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Hardware

Linux Supported DVD-RW Coming Soon 132

Posted by CmdrTaco from the gigs-and-gigs-of-burnable-space dept.
Obiwan Kenobi (you're our only hope!) writes: "This article located at Business Wire tells about how the second generation Panasonic DVD-RW's are going to be supported in Unix and Linux by Tracer Technologies software." 9.4 gigs baby, yeah!
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Linux Supported DVD-RW Coming Soon More

Linux Supported DVD-RW Coming Soon

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  • Sounds like a great idea, porting over something this nice for linux/unix. But like I've already seen, my question would be, when can it actually be expected, and just how well supported will it really be? If it's really supported, or just works like it supposed to, then his would be a great utility for backing up mail servers, or nfs servers or any signle purpose style servers.

    However, the ability to use it as a source of making DVD movies under linux would be nice a well. I'm not up to speed if there is really anything out there for linux that allows you to make DVD movies.

    All in all, it still seems like a bit of vapor hides this ware. We'll just have to wait and see I guess.

  • You only need 40 gigs/hour if you are working uncompressed- there is no reason to work uncompressed, especially with VHS quality footage. I have used various video cards (Miro [miro.com], AVMaster [fast-multimedia.com], PVR, etc). Most all of these cards us MJPEG compression, which is similar to MPEG compression, and of pretty decent quality (approximately Hi8 quality) I have even taken some footage captured through the AVmaster and dumped it to a Beta SP deck for footage aired on TV. A fast 8gig drive gives me a few hours of footage at decent quality.


    --------------------------------------
  • I think everyone calls him Goldstein because of what the character in the Charles Dickens' book stood for.

    Um... Dickens? The book is 1984, by George Orwell (a pseudonym -- his real name was Eric Blair, according to this biography [gerenser.com]). Emmanuel Goldstein was Public Enemy #1, the focus of the daily mandatory "three-minute hate", and (not incidentally) a complete and utter fiction, a creation of the "Ministry of Truth", the propaganda department of the government.

    As for the "Emmanuel Goldstein" of 2600 fame, I'm afraid I don't know his real name off hand either...
    -----
    The real meaning of the GNU GPL:

  • I can roll 'em just fine on my own!
  • Why wouldn't mkisofs work as well on a DVD as it does on a CD?
    --

  • Questions for the Professor...

    I've been very interested in massive archival for digital video applications on my Linux computer for the ability to edit and store home movies (assuming I get IEEE 1394 connector for my computer, or a MiniDV tape reader), for recordings from TV (assuming I ever get hold of the MPEG from my dish receiver; or tolerate NTSC resolution frame grabbing via some bttv mechanism; or get an Ethernet ported TiVo), etc.

    1. I was interested that DVD+RW is supposed to lack the offending case of DVD-RAM that enables it to be read/written more backward compatibly, but can I write the disk so as to make it readable by my (or anyone's) DVD player? (Is this tantamount to doing a CSS encoding?)
    2. You mean DVD+RW is still not out?
    3. How open/closed is the specification of the +RW vs -RAM?
    4. Media cost comparison between DVD-RAM and DVD+RW?
    5. How's the transfer rate for writing?
    6. I thought there was recently some DVD-Multi standard one ring to bind them.. Any truth or substance to such rumours?
    TIA.
  • I won't touch IDE in any new system I'm building. It's just too flaky and unpredictable. The Ultra 5s we have at school use IDE -- the first workstation I've ever seen without SCSI -- and the performance is absolutely hideous. Sure, drives cost about 5 dollars per gigabyte, but I'd rather spend twice that on SCSI and reap the benefits of faster, more sustainable IO and 15 devices on a single chain.

    Oh, plus none of this phony software IDE RAID crap: I'd like something reliable, thanks.

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

  • Re:DeCSS = Warez (Score:4)

    by drix ( 4602 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2000 @01:05PM (#924470) Homepage
    I imagine that many copies of DeCSS will be deleted voluntary if the court so orders.

    Well, except for one anyways. There is a copy of the DeCSS code actually entered into the court record (some idiot lawyer for MPAA made this mistake). That is a public document and is not going to go anywhere soon. I can go dredge up court records from the 19th century if I was so inclined. DeCSS has, in essence, been immortalized by the very people that were moving to kill it. At any rate, it's time to shift your frame of mind. Previously (pre-Internet, that is) you would be right - just because it was out there doesn't mean they can't legislate against it. Now, though, you're wrong. The Internet is making legislation a moot point for many things that the government held a tight legal grip on for years: gambling, encryption, copyrights, and, yes, fair use, just to name a few.

    --
  • Eheh.. +1, Style. :)

    --
  • This is a Good Thing (r)(tm)(c). Any company to focus on support for Linux instead of Windows has a huge market to virtually monopolize until other manufacturers see the same potential. Getting in early can make Panasonic a 'defacto standard' for Linux systems in this category for potentially quite a substantial period of time. Panasonic could market this solely for Linux because Windows drivers are obviously available, but as more companies do this, Linux can break some new ground towards domination.

  • Re:Nice backup tool (Score:3)

    by Chris Frost ( 159 ) <chris@frostnet.net> on Tuesday July 18, 2000 @08:03AM (#924473) Homepage
    As long as your main bus is fast enough and you have memory, you could always buffer a *whole* lot of data and be fine, but that's not a very pretty solution.

