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Data Storage Upgrades

Dual Layer DVD+R Developed 289

Posted by CowboyNeal from the way-cooler-than-minus-r-dvds dept.
Lucretian writes "And they said it couldn't be done... It appears that Philips has found a way to burn a dual layered DVD+R. Unlike other dual layered disks that have been developed, this one is also designed to be backwards compatible with current DVD players. Phillips will be demonstrating this new technology at CEATEC this coming week at the DVD+RW alliance booth. The DVDs will hold 8.5GB of data (4 hours of video) and are set to be released as soon as next year."
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Dual Layer DVD+R Developed More

Dual Layer DVD+R Developed

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  • Still too small (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've got two 200 GB hard drives full of MP3s and videos.

    Backing it up is simply impossible by any current means.

    • I backed up about 100GB of data a few months ago on DVD+R, and they worked fine for a few months. Now most of them are giving me CRC errors when trying to read them in any drive. I deleted the data from my hard drive to save space like a fool. I might as well have just bought another hard drive to back them up for the cost of the DVD-R media and writing drive :/ They need to research more ways to make this media last rather than try to increase the size. 8GB of dammaged data isn't good for anyone...excep
      • "I backed up about 100GB of data a few months ago on DVD+R, and they worked fine for a few months."

        Try a USB 2.0 external hard drive - you can't even tell the difference between it and an internal drive if you've got USB 2.0. I researched DVD+/-Rs and external drives last month, when I decided to ditch my physical CDs and rip them all to ogg files. Media like CDs and DVDs are just plain inferior, especially for my kind of usage - portable bulk storage that can be read from/written to on virtually any PC (
        • Just wait till your hard drive crashes one day. CDs and DVDs are HELL of a lot more reliable than a 40+GB hard drive. I've never seen a CD or DVD disintegrate unless it was abused, but the life of a hard drive is measured in months. Most fail after 2-4 years. If carried around - much, much sooner.
          • It's a duplicate of my hard disk - I have two copies of everything at all times. If one crashes, the other can be used to fill it back in. It would be extremely foolish to have only one copy of anything at a time, the point is that this is far more convenient than 150 CDs to work with. Consider the fact that I can easily update 10 gigs of info in 10 minutes. Try that with CDs or DVDs. I don't have stacks of CDs to wade through when something fails, and I don't have to buy new ones every time I want somethin

        • that can be read from/written to on virtually any PC

          I know CD/DVDs can be read on any platfom, but not HDDs. Last time I tried that, I had to cut my 40GB disk in 2, since FAT32 doesn't support more than about 32GB partitions. R/W support of NTFS isn't stable on Unix systems, and Ext2 support on Windows is flaky RO, and adventurous in RW. I think this completely leaves Mac users out in the cold.

          So how are you storring all this stuff. I think UFS/FFS would be the best option, since every system but win

          • You're missing my point - this isn't industrial data backup, this is a home user safeguarding against hard drive failure - two copies of everything at all times. I'm not worried about a fire (odds are immeasurably low), I'm worried about inevitable crashes, and being able to reformat without losing any data.

            Platforms aren't an issue - virtually every system I deal with is Windows. The point is that they all have USB ports, but very few have DVD burners (or even drives) or CD burners. With this I can transf
      • I backed up about 100GB of data a few months ago on DVD+R, and they worked fine for a few months. Now most of them are giving me CRC errors when trying to read them in any drive

        I have only had a few problems like this. The last one was due to a smudge on the disk ... a quick wipe with my finger and the disk read A-OK.

        Alternatively, you might try reading the disk back in the original DVD-R/+R drive that wrote the disk. That worked at least once for me.

        Thus far, I have not had a single DVD-R disk with d
      • One recommendation for the future is to make use of the PAR/PAR2 utilties [par2.net]. (I personally use QuickPAR v0.7)

        Basically, you create 'parity' files that you store on the DVD/CD along with the source files. Then, if any of the source files become corrupted, QuickPAR should be able to reconstruct the broken bits.

        The amount of redundancy is up to you... 10% is normal, 20% might be worthwhile. (So to store 4Gb with 10% redundancy, you'll need 4.4Gb of space.)

    • Re:Still too small (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Skapare ( 16644 )

      Your backup should be two more 200 GB hard drives. If one of the original drives dies, restoring your data is quite fast. I do something like this, although with only a 120 GB and 80 GB drive. But one difference is I have a 2nd computer. The first few partitions on the 80 GB drives are my Slackware Linux system. The rest of the 80 GB drive and the entire 120 GB drive are all my data. Except for the root partition, I regularly rsync one machine to the other. Once every 2 or 3 months, I bring the backu

      • Likewise, I'm doing the same. I'm trying to persuade one of my friends to allow me to put the backup drive in their flat, giving me the essential off-site backup.

