High Density CDs 370
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. :)"
rockridge (Score:5, Informative)
filename size.. (Score:3, Informative)
Use different software. DiscJuggler [padus.com] 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.
Dreamcast (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Reminds me... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Get a Mac (Score:3, Informative)
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. Solution? As the machine was still under warrantee, I called Apple and insisted that they replace the drive with a new one, which they promptly arranged. We now have another five lives. Go figure!
Re:700 -1000 -1400 (Score:3, Informative)
Looks back at 3 foot tall stack 'o' spindles full of fansubbed anime
Raises Hand.
OT, may the mods have mercy on my karma (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Special drives / software for the Mac ... (Score:5, Informative)
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 [projectomega.org] - 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:Reminds me... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:You can have filenames as long as you like (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Reminds me... (Score:2, Informative)
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)
Re:Get a Mac (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:how about this... (Score:2, Informative)
> that's just as fast as a $2750 Mac? So, I buy a $600 (with DVD burner) PC and I
> pay $500 for DVD authoring software. I am still WAY under Mac prices.
The point he was making was, if you want to buy the hardware and software for your $300 PC to make it do everything that $2750 mac can do, you will spend way way more on the PC's accessories. Lets also not forget that a Mac capable of what he was claiming is no where near $2750. Closer to $2000 and under, depending what you get.
So its $300 (PC) + $300 (burner, using your numbers above) + $500 for DVD software which = $1100, yet you forget a PC needs a good sound card and video card as most new boxes come with crap (Or home build comes with nothing) so there is another $300 or more for both (Personally i paid $400 for my pcs video card alone, and over $200 on its soundcard, but i assume im an exception), which brings us to $1400.
Also your PC needs more than just CPU/Mobo/RAM (which is all your $300 number could really include)
You will probably want a case/power supply as well, so add another $100 for a nice one which is now $1500.
Then to bring that to the level of a mac, you need to add USB/firewire. USB most likely is on the mobo, but not firewire for the prices you quoted. So lets add $100 for the dual firewire controller (Gotta match a mac, remember) so thats another $100 (technically just under, but im rounding up to avoid dealing with tax/shipping) so now were at $1600.
Gigabit ethernet will be another 100, so $1700.
I should assume Windows here for your PC, which adds almost $200 most likely. While yes you could use Linux, lets be real here, Linux cant do desktop jobs anywhere close to as well Windows or Macs can.
If you use linux, you'll not be anywhere close, so price doesnt matter (Its like saying a dounut is better than a car because its cheaper. Well, not if you want to drive it somewhere. Linux is cheaper, but not if you want it for desktop use, in which case it just wont work well at all)
So assuming windows, that raises the price to $1900.
You'll need a disk (atleast one) so lets add another $100 for 120 gig.
Now were at an even $2000.
My iBook cost that much and is a laptop.
I can get the same desktop Mac for around $1200.
The $1200 mac which is fairly close hardware wise to the $2000 PC above is much cheaper, almost twice as so.
You would have to rip so much *standard* hardware out of your PC, or use cheap shitty crappy hardware (Win modem, single chip 100mbit tulip ethernet card, which cant push more than 40mbit/sec, no firewire, usb1 vs 2, etc) just to get close to that price.
If the mac didnt come with any of that nice decent hardware, it would cost $300 too.
And being someone that uses 4 different hardware architectures and 7 different OSes accrost them, I am hardly a mac zealot.
A zealot is a person that believes that their 'tool' is always the best for every job, when in fact that is never the case.
You bash mac users for supposidly doing this, yet you are trying to tell us your $300 PC with no hardware in it so it cant actually do anything (like display video or make sound or talk on a network) is the best tool for every job.
That said, you being a PC zealot, i can see why you posted annon.
Re:Rebirth of the GD-ROM? (Score:1, Informative)
VCDs and Redundancy. (Score:5, Informative)
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 [216.239.33.100] that's not up, but the Google cache is still working.
--grendel drago
Explanation on compatibility (pit length) (Score:4, Informative)
Sounds like it'll work, but make a more disk...
--
T
Re:OT, may the mods have mercy on my karma (Score:5, Informative)
Fun.