    Plextor now has cd writers (and I assume rw) which stop writing when they hit about 10% of their buffer and can go back and start back form where they stopped within spec limits. Very cool.
  • I partly agree. In my past experience, the people stealing things like long-distance or satellite tv were mainly adventureres who just got off on puttin' to 'the man.' They're weren't much of a threat to the bottom line of the companys involved, because their methods were too complicated and too much trouble for the average person. Services like Napster, however, have started making it much easier and have lowered the barriers for the masses. As I see it, the only real barrier that remains for pirated movies is the bandwidth needed to transfer them. I think that most people won't knowingly buy a pirate DVD. For whatever reason, that seems much more 'wrong' than getting it thru a Napster.
  • They don't make Gear. They sell it, however, although they've told me they don't support Gear any more. On the other hand, the program they've replaced it with does not work with my Panasonic jukebox! AARRRRRRGH! I agree Gear stinks but on the other hand it does work...

    WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?

  • Hollywood still makes quite a bit of money from video and DVD sales (tapes sold to rental stores top $100), and that's why they're concerned. Many movies don't break even in theatres and then end up doing fine after video. Movies like Austin Powers got much bigger on video then it had ever been in the theatres.

    Combine that with the prospects of more universal higher speed data transfer, it's got quite a few people upset. I don't know what the answer is, but I think that the big music and movie studios are in for quite a shakedown as technology rolls along.

    These studios don't seem to fit in so well in a system where free distribution is so convenient. Maybe they'll be the middlemen that get cut out as technology evolves.

  • DVD+RW is supposed to be interoperable with older DVD (you should be able to play a movie on a DVD+RW disc in your component DVD player) while this is not necessarily true of DVD-RAM.

    Unfortunately, DVD+RW is an effort worked on by the likes of Sony and Philips (and others), and so it has taken forever (though they are real close now...)

    some stuff at http://www.dvdrw.org/ [dvdrw.org]

  • You could be right that the IDE was responsible. My plan is to use SCSI in the future, and I might give it another try when I have that.

  • Re:9.4 GB? (Score:5)

    by Jason W ( 65940 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2000 @08:09AM (#924479)
    FYI, The Matrix, after being run through DeCSS and stored on disk, is 6.3 GB. This includes all chapters and intro movies (including the menus that you might not even think were movies, but they are).

    --

  • I meant the issue was dead and buried. DeCSS is still very much alive, friend. All of the code segments I have seen make it painfully obvious how to implement them. Any half-assed C programmer can look at a function called "void css_descramble(byte *, byte *)" and know what to do with it.

    Also, there is a very well documented and exquisitely commented, GPLd library called css-auth that takes care of all descrambling needs.

    I don't see any evidence of balkanization here. I see multiple implementations of the same code, but that's no more "balkanized" than Linux having 15 different IRC clients, etc. Everyone wants to do it their own way. So what.

    --

  • I agree with your comment, but your math is *WAY* off :-). Using your numbers, here's what I get:

    DVD - $19 for 5.2GB = $3.65/GB
    IDE - $238 for 60GB = $3.97/GB
    CDR - $38 for 64GB = $0.59/GB

    Of course, that ignores drive costs for the removable media. It also assumes that ~60 GB of data online with an IDE drive is comperable to 60 GB of data offline on a bunch of CD-R or DVD-RAM discs. It usually isn't. IMHO, the best mix for cost-sensitive users is probably a big IDE drive or two and a couple boxes of CDs for storing things that you don't need access to more then once or twice per month.

  • An old movie with Jackie Chan in it that was just released in English has some trailers you can't skip. I don't remember the name but I know that it takes place like 100 years ago.
  • Yeah, my old ass Jackie Chan movies on dvd and they're unencrypted. I can watch them in linux without the help of decss, and you better believe I do.
  • I may be showing some major ignorance here, but the article talks specifically about a writer (DVD-RAM?) - do the writers work the same way as say a CDR works? Meaning can *nix clients read DVD-ROMs?

    Can I watch my movies using the thing..
  • Come on, you've heard about GM Tech Support...

    "Hello, my car is making a funny noise..."

    Actually, I would have faith getting tech support for Linux -- most tech support groups do have people who are using Linux at home, no matter what they have to support at the office.

  • The big question will be how supported the players will actually be.

    The typical "we will release drivers, but don't bother trying to call for help" like most hardware which says it works in linux.

    ________

  • Ext2 works fine on it if you decide to format it.

    So I guess if you patched the kernel with e2compr you could easily archive about double that 5.2Gb on a single DVD-RAM. Wouldn't help for mp3 and the like but for uncompressed data it would be a pretty good backup format.

  • Nice backup tool (Score:3)

    by tjwhaynes ( 114792 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2000 @07:47AM (#924488)

    On the surface, this looks like the perfect backup tool - lots of storage space, and nice and easy to access and store, unlike tapes which have done nasty things to me in the past.

    But are there nasties about using this for backup? Any projected lifespans for these tools? Are there content encryption restrictions as well - could we encrypt our own movies to be played in a normal DVD player? Make a movie of that Quake FragFest for exmple?

    Cheers,

    Toby Haynes

  • Re:Support for Free/Open... eh, *BSD? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I spoke with the owner of the company the other day. To paraphrase his comments, he essentially said that their marketing survey indicates that *BSD is dying. He told me that *BSDs' ongoing loss of marketshare made it a poor bet for profitability. When you think about it, you can't blame him. It costs money to support any platform, let alone one on the fringes. His resources are better spent focusing on the more profitable platforms.
  • DVD-R (write-once DVD) comes in two flavors now: 3.95Gbytes and 4.7Gbytes. Both of the are single layered formats.
  • Win2000 doesn't include UDF support, but you can download a free UDF driver from Adaptec (http://www.adaptec.com/support/advisor/cdrupdates /udfreaders.html).
    --
  • Let's see ... (calculate) ... wow, that's nearly an entire week of MP3 files, 24 hours a day!
  • Aren't the DVD Video discs very different from the RW media? In fact isn't the RW media mor of a cartidge right now and to play DVD's you'd need a caddie.
  • Whoa. Majorly cool. I'm up to my eyeballs in silvery coasters :-).