        HD failure and accidental deletion are one thing, but fire and theft also have to be considered.

  • Oh so cool. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We desperately needed another non-standard DVD standard.

    • I don't really care since they're backwards compatible with current players. This sounds like some great news! :-)

      However, not going to wait for a burner for these. I've already ordered my DVD burner. :-P Doh!

      4.7 GB data is still pretty nice and I wouldn't recommend anyone to buy a CD burner when they need a burner these days.

  • It will be expensive (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The One KEA ( 707661 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @09:52AM (#7132289) Journal
    This latest DVD burning technology will undoubtedly be quite expensive, for both the drives and the media. Especially the media, since it will probably take Phillips a while to manufacture enough media for these devices.

    OTOH, it will certainly make it easier for the home movie crowd.

  • BlueRay (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I personally am going to wait for the BlueRay to come down in price and go with that.

    • Re:BlueRay (Score:3, Insightful)

      by The One KEA ( 707661 )
      I think the biggest barrier to BlueRay is the fragility of the discs. The discs used by the BlueRay drives are very delicate because of the way they are manufactured, in order to work with a blue laser technology. IIRC, the discs thus have to be encased in cartridges, like old Sun SCSI CD-ROMs used to use.

      People probably see that as a barrier to adoption, because instead of a thin disc you now have a big bulky cartridge. It will probably take a while to either get rid of that requirement or get rid of th

  • Someone has to ask (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Maskirovka ( 255712 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @09:54AM (#7132298)
    Between the current speed advantage (8x vs 4x), and now the size advantage, is there any hope for the '-R' format?
    • I don't see how you can say that -R is going to be usurped simply because of speed issues. The fact is that they could make 8x double-layer DVD-Rs if the DVD-Forum decided to make them. Also, there are very few video applications that require the double-layer standard.

      The fact is this: if you want maximum compatibility today with DVD readers and players, including legacy devices, you must go with DVD-R. There was even a recent /. article about it [slashdot.org]. If someone is publishing a corporate or school train

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • What DVD-R has going for it aside from compatibility is that it is cheaper than +r. Both the media and the players, but especially the media.

          Anyway, a million warez monkeys out there don't care what you think since DVD-R/RW is the only format that will read in a playstation 2.
          • 5% isn't very significant,

          My Xbox (v1.1 with Samsung DVD-drive) fits in the 5%, so that ends the discussion on my side. The remaining DVD+R that I bought for testing will hold computer backups or whatever, the -R's are for the Xbox !

        • DVD-R can only play on about 5% more players than DVD+R (according to DVDRHelp.com)

          5% of the number of player models on the market is not a very meaningful statistic at all. What matters is the number of units sold of each of those models. When you take into account how many units of each player model has been sold, DVD-R has a compatibility advantage far larger than 5%. The reason is that each of the older player models (the ones incompatible with DVD+R) has a far larger market share than each of the do

    • I haven't. Because if you're talking specs, take e.g. Pioneer DVR-107:
      DVD-R: 8x (Z-CLV), 6x, 4x, 2x, 1x (CLV)
      DVD+R: 8x (Z-CLV), 6x, 4x, 2.4x (CLV)

      Seem awfully similar? And if you trust the editiorial comment on www.cdrlabs.com:

      "Dual layer technology is something that a lot of people have been waiting for. Of course, Pioneer is also supposedly working on their own dual layer DVD-R discs. Which will make it to market first? Who knows."

      I think they both won. I've got a ND-1300A DVD+/-R(W) drive. Why? A hedg
      • Of course, I've never seen 8x -R media for sale anywhere in retail. I've only seen 4x a few times, and there are no truly official 2x discs anyway--2x is a hack. +R will win simply because of the media advantage.
      • Sometimes I wonder if Sony and Philips broke from the DVD Forum on this matter as a ploy of trying to get more money. The "plus" format still isn't in the DVD standard, and they may be undercutting the DVD forum on price as a way of getting back at them for rejecting their format.

        Up until Sony released their dual format drive, it looked like the plus version really was going to win, but now, almost nothing is single format.

        I wish they'd just figure out a way to merge them. the dash version is slightly m
    • I have a 4x drive, and it's never had a piece of 4x media in it. I buy 1x because it's cheap. I don't care that it takes an hour to record a disc; it takes me several hours to assemble the data to put on the disc. The first one is burned LONG before the next one is ready to start.

      Once the discs are burned, it doesn't matter what speed they were recorded at.