8-inch disks. CP/M. Punch-tape! Those were the days!
pip a:=b:*.com
Ahhh!!
Re:remember flopticals? (Score:3, Informative)
Got one at home and about 30 disks..
Re:yay (Score:2, Informative)
Normal .7 gig CDR is .10 each in bulk. .90 each in bulk.
Normal 4.7 gig DVD-R is
That's not that much of a difference in price per gig. Plus the convienence of only storing / keeping track of 1 disc, instead of 7. I'm just talking out my ass. I don't have a DVD writer, I'm still using my bulletproof Plextor SCSI 12x burner.
Re:DVD Firmware upgrade? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sony already did this (Score:1, Informative)
They're thinking of migrating to Compact flash, though. Media is more expensive, but if you only need one 256MB disk it's cheaper.
Re:how about this... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Anyone else remember FDFORMAT ? (Score:3, Informative)
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!
Re:Double density floppy anyone? (Score:2, Informative)
Rebates aren't free. You still pay sales tax on the unrebated price. The vendor gets to float your money for months before giving back the rebate. And (although this is illegal) oftentimes they make you hassle them for the rebate or don't give you back the rebate at all.
Even at 6.6 cents per gig, you will need to buy at least 500 gigs worth of data before you save a whopping $30.
A single 100-pack of DVD-R discs is already almost 500 gigs.
Now, of course, the advantadge to a drive that can write 1.4 gig at will is that you have something you don't with dvd's - a choice. A good migration path.
The same choice is available with DVD, since DVD burners can also burn CDs. I burn CDs when CDs are appropriate, and I burn DVDs when DVDs are appropriate.
The sanyo 1.4 GB CDs are actually quite terrible as a migration path, since CD-ROM drives can't read them and DVD-ROM drives need a firmware upgrade. Compare this with DVD-R which is readable right now in almost all DVD-ROM drives. The Plextor 1.0 GB CDs are better for migration, but they have less than the 1.4 GB of space that you've been using.
Re:64 characters? (Score:3, Informative)
Though you could burn ext2, just don't cry when Windoshes fail to read them.
wow, you don't know how to shop (Score:1, Informative)
"Also your PC needs more than just CPU/Mobo/RAM (which is all your $300 number could really include)"
xp2000+, $50
512M pc2700, $50
mobo, $50... and that has firewire, usb2.0, 5.1 sound, LAN
That = 150, not 300... add a case with power supply for $75, a $75 17" monitor, keyboard and mouse and you are at $325 for a computer.
"(Personally i paid $400 for my pcs video card alone, and over $200 on its soundcard,"
I can guarantee your $400 video card is ludicrously more than you'll need for the next two years of games... and if you aren't a gamer, then the only person who needs something like that is a graphic designer and they will spend more than that (a $2000 mac comes with 9700pro, but it's only a single proc 1GHz [yes, I know that GHz aren't everything] with no dvdburner). Get a $180 video card that is much more cost effective. As for sound, go for an Audigy 2 for $100.
Add OEM Windows for $100 and a coolass ethernet card (because 40Mbit/s is terribly inadequate for surfing the web or running full programs from a server such as I'm doing right now on my PC) for maybe $50 and you are only at $750 or $800.
That $2000 Mac without a dvd burner is TWICE the price of the PC and it cannot possibly be twice as fast. That $2k Mac also doesn't have a monitor... so add another $75.
Let's see, what else... oh, yeah, you can't just upgrade as you go if you want to piecemeal your computer. Say I don't have much money and want to upgrade from an old computer to a new and fast one over the course of 3 months (which I did), you can't do that with a Mac.
Try buying another floppy for a Mac, a second sound card, etc. Buying new components is a lot more expensive and not always available for a Mac.
Re:Nice idea, but... (Score:3, Informative)
The prices for DVDs at stores like Best Buy are horrible, horrible, horrible. But if you look at Pricewatch [pricewatch.com], the price, for the data, is less than CDs. Currently, they sell a 50 pack of DVD-R for only $45. That's equal to that data of about 330 CDs. That's quite a bit cheaper than CDs for the data. DVD-RWs are currently at $47 for a 50 pack.
Shop around a bit. Places like Best Buy have shitty deals on media.
no worries (Score:3, Informative)
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.