  • Re:Homegrown movies (Score:4)

    by HeUnique ( 187 ) <hetz-home&cobol2java,com> on Tuesday July 18, 2000 @08:10AM (#924495) Homepage
    Currently the DVD-RW media's costs a LOT - something like 50$ and more. An avrage DVD movie will cost you something like 20-30$ (depends where you look)...

    So whats the point or piracy with those crazy prices?
  • Will cdrecord be able to talk to these devices?
    Will there be an open-source tool to make filesystems for them?
  • Probably not, but the press release emphasizes the use of the MagnaVault software to control/operate DVD jukeboxes. Which is a very interesting idea, because the software seems to offer disk spanning, can reclaim space when deleting files etc. With data rates up to 22.16Mb/sec.

    Impressive. Low cost per MB, 30-year data life, very interesting alternative for tape jukeboxes.

    bBob

    --

  • You know this is kind of baffling
    I don't think I've ever bought a DVD that had a trailed that you were forced to watch. The copyright message, yes, but that's it.
    Which films should I be steering clear of ?
  • Underrun is a bit of a moot point on rewriteable media.

    --
  • Someone is furiously coding away at it right now, no doubt. :)
    -
  • I don't know how you came up with those numbers, man. Remedial math for you!

    Generic 12x CDR 100pack
    $40/65G = $0.62/G

    TDK 12x certified w/warranty 100pack
    $82/65G = $1.26/G

    Hotan 5.2G rewriteable dvd-ram
    $19/5.2G = $3.65/G

    Maxtor 61G 9614U8 DiamondMax 5400rpm EIDE
    $238/61G = $3.90/G

    Ryan
  • Because, in the world of capitalism, companies compete for a market share, and the price of this wonderful technology will go DOWN - SHARPLY - SOON!

    When prices drop to something much more reasonable, like $20 or less, piracy becomes a rather feasable (and profitable) option.

    Pardon my sarcasm, and don't flame me. I hate the RIAA and have my own copy of DeCSS like any reasonable person.

  • . . . with the 2.6/5.2 single/double-sided media for $20/30, respectively. It's not hard disk speeds, but it is massive storage at cheap prices.
    How is 20$ for 2.6GB or even 30$ for 5.2GB cheap? Last I checked, you can buy 100 cd spindles from CompUSA for ~30$, that's ~65GB for 30$. Granted, I still think DVD-RAM is much nicer (would you rather have to deal with physically storing 500 CDs or 50 DVD-RAM discs), but it's still too expensive for mass storage.

  • With a 30+ year shelf life, it's a great archiving format for 10+ years where magnetic tape is not.

    While I do not doubt that DVD-RAM on Linux is the greatest thing since sliced bread, I do doubt that at this stage of the game that you can predict how long the media will last. Last I checked, the preservation issues are still an open question. Check out the little blurb on the Library of Congress [loc.gov] website to get a feel for how much is really unknown about preserving data on optical discs.

    My guess is that is probably will not matter for the average user. I could care less about whatever may be backed up on the hundreds of discs that once held data for my old Windows 3.1 box. I probably will not care about the backups from my current linux machine 10 years from now either.

    Yet, there are going to be people out there making the same assertions/assumptions you are making here. They are going to back their data up and forget about it. Then, they are going to have to live through all the issues that plagued books, film, photographs, computer media, and on and on. Anyone remember all the trouble there was reading census tapes, space mission data tapes, etc.? Anyone notice that drawer of color photographs in your grandmother's house starting to fade?

    But that was film, analog tape, or some other medium, this time it will be different, right? Well, if you believe that, you are quite a bit more optimistic than I.

    Don't worry, I promise not to say, "I told you so," when all those files you snapped of your family using your digital camera and saved on your 30+ year media are lost ten years from now.

  • > 64GB of CD-R's for around $40, which makes for
    > a price of about $0.06/GB

    Don't you people fucking THINK? 64 is of the same order of magnitude as 40. Therefore 40/64 should be about 1, not 0.1 or 100. In fact, 40/64 = 0.625. CD-Rs cost $0.625/G. I know you made a simple/stupid mistake, you calculated 40/(64*100). That is, you corrected for the 100pack twice. But you STILL should have noticed that your answer (100x to small) WAS WRONG. Get yourself a slide rule.

    Ryan
  • Bingo. As far as DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM go, it's going to be a LOOONG time before you can put your videos on one of these things and have it play in your consumer-electronics-esque dvd player. In fact, most DVD-ROM drives for the computer won't even read these! Type 1 DVD-RAM won't even come out of the caddy even if you did have a dvd rom to read them! You can buy an Orb drive for 200 bucks with a MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH (I can't stress this enough) faster WRITE TIME and a LOWER COST PER MEGABYTE than even this rewritable DVD crap that's hitting the stores now.

  • Can you write to DVD-RAM like to an HD? By that I mean, can you copy/delete files at will? Or do you need to write to it a track at a time, like CD-R, and delete the whole disk at once?
    ___
  • I see nothing in the article statin that it's RW, only R...
  • cancel panic, I'm a moron.
  • I know several people who ahve DVD RAM's already.. they are not like CD-RW's, they are more like an optical disk... that is, the media itself is enclosed in a protective plasic case while it is being read / written. There is no way I can see playing this in a normal player, shot of removing the housing.. which would either make it impossible to write to ever again or make it totally useless.
  • Yes, linux can read DVDs. the only problem is that no one lisceneced a DVD _player_ which explains DeCSS. Linux nerds needed a way to PLAY dvd movies, so they wrote DeCSS to rip DVD to MPEG and watch it. That requires you to be able to read the DVD in the first place.
    but i could still have fun with a few data DVDs. wow, imagine the number of MP3s......ah....
    -Superb0wl
  • I'm not trying to be flippant, but who really gives a fuck? DeCSS is dead and buried as far as I'm concerned. Everyone either has a copy on their hard drive or can snag one from somewhere. Even in a worst case scenario you can pull one of 100 or so copies from FreeNet, and those will never, ever go away, can't be legislated out of existence, can't even be traced. So as far as the "case" goes, so what? It doesn't exactly have any bearing on anything right now, other than symbolic value.