  • Seriously (Score:4, Insightful)

    by chendo ( 678767 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @09:55AM (#7132303)
    Why haven't they agreed on a standard format for DVDs yet? I can't keep track of the -s and +s.

    • Re:Seriously (Score:5, Funny)

      by kzinti ( 9651 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @10:16AM (#7132399) Homepage Journal
      Why haven't they agreed on a standard format for DVDs yet?

      What do you mean? They've agreed on many, many standards. So many standards we can each have one! Just take your pick...

    • Re:Seriously (Score:3, Insightful)

      by hendridm ( 302246 ) *

      > I can't keep track of the -s and +s.

      You can't keep track of two formats? ;) DVD-RAM is gone, DVD-R/RW is cheaper, but DVD+R/RW is a somewhat superior technology and I believe it is poised to take the lead due to the industry heavyweights behind it. Now with this dual-layer coming out before the minus camp it will only encourage the + "standard".

      Why haven't they agreed on a standard format for DVDs yet?

      Why wouldn't Edison concede victory to Westinghouse's AC current for long range power? RCA

      • Actually, you can still get DVD-RAM recorders, which until now had the advantage over DVD-R/DVD+R of being double sided so you could record more on them.
    • There is a standard, and it's DVD-R. This is the standard ratified by the DVD Forum.

      I bought a dual-mode drive, but if I was going to do it again, I'd buy a -R drive. The media is cheaper and that's all I care about.

      Besides, all new drives can at least READ both +R and -R. I think it's silly trying to hedge bets. It's not like there is going to be a press release some day saying "OK, +R has won" and that afternoon you won't be able to buy -R media anymore. The media will be in production for at least

  • No! (Score:5, Funny)

    by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @09:56AM (#7132312) Homepage
    These disks cannot store 4 hours of video. Definitely not. In fact, it's absolutely impossible to store compressed video onto DVDs.

    We need these larger disks for backup purposes. Not just that, but we need these disks for backup purposes so that we can evil catch terrorists and corporate criminals.

    Remember, these aren't on the market yet. And if they could be used for storing video, they might never reach the market.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @10:21AM (#7132422)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • "Boy! I can't wait to get a spindle of 100 of these and start storing all those 400 hours of home movies from our digital video camera!"

        1. Oh! Well, never mind. Dib dib? Is your uh, is your wife interested in... photography, ay? 'Photographs, ay', he asked him knowlingly?

        2. Snap snap, grin grin, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more?

      • but how long will the dual dvd's hold their data, before it starts corrupting? a couple months? or a year?
    • we do need bigger backup media. HDs are usually 80GB plus, how do we back them up (particularly if the HD is full of ripped media)?
      • HDs are usually 80GB plus, how do we back them up?

        With these disks, 8 GB at a time.

        In all seriousness, if you're doing incremental backups with any sort of reasonable frequency, you're not likely to be backing up more than 8 GB of data at once.
        • Sometimes you want to back the whole thing up. In the old days we would do a full backup a week and then daily incrementals. In those days a big disk was 80MB and we just used 6250bpi half-inch mag tape.

          Actually, once people start playing with decompressed video (i.e., home or semi-pro editing), then it it isn't unusal to have massive files knocking around and nowhere to put them.

  • Two things (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ejaytee ( 186527 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @09:57AM (#7132314)

    First, the movie industry will not like this at all, because virtually every movie will fit onto a single recordable DVD at full bitrate.

    Second, the Philips technical paper does say (as expected) that a new drive is required, with an objective lens that can focus into the two recording planes on a disc.

    My new DVD+R/W drive has just made reservations for the basement suite next to the 2X CDROM drive.

    • I wonder if they will have to deal with that "layer change" pause that DVDs have. Don't they have a way of knowing where the data is stored and break up the film accordingly?

    • Re:Two things (Score:5, Insightful)

      by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @10:15AM (#7132395)
      Yep, until now the floodgates of dvd copying have been held back by the fact that movies are ubiquitously about 4.5GB insize and a single DVD-r cant hold that much. Sure you could copy it to your hard drive, but that gets full quickly (at least on a laptop). Or you could compress it, but then for people with home theaters this sucks in quality.

      you could burn it onto two CDs but this cost money, is a hassle to actually do correctly, and is a hassle to play back correctly or in a timely fashion when you want to view it.

      So until now actually making copies of DVD movies has had significant prohibitive obstacles which are now about to be erased. Of course this will not happen overnight since the price of these things and the media will still be a barrier. But Notice has been served. DVD copying is about to become a real issue.

