go buy the damn movie.
Couldn't have said it better myself. If only Hollywood would rely on producing GOOD flicks, adding a little extra "value" (read: nice side features) to the DVD release, and releasing them for a FAIR price, which will make me *want* to buy the damn thing instead of increasing the incentive to just get a DivX copy without paying for it. The latter might be Wrong(TM) in my opinion, but I'm damned tempted sometimes. $30 for the Trainspotting DVD (my local Media Play) and it's just a dump of the VHS onto DVD with chapter selection slapped onto it. What a joke.
TV Series on DVD (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, I'd rather plunk down $120 to have MTV do all that work for me. Earth to movie companies: if you release it (at good quality and affordable prices), we WILL buy it. Stop trying to deny me the ABILITY to pirate video, and try denying me the MOTIVATION.
I own about 400 DVDs at this point, and buy 20 or more per month. TV series top my wish lists: Sopranos, Hogan's Heroes, Batman Animated, Batman Beyond, Twin Peaks, Simpsons, Futurama, The Young Ones, Daria, Farscape, and lots of others. I'd buy every one if you put them out.
Re:Backing up DVD's (Score:4, Insightful)
Or an image of my Linux partition? Or how about combining all 7 CDs in the Mandrake 8.1 PowerPack into a single DVD or...
Re:Backing up DVD's (Score:4, Insightful)