    Also, DVD-RAM discs won't play in a retail DVD player. Period.

    --
  • Tracer Technologies' feature-rich data management software for UNIX and Linux operating systems supports the Panasonic DVD-RAM drive and other leading DVD Forum standard DVD-ROM and DVD-RAM drives. Platforms supported include IBM-AIX, DEC Tru64, HP-UX, SGI IRIX, Sun Solaris, and SCO UnixWare as well as other leading UNIX and Linux environments.

    After all, FreeBSD/OpenBSD are leading UNIX platforms. And with ports on so many UNIX flavors already available, it shouldn't be to hard.

    A page with platform info is available on the BakBone website (of which Tracer Technologies is a subsidiary):
    http://www.bakbone.c om/products/tracer/supported_platforms.asp [bakbone.com]

    It even states what to do if your platform is not listed :) So if *BSD is your game, get over there and ask 'm! Very politely of course.

    bBob

    --

  • I'm moving on Monday, and the slipstick already got packed for the move.

    Not that it would have been any value in the reconciliation; slide rules generally are of no value in establishing anything about the order of magnitude, as that is the first thing you remove from the value before doing any multiplication.

    If you're going to criticize about calculations, keep your errors straight...

    Of course, the one incorrect number does nothing to establish that any of the other contentions are incorrect...

  • This is incorrect. DeCSS is a WINDOWS PROGRAM to descramble and copy the files from a DVD to the hard drive. Once it's on the drive then it can be played back by just about anything (including linux, SCO, Solaris, etc.)

    Its a PROGRAM.. It just happens to run in Winblows. The reason it runs on winblows is the simple fact that inorder to test it you need a platform that already has drivers so you can make sure you are decrypting properly.

    It also runs on Gnu/Linux AND on other OS's too.

  • Talking about recycling your stuff.

    Here is the more-than-one-year-old-slashdot -story. [slashdot.org]
    --
    Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
  • My plan is to keep my own data on "live" media:
    I'll keep everything on my computer HD (and a copy on the mirror HD), and whenever I upgrade, I'll copy all the old stuff of significance onto the new huge hard disk.

    And BTW, in reply to the guy claiming $30 for 5.2G is a good price: nope, it's not. 20G disks are
    $84 now. That's $4.20/G. Your slow 5.2G DVD-RAM
    costs you $5.76/G, not counting the cost of the drive.

    I'd rather have the hard disk for backup purposes.

    PeterM

  • Please get your facts straight !!

    If you have any information, about abybody seriously claiming that DeCSS is illegal in itself, then please provide a link.

    The whole DeCSS/2600/Cryptome story is about providing DeCSS, that is, somebody is claiming that you can't distribute DeCSS, but simply owning a copy is not a part of the accusation.
    --
    Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?

  • Currently the DVD-RW media's costs a LOT...

    Yes, currently. Are you assuming the prices can't fall?
  • Just buy an APEX AD600-A [nerd-out.com] DVD player. They let you play DVDs of any region code and skip around those stupid no-skip screens.

    Also, I must agree with the other reply in that I've never seen a DVD that had previews that you couldn't skip. Stupid studio logos yes, but not previews.




    --Brogdon
  • Disney movies, particularly Tarzan, I believe, had commercials for Disney products at the beginning that one couldn't fast foward through.
  • Remember the CD-RW RAID hack that was featured a while back... I think it's time to get cracking on some of these babies. Anyone want to lend me about 5 grand?

  • How much were blank cds when they first came out? Once people start buying dvd writers the prices of blanks will fall drastically.
  • Unfortunately, mpeg encoder cards are insanely
    expensive... been there, looked at that, decided
    it wasn't worth it.

    .technomancer
  • Wrong. Does your cd writing software restart at 605M of a 606M burn if there is an underflow? NO, it restarts at ground zero after blanking the disk (read: erasing the TOC which can take two minutes on some drives/disks.)

    Just because the error is "recoverable" (in the SCSI sense) doesn't mean the software will or even can recover from it. Even the good windows based softwares don't deal with recovery very well.
  • Technically, (but not legally), region protection codes have little to do with the DVD encryption. The encryption (a piss-poor system known as CSS), "ensures" that only liscenced players get to play the disc. Of course, only player manufacturers that promise to abide by the region codes get licensed to use CSS.

    As far as masquerading as Warner Brothers, well it should be possible, but I don't know if the proper keys have been published (yet).
  • It's called "BURN-Proof". Only the latest (IDE based, BTW) Plextor CD-RW's have this technology. It's rather required for an IDE device processing data at such speeds (12x CD-R, 10x CD-RW -- max.)
  • AFAIK, real DVDs use two layers and two sides. The DVD RAMS presently only use one layer, two sides. A real DVD, therefore, stores twice as much (20ish GB).
  • Just because it's out there doesn't mean that the law can't affect it. I imagine that many copies of DeCSS will be deleted voluntary if the court so orders. Warez is illegal and it's still out there, but you don't touch it if you want to stay legit; the same thing will happen to DeCSS. Librarians looking to do a fair use compilation won't dare use DeCSS-based decoding software.

    The philosophy aside, the law does greatly impact things and should not be treated so lightly; we should be working within the system rather than ignoring it.
  • I believe Blade came with the advertizements with the movie.. but you can just skip them
  • > DMA (direct memory access) supposedly makes a huge difference in CPU usage.

    True, DMA does help, but it doesn't solve some of the most basic problems, and if one is using an OS that doesn't allow/assign priority levels (95/98), then it doesn't matter much.