      • Actually it's already very easy to make 'near perfect' backups of DVDs onto an ordinary single layer DVD-R. Most of the well known tools are all Windows based, but I think I recall seing an Open Source project to do the same thing under Linux.

        Some well known examples are (the freeware) DVDShrink [dvdshrink.org], and DVD2One [dvd2one.com].

        They actually do a surprisingly good job of it too, especially since you can just backup the main movie (without unnecessary extra features/soundtracks) and very often squeeze a movie on without havin
      • Or you could compress it, but then for people with home theaters this sucks in quality.

        I have encoded and compressed my entire DVD collection into AVI (mpeg4). I don't compress the audio, so of course I get the same AC3 stream I get when I watch from the DVD, and with constant quality encoding, the video quality is such that I usually can't tell the difference. (Of course mpeg4 has its weak points, like dark scenes, or foggy/smoky scenes.)

        The disavantage of this is that I don't get DVD menus and speci

      • you could burn it onto two CDs but this cost money, is a hassle to actually do correctly, and is a hassle to play back correctly or in a timely fashion when you want to view it.

        Freudian slip after having burned too many 2CD dvdrips from the 'net? ;) Two DVDs maybe?

        Kjella
      • "So until now actually making copies of DVD movies has had significant prohibitive obstacles..."

        Unless they are one of the few people who having been living under a rock for the past few years and haven't heard of DVD X COPY XPRESS.

        The floodgates were never closed.
      • that current comercial DVD's were dual-layer standard. The current spec allows for dual-layer, dual-sided DVDs right now, but typically you still have to physically flip the disc. Phillips new -r should play in normal DVD players...that's the point of being compatible.

        Also, I thought that commercial movies were well over the 4.5Gb per side limit. They add enough stuff to the movie [trailers, BTS, etc] to fill up the disk to use two layers. They can also get sloppy with the compression [which improves

    • Re:Two things (Score:2, Interesting)

      by radixvir ( 659331 )
      this is exactly what ive been waiting for....now you do not need to drop extras or recompress to get retail dvds on backups. this is great news! ill wait until second generation of these and then pick one up!

    • I'm always happy to see new technology largely because it means current technology prices will drop. Can't wait to finally get a DVD writable.

      DivX movies fit onto one or two CDs. This isn't big news in that department.
  • More one reson (besides price) to not buy a dvd recorder now.
    • If one is to think like you when it comes to computer hardware, one will never buy anything. :-)

      Computer hardware constantly improves and when these recorders are out, they'll probably be a bit more expensive than others. So better wait until they get affordable. No wait, then those BlueRay recorderse started getting interesting!

      Etc etc :-)
  • I thought dual layer double-sided DVDs have existed for years and they held about 9gig of data, silver on both sides with not much space for any label except the inside of the ring.

    So...

    • Re:dual layer double sided? (Score:4, Informative)

      by The One KEA ( 707661 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @10:05AM (#7132358) Journal
      Those are stamped discs, not burned discs. Stamped discs are made using a radically different process where the pits and grooves on a DVD are actually built up in layers and stamped onto the backbone of the disc (the plastic part). Stamped dual-layer DVDs have existed for some time now; Phillips is saying that they invented burnable dual-layer DVDs.
    • This is a 3-sided DVD. The top side is upside down on top of the bottom side, and the label is on top of the top side, therefore making it the top side. Basically, it's a dual-sided DVD that can have a full label.

  • The next challenge is ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Skapare ( 16644 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @10:01AM (#7132339) Homepage

    The next challenge is to make a Linux distribution like Knoppix big enough to use that whole DVD.

  • Price & Standards (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TennesseeJeff ( 665629 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @10:01AM (#7132340)
    Well, it looks like this will drive down the price of current single-layer DVD-R's (hopefully).

    It also appears to comply with standard to play/read in all current DVD players/readers.

    Backups will take fewer disks! Now what about the speed?

  • Way cool! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by TripleA ( 232889 )
    Now you don't have to recompress your DVD movies before copying them. I bet the MPAA will figure that out, soon enough.

  • Jack Valenti's gonna be livid (Score:4, Insightful)

    by crovira ( 10242 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @10:27AM (#7132451) Homepage
    The average movie is 7+GB in size. 4.5GB drives were no threat to the MPAA. Hence we weren't subjected to a whole lot more than mere rhetoric from the end of Valenti's digestive system incapable of facial expression.

    Given that most of the movie leaks to date have come from industry insiders, and that industry capable drives aren't common, the MPAA enjoyed what the RIAA could only whish it had, an exclusive advantage in both the market place and in the means of production.