    My CD-R program uses less than 3% of the CPU on a Celeron300 @ 450... the drive transfers take up about 4% CPU. I can't even do a *read* in UDMA for 4%, much less a read and a write (and I certainly can't post a read request and write some data while waiting for it).

    10krpm SCSI -> Plextor Writers is the way to go (or stream directly from a UW Plextor CD reader).

    Personal experience has soured me against IDE/ATA/DMA for some things - I do have a couple of huge IDE drives for mass storage - but for most, it's not worth it.

  • I didn't purchase it, per se. It was free as part of a promotion. But either way, it was completely legal (or should be considered completely legal) for me to use DeCSS on it. Since I use Linux, it was the only way for me to watch it. So instead of the DeCSS goons being able to point to me as an example, Goldstein's lawyers can feel free to request my testimony as to how useful DeCSS actually is to the average Linux user :)

    --

  • Maybe not Zimbabwe. Try Serbia.

  • Yes! That is what the UDF filesystem is all about. Note when I said above about just putting a line in the /etc/fstab file. It's just like another mounted partition.

    -- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

  • DeCSS a windows stepping stone to Linux DVD player (Score:4)

    by FreeUser ( 11483 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2000 @09:43AM (#924542)
    This is incorrect. DeCSS is a WINDOWS PROGRAM to descramble and copy the files from a DVD to the hard drive. Once it's on the drive then it can be played back by just about anything (including linux, SCO, Solaris, etc.)

    This is correct. DeCSS was written before the UDF filesystem existed for Linux. It was used in conjunction with WINE/Windows, to get access to a decrypted VOB file so that work on the Linux DVD player software could continue, and not be held up by the lack of native UDF support.

    DeCSS was never intended, nor ever used, to pirate DVDs. The MPAA has even admitted as much - their argument is that it violates the DMCA because it gets around their encryption, and the innocence of the software's purpose and use is irrelevant. The MPAA will certainly win this round, with a corrupt judge presiding over the case despite numerous conflicts of interest, and they might possibly win the appeal as well (based on how the law is written). Of course, we're all hoping the appeals process overturns that portion of the law, but who can tell? The only forgone conclusion is that they will lose the current trial, primarilly because of a corrupt and ethically bankrupt judge.

    Now Linux supports UDF just fine, and the linux version of DeCSS, css-auth, allows Linux users to decrypt and watch their DVDs. The players are maturing rapidly as well (if you've got a dual P3/600 they are arguably already there).

    See the LiViD mailing list for more info ...
  • ... if you never intend to share disks with anyone else. The DVD stoarge format for rewritable disks is highly fractured, and until they settle on some kind of format (DVD-Ram? DVD-RW?) then it's not worth buying something.

    Unless, of course, you like feeling like a Sparq drive owner... (remember those?)

  • 2 Follow-ups: Loading Tray/Mech, Win98 UDF is RO! (Score:3)

    by BitMan ( 15055 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2000 @09:48AM (#924545)

    I've been people talking about DVD-RAM in this thread who've never seen a drive nor the media (so I explain it below). Also, there is this "mis-nomer" that Windows actually has built-in writable UDF support -- NOT!!!

    1. The DVD-RAM drive loading mechanism is quite ingenous as it supports both cartridge and plain disc! It has a spring-loaded tabs on the ends with slits so plain disc media (like single-sided DVD-RAM disks) slide in much like a slot CD/DVD drive (although much more nicely), and the tabs move back when the cartridges are used. BTW, the cartridge format is mechanically exact to the old CD caddy form-factor, but it is keyed so you cannot use a caddy (only half of my old CD caddy from my Plextor 6Plex will insert before the key hits).

      This "unified media" tray only comes out about 1.5" (4cm) so it won't break off either (at least not easily), and it does an excellent job of autoclosing when you've "push the disc/cartridge in enough" (a very nice touch that still works after 18 months of hard use as my main CD drive as well). Personally, I'd like to see this type of mechanism adopted in all CD/DVD drives (at least in the standard 1U/half-heigh drives on desktops). You have to see this in action to appreciate the elegant design.

    2. Not even Windows 98 SE has writable/re-writable UDF support, only read-only UDF support (and apparently limited at that?). You must use additional software from Software Architects [softarch.com] to get UDF support in Windows 95/98, or use another program like Adaptec DirectCD to write directly to CD-RW drives (not sure if Adaptec supports DVD-RAM yet). This is an important consideration if you want to buy a DVD-RAM drive for use with Windows 9x, because SAI's UDF will cost you $79 if you buy the bare drive without it (whereas some kits like Creative's bundles SAI's UDF for Windows 9x). Also understand that SAI sells Windows 9x drivers separate from the Windows NT/2000, so it'll cost you double for both Windows 9x and NT/2000 support ($79/each). Makes you appreciate Ben's open source UDF driver for Linux even more! ;->

      BTW, I have heard that Windows 2000 does not even have read-only UDF support so it will NOT read regular DVD-ROM data disks? (someone please confirm?)


    -- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

  • I imagine that many copies of DeCSS will be deleted voluntary if the court so orders

    Only those copies that reside in the US. Unless the MPAA can get a judgment in all the other countries where DeCSS is hosted as well.

    Librarians looking to do a fair use compilation won't dare use DeCSS-based decoding software.

    Only those that have no spine.

    The philosophy aside, the law does greatly impact things and should not be treated so lightly; we should be working within the system rather than ignoring it.

    It's hard to take US law seriously when the judges themselves [free-dvd.org.lu] don't treat it with due respect.

  • The link to the article is busted, so now I have a great excuse for saying anything at all I want about the topic, no matter how off-base.

    So I heard about these DVD RW devices, and they're supposed to have an chip on-board that prevents the writing of MP3s, VCDs, DVDs, and anything else the MPAA and RIAA don't like.

    Or something.

  • Did you really mean to say that DeCSS has never been used to pirate DVDs?

    According to the testimony of the Motion Picture Association of America in the ongoing DeCSS trial in New York, they cannot cite a single instance of DeCSS being used to violate DVD copyright.

    I think it rather doubtful that this is due to lack of exhaustive searching for an instance, as they really do need a concrete example if they are to survive the appeal.

    In a world of 6.5 billion people there may have been some guy, somewhere, who opted to decrypt and copy a $15 movie onto $25 media as a novelty. This hypothetical person might even have gone so far as to copy a movie they didn't own, which would make such an act an actual copyright violation (as opposed to the legal, fair use of copying one's own movie). However, the best, very well financed and highly motivated efforts of the MPAA have failed to produce even one example of such behavior.
  • 1. First of all, to write an actual DVD Video Disc you'd need an MPEG-2 encoder and some kind of converter (like Adaptec's Video Toast or whatever it's called) to store that MPEG-2 in the correct format which I forget at the moment. Now I suppose with one of the DeCSS code hacks you COULD write a linux programme to do the MPEG-2 to DVD-MPEG-2 yourself, but given all the legal battles, I don't know how safe it would be, May be an interesting GNU/OS project though. Anyway, EVEN if you did this, the media format itself is not the same so some firmware changes WOULD be necessary for your Discs to play back on your settop device, though not as much as for the DVD-RAM. If your player is made by Sony or Philips or one of the other DVD+RW proponents, I would suspect they would update the frimware for free at your local dealer just to make up for the lost ground in Market Share they have lost to DVD-RAM (rumours say that they are planning to do just this).

    2. I suspect the Justice Department should be seriously looking into HP's claims last year of releasing the i3100 or whatever it was called which they claimed was the worlds first DVD+RW player, but has yet to appear on anybody's shelves. In fact, the story of DVD+RW is the story of 6 months from now. I have heard so many times from the industry the mantra of 'next quarter' that I have ceased to believe it. Recently, Sony announced their own DVD+RW player but that to may be another case of Vapourware.

    3. I beleive the DVD consortium will allow you to have access to the spec for a SMALL (read, likely a few thousands of dollars) fee.

    4. The DVD+RW folks plan to target the same market so current estimates of DVD+RW media are on par with DVD-RAM, $20 or so for Single Sided, $50 or so for Double Sided.

    5. Initially they hope to have writing at DVD 1x, again similar to RAM. Down the road higher speeds may be possible but it is unlikely to go much higher for at least a year or 2 after initial release.

    6. Well, Mr. Jackson, you need not fear folks pirating your new film when it comes out on optical disc, let me re-assure you. :) Seriously, what has happened is the DVD-Consortium had four proposals for writable DVD. The first as Pioneer's DVD-R. This was followed by proposals from Panisonic/Toshiba for DVD-RAM and by Sony/Philips/HP for DVD+RW. Finally, seeing the need for a rewritable format, Pioneer came up with the DVD-RW extension to DVD-R. The reason for the split is pretty obvious: they players just couldn't agree. Thus, rather than letting the bickering over details continue, the consortium decided to approve ALL FOUR formats for writable DVD. So Technically, DVD-RAM IS a true Writable DVD Format, even if it isn't backwards-compatable with legacy equipment. Since all four are officially sanctioned, it is clear the companies involved wish to let the market decide, as they did with Beta and VHS. I seems clear to me if the DVD+RW camp can get their act together and actually come out with product they have a distinct advantage over all other products. OTOH, if DVD-RAM can evolve into a Caddy-less system (against the "users are stupid" viewpoint of the DVD-RAM proponents) and they can provide the same ease of firmware upgrade to players, it would almost certainly lead to the early grave of DVD+RW. After all, DVD-RAM has been on the market for a while now, it's hard to beat that product base.

    Be Seeing You,

    Jeffrey.

    P.S. Grrrr. Overrated my #$%. :)

  • Updating my own comment more than a week later, just for the record...

    The real name of 2600's "Emmanuel Goldstein" is Eric Corley.
    -----
    The real meaning of the GNU GPL:

  • I'm using a DVD-RAM drive on my MAC here, and it is unbearably slow. I thought tape backup to the DLT was slow, Thats nothing! It burns at about the speed of a 2x cd burner, but with 2.3 gigs per side. You can speed it up by turning off verification, but then what good would it do as a backup device?

    Check it out _Before_ you buy, Linux support or no.

    --------------------------------------
  • When I clicked the link I got "Your browser sent a message this server could not understand." Erase the space between "tic" and "ker" near the end and try again.
  • FYI, The Matrix, after being run through DeCSS and stored on disk, is 6.3 GB. This includes all chapters and intro movies (including the menus that you might not even think were movies, but they are).

    Please tell us that you purchased The Matrix, else the goons in the DeCSS trial that are being asked if they personally know of a case where someone copied a DVD that they didn't purchase may point to you... :(

  • I using 5.2GB DVD-RAM with Linux right now! (Score:5)

    by BitMan ( 15055 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2000 @08:57AM (#924569)

    [ Please moderate this up because I am using it right now on Linux, and have been for almost 6 months! ]

    I have been using my Panasonic/Creative DVD-RAM drive for almost 6 months now under Linux (and have had the drive for ~18 months). RedHat kernels since 2.2.12 have detected it and installed a SCSI generic disk driver (as /dev/sda since I have IDE drives). The reason why DVD-RAM was supported so quickly in Linux is because much of the firmware is similar to the old Panasonic PD drives (remember, rewritable CD before CD-RW? ;-).