    Look forward to RIAA-style lawsuit writs being included in the installation instructions with every drive.
    • Hence we weren't subjected to a whole lot more than mere rhetoric from the end of Valenti's digestive system incapable of facial expression.

      Yeah, but I wonder: what does his ass have to say about it?

      Seriously, that man is shellaced.
    • The average movie is 7+GB in size. 4.5GB drives were no threat to the MPAA. ...the average movie *got* 7+GB. My oldest DVDs almost all fit on a single-layer disk. I think initially that was cheaper for the DVD makers, and so they fit it, noone seemed to complain... They didn't suddenly "grow" this large until DeCSS and recordable DVDs on the horizon gave them a heads-up about the future.

      Kjella
  • with all the confusion about which format is compat with another, this is what needs to happen. something that can go both ways, thus creating it's own standard. I wish they're weren't more than one (I'm shopping for a dvd burner myself, and I still haven't decieded) but until then, this seems like a great solution.

    hopefully another *standard* won't be marketed anytime soon making this obsolete!

    CB

  • "They said it couldn't be done.." (Score:3, Interesting)

    by miketang16 ( 585602 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @10:32AM (#7132468) Journal
    I find the whole idea that people actually continue to say this phrase, absurd. In this day and age, things that were deemed impossible are being done every day. Of course this has happened throughout the ages, not just currently, but it seems more prevelant now. This is the reason I laugh my ass off when some company comes out with an "uncrackable" security mechanism.

  • What I'd like to see... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zedenne ( 713332 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @10:34AM (#7132476) Homepage
    i have one of those mini-cd mp3 players.

    a mini-cd stores up to 180MB or about 25% of a standard cd.

    i find this really useful for storing utilities and such, config docs, encrypted password files etc as they are small enought to fit in a jeans pocket.

    now if we had a dual-layered mini-dvd i could get over 2Gb of data in my pocket!

    that would be cool.

    you could then pretty much fit a whole distribution on a business card!

  • hdd vs. dvd (Score:3, Interesting)

    by IAR80 ( 598046 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @10:44AM (#7132531) Homepage
    Probably the new 8.5GB drives will cost you an arm and a leg and media will be prohibitive as well. Right know you can get a samsung ide drive of 160GB 7200rpm less than 100$. The cost per GB is not mutch higher of that of the DVDs and with DVDs you have spenf money on the burner as well. More than that the reliability of the drive is much greater, you can write and erase from as mutch as you like, speed is mutch better and to add on top it is more compact (160Gb means arround 35 dvds). Do not spend money on DVD technology.

    • Re:hdd vs. dvd (Score:2, Insightful)

      by altek ( 119814 )
      Whoa there son... This is /. ! You can't just post knee-jerk reactions! >:)

      I think you're sort of missing the point.. You are comparing apples to oragnes. DVDs are a removable media format. It's not very easy to say, take out your hard drive and bring it to your friends house every time you want to swap pornos or whatever it is that you do.

      Yes, for long-term archival you could just fill up a HD and set it on the shelf. But with DVD, the cost does go down as you burn more and more of them (the line appr

    • The cost per GB is not mutch higher of that of the DVDs and with DVDs you have spenf money on the burner as well.

      Well, if you consider half the price to be "not much", then I suppose you are right.

      As for the cost of the drive, the fact that they are seperated is a very good thing. The more DVD capacity you use, the more money you've saved over HDDs.

      I would consider DVDs a lot more reliable than HDDs as well. Not to mention portable, flexible, etc. And what is going to happen to your 35DVDs worth of da

  • 8.5gb?! (Score:3, Funny)

    by jez9999 ( 618189 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:29PM (#7133058) Homepage Journal
    I remember when 1.44mb was enough for anyone...

  • Double Density (Score:3, Funny)

    by sheemwaza ( 570202 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @01:23PM (#7133328) Homepage Journal
    Bah! I've had 9GB DVDs for a long time... all you have to do is use a hole punch to create a second notch on the disk, then insert it into the drive upside down!

    ...wait a minute, why is the end cut off of all my movies?
  • I was given to understand that the major obstacle to copying Xbox games is that they are all distributed on dual-layer DVD's which couldn't be duplicated. I suspect Microsoft will be considerably more upset than even the MPAA over this.

    Breaks my heart, I tell ya, it just breaks my heart.

    • You're assuming of course that the xbox is capable of reading burned disks... Dunno how it is for dvds, but there are a lot of dvd players that won't read burned cds...
  • that doesn't pause when changing layers?

    I'd much rather have one of those so I can get the value out of the movie that I'm renting.
  • If I had been able to contain myself, we'd be spared another standard.

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