    Ext2 works fine on it if you decide to format it. Otherwise, a simple download and compile of Ben Fennema's UDF driver [calpoly.edu] (no complicated kernel patch necessary, just ./config, make, make install installs the VFS module necessary) and you're cooking with an OS independent filesystem on media that lasts 30+ years! 2.6GB per side (with newer 4.7GB drives/media as the above pointed out). Again, it's simple. Just put the "/dev/sda" line in your /etc/fstab as normal with "udf" as the filesystem (assuming you've done the above). I assume you can do similar with CD-RW drives and the UDF driver as well (SCSI CD-RW drives at least).

    For those of you not familiar with rewritable DVD, there are various formats. DVD-RAM was supposed to be the "standard." Of course that didn't stop Sony, Philips and others from breaking away from Panasonic, Creative, Matsushita, Pioneer and others to create their own, proprietary standards. The reason I choose DVD-RAM is because unlike most other DVD drives (most of the DVD-ROM drives of the time, fall 1998) is because they had trouble reading CD-RW media, and even some 2nd generation drives had trouble reading CD-R media (DVD-RAM reads all media: CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW and CD-various formats). But understand that no rewritable DVD-RAM I know of allows you to burn DVD-R, nor even CD-R/RW (although it was rumored that Philips had a proprietary 3/6GB DVD-rewritable that could also CD burn/re-write as well? But I never saw it myself). Another reason why I went with DVD-RAM is because some 2nd and most 3rd generation DVD-ROM drives could read it physically (at least the non-cartridge, single-sided version) and non-Panasonic/Creative/Matsushuita/Pioneer drives only needed a firmware upgrade to do so. And DVD-RAM is rewritable at 1,350KBps (1x DVD, 9x CD) whereas many CD-RW (and even some other DVD-rewritable formats) are a measly 300-600KBps (2/4x CD).

    Anyhoo, while other vendors talk about rewritable DVD sizes and capabilities, Panasonic delivered a long time ago. And now they are boosting the size to 4.7GB/side with the possibility of CD-RW compatibilty. You can get Panasonic 5.2GB DVD-RAM drives for $200-250 nowdays (and I only paid $500 for mine in fall of 1998), with the 2.6/5.2 single/double-sided media for $20/30, respectively. It's not hard disk speeds, but it is massive storage at cheap prices. With Pioneer and others finally giving Panasonic/DVD-RAM a boost in portable video equipment within the last 12 months, I'd say DVD-RAM will become the standard that it was originally spec'ed to be. With a 30+ year shelf life, it's a great archiving format for 10+ years where magnetic tape is not. And unlike other optical formats, DVD-RAM is an open standard which means that future drives should be able to read it -- a very important factor when considering long-term archiving because who cares if it lasts if you won't have a drive that can read it!

    DVD-RAM is great for video editing systems, for which, I bought my DVD-RAM drive to complement my brand new Matrox Marvel G200-TV at the time. Again, much, much cheaper than magnetic disks per MB/GB.

    -- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

  • You can buy double sided DVD rewritables for $19. [pricewatch.com]

  • Consider the price per Gig (from pricewatch.com)

    DVD - 5.2G/$19 = 27 cents (1 DVD)
    IDE - 61G/$238 = 26 cents (1 61G drive)
    CDR - 6.4G/$38 = 16 cents (100 cds)

    If you want the cheapest go with CDROM, but you've got to swap out 100 cds. I do this for small backups (640MB). DVD just losses when you compare to IDE, it's more expensive (I didn't count the drive either!) and it's a lot less convenient. Plus with CDs/DVDs you waste a good deal of space because you will almost never fill a disk up to it's full potentional.

  • DVD 101 (Score:3)

    by TimeHorse ( 6545 ) <darklord@@@timehorse...com> on Tuesday July 18, 2000 @10:25AM (#924573) Homepage
    It seems the article and the /. summary may be a bit confused here about DVD standards and formats. In fact, there are 4 DVD formatting types and they should not be confused:

    DVD-R developed by Pioneer sells for about $16,000 and produces near-perfect DVDs compatible with 95%+ of the current DVD players out there. I am unclear whether this can only write 9.4 GB HD/DS Discs or also supports DD/DS 17 GB discs as well. Lord knows my DVD-ROM drive doesn't so I can't imagine who would be using those mega Double-Density Discs.

    DVD-RAM developed by Panisonic, Toshiba used to store 2.6 GB (LD/SS) and 5.2 GB (LD/DS) but the article is now reporting the development of middle-tier DVD-RAM discs of 4.7 GB (HD/SS) and 9.4 GB (HD/DS) by Panisonic. These discs use a Magneto-Optical system similar to the PD devices of old, not a pure optical system like DVD-ROM. Thus, compatibility would require a major firmware change in all DVD players to support the cartrages. Also note that the DVD-RAM drives are Cartrage-based and the 5.2 GB discs at least cannot be removed from their casing, or at least so I've read. Remember those bloody caddies you had to use for CDs way back when? Well it seems Panisonic and Toshiba liked them so much they wouldn't let them die. They walked out of the DVD consortium for development of writable DVD and came to market with the YEARS before the other players. MSR (as in the article) is about $500 - $600.

    DVD-RW developed by Pioneer is the logical follow up to their DVD-R technology and follows exactly analagous to the difference between CD-R and CD-RW. Although it is not clear whether current drives would support this format, it is the most similar of the rewritables to current hardware and the easiest to upgrade Firmware for. Status unknown, MSR expected to be $2000 - $6000.

    DVD+RW developed by Philips, Sony [VAPOURWARE!?!!] is another optical disc which does not require a caddy. The first generation should have something like 3.7 GB LD/SS discs, but they expect to have 4.7 GM discs a year after launch. However, they have been saying this for almost 2 years and still I have seen no firm product schedule. I am in fact dubious as to whether these guys can get their act together and put the DVD+RW out. On the plus side [no pun intended], as the DVD+RW discs are optical, it is likely only a minor firmware change would be required to make them compatible with current DVD players. MSR is suggested at $500 - $600 and they are intended to compete directly for the DVD-RAM market.

    There used to be a great page explaining all this stuff in great detail, but it's gone so perhaps I should write a new one...

    Be Seeing You,

    Jeffrey.
  • Data lifespans are supposed to be about 30 years according to the article, and the discs are supposed to be able to be played on the most recent models of Panasonic DVD players. Hope that answers your questions.
  • I tried using CDROM for backup for a while, but it turned out to be a pain. While it was nice to have this pretty rock-solid copy of my data, I always had to be careful not to run anything else on the machine driving the CD writer, or the buffer would underrun. Tape backup can run in the background and work can continue. I don't know anything about DVD writing, but if it has the same buffer underrun problems, I'd probably avoid it too. Just my own prejudices.
  • Something like this could support the claim about how Decss could be used for piracy. I could be wrong but this might hurt the case. A little the price of the DVD-RAM is still hi though. You never know what lawyes will pull.
  • No worry. Porn DVD's aren't encrypted, why should your DVD-RW be encrypted? You aren't worried about any region codes, neither does porn.
  • Still, do you think there's many people mirroring DeCSS in Zimbabwe?

    Who talked about Zimbabwe? There are other countries besides the US and Zimbabwe: Austria [tuwien.ac.at], the Christmas Islands [decss.cx], Denmark [2600.dk], Finland [jytol.fi], France [online.fr], Germany [hu-berlin.de], Greece [cc.duth.gr], Hungary [globalservice.hu], Israrel [geek.co.il], Italy [linux.it], Luxembourg [free-dvd.org.lu], Mexico [niebla.com.mx], Netherlands [soneraplaza.nl], Nieu [crypto.gq.nu], Norway [home.sol.no], Poland [krakow.pl], Russia [newmail.ru], Slovenia [uni-lj.si], Sweden [swipnet.se], Switzerland [discordia.ch], Tonga [come.to], The United Kingdom [tripod.co.uk], just to name a few

    you can't deny that the US is a significant portion of the west.

    However, lately, Europe has rediscovered its self esteem, and doesn't hesitate to occasionnally give the finger to the US (see recent Echelon investigation, and some recent crypto decisions).

  • I'm using the AOpen DVD-520S (OEM version of Panasonic LF-D101U) for about a year now with my Linux system. While I agree with everything said in the previous post by BitMan here are some additional hints for those planning to use DVD-RAM on Linux:
    - If you plan to put a ext2 filesystem on DVD-RAM use the 2k block size option (DVD-RAM media has a 2K sector size).
    - Writing 2.6GB (one side) sequentially with dd takes 14-16 hours using the scsi disk driver. Using the sg_dd utility (bs=2048 bpt=N*16) with the scsi generic driver it takes less than 80 minutes!
    As far as I can tell this is because the scsi disk driver actually writes individual 2K sectors and this just kills DVD-RAM performance. On DVD media the error correction information is spread over 16 sectors and writing a single sector requires the drive to read all sectors, make the requested update and recalculate the error correction data for all 16 sectors before writing the block of 16 sectors back to the media.

    While it has already been pointed out a few times in various posts, the slashdot article is wrong in referring to DVD-RW. There are many competing formats for writable and rewritable DVD with lots of talk and very little in terms of product availability. DVD-RAM (Panasonic, Toshiba, Hitachi) and DVD-R (Pioneer) are available today. DVD-RW and DVD+RW are two different approaches for a DVD-RAM competitor (with Sony supporting both).
  • In light of How Microsoft Ensures Virus-Free Software, [microsoft.com] it is downright necessary for there to be "UNIX" support for DVD writing for production of masters.
    Disks are duplicated on a variety of industrial strength, quality focused systems. Most of these systems are UNIX-based.
    :-)
  • Right now, backing up using DVDs is excessively expensive. That is because the technology is brand-spanking new, and they are "spanking" you for being an early adopter.

    In contrast, CD technology is a goodly dozen years old, and CD-Rs represent the "couple generations old" technology, which is now downright cheap. I can pick up 64GB of CD-R's for around $40, which makes for a price of about $0.06/GB. (Of course, that's the "premium quality!" CompUSA ones...)

    Give writable DVD's another year or so, and the price is likely to drop precipitously.

  • Re:Nice backup tool (Score:3)

    by vslashg ( 209560 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2000 @08:00AM (#924591)
    Wait a sec, only on the most recent models of Panasonic DVD players?

    I get the feeling that these are going to be as readable in DVD players as CD-RWs are in CD players today.

  • Linux has DVD support. I am working with the cdrom driver right now and there are a bunch of new DVD function calls for 2.2.16 and greater... I am having trouble with the cd-changer support however which is why I am doing this

  • Re:Nice backup tool (Score:5)

    by Snocone ( 158524 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2000 @08:01AM (#924593) Homepage
    could we encrypt our own movies to be played in a normal DVD player?

    No. To do oneoff DVD-Videos you need something like the Pioneer DVD-R [cddimensions.com] machines, which were running between $5-15K last I checked.

    DVD-RAMs are phase change devices with 2.6 GB per side. There are Typ1 and Typ2. Typ1 you cannot take aout auf the catridge, but Typ2 you can take out and play with DVD-ROMs (e.g. 8253 from Panasonic). But you cannot play them in DVD-Video consumer players.

    DVD+RW is a mutually incompatible phase change device, there are mutterings about it possibly being compatible with DVD-Video. We shall see.

    Fuckin' "standards", eh?
  • Were you runnning on an IDE chain? The speed of your drives and the lack of function in the ATA protocol is a big problem. Too much processor intervention, no disconnect abilities... SCSI is far superior in this respect, and is well worth the price premium.

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