HD-DVD forum rejects Toshiba/NEC Blue Laser format (1 Viewer)

[DaViD Boulet]

He made an excellent and valid point.

CD is rhobust enough bcs of the pit structure size that normal handling/scratching can be compensated for by normal error correction techniques.

DVD uses a smaller pit-size and so a run-of-the-mill scratch that poses no playback issues become more serious as more pits/data are rendered unreadable in comparison. DVD uses a more sophisticated error corretion technique to try to make up the difference, but it still can't quite match the more handling-friendly playback reliability of CD (notice how much more often finger prints and scraches seem to cause your DVD to freeze where your scratched CDs play more reliably?

Well...
Blue-laser pits are smaller than those of DVD by about a factor of 4 (anyone with exact ratio please posts). That means the same scratch is about 4 times more destructive in terms of data-reading from Blue-laser than from a normal red-laser DVD.

This is one reason why ANY blue-laser disc would benefit from a caddy or protective case...even Toshiba/NECs version. Just because they didn't make it part of their format doesn't mean their discs are going to take as much abuse as your red-laser DVDs.

Sony is rumored to be developing free-floating BluRay discs for pre-recorded titles. Never the less, for a collector like me I'd rather NEVER have to worry about a disc getting scratched or damaged.

Heck...for that matter red-laser DVD would have benefitied by a caddy shell as well.

-dave

 

[Grant H]

I completely agree, David.

Think how much better a time we'd have with rentals that actually played right and didn't have to be cleaned or repaired first...and previously-viewed title purchases that wouldn't have to be returned to the store.

I'd prefer nothing but a blue ray of light touching the actual disc surface.

I still remember years back how angry I was having been the first person in my college dorm to have DVD when new DVD-player owners would borrow my discs and return them with fingerprints on them. It's lucky they didn't scratch them or I'd probably be in prison now!

Even if they could make the discs completely indestructable and unscratchable, you'd still have to worry about dirt and fingerprints. Or will the player run the disc through acid before playing them?

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Dirt and fingerprints can be wiped off, but I think a disc that can't withstand a couple of fingerprints needs more error correction. But it does no good if the disc surface is so vulnerable that trying to clean the disc causes even more damage.

I think it's a problem when the clear plastic hubs used for box sets are a harder plastic than the DVD surface. During shipping the hub breaks, the disc becomes a floater, and the jagged edges of what's left of the hub will gouge the disc to death. So what do you think will happen when a Blu-Ray cartridge is mishandled during shipping and a shard of plastic breaks free to rattle around inside the cartridge?

I'm reminded of an overweight comedian who joked about being asked his weight at the airline ticket counter. He said, "If you're going to cut it that close, then I ain't going!" Likewise I'm wary of a format that is going to be that close to not working. We're going from CDs that can withstand quite a bit of abuse, to DVDs that seem to scratch too easily and don't have enough additional error correction to compensate, to Blu-Rays that come out of the starting gate with a protective shell. Look at the hard disk. Today's 200GB hard disk wouldn't be possible if improvements in precision and durability weren't made to enable the increases in areal density. Where are the improvements toward more durable plastic, or teflon coating, or whatever, to enable a blue laser format to work in the real world?

You know what else would be a great technological advance? A storage format that can survive the dashboard of a car during August in South Georgia.

Hey, I'm not going to be satisfied until these things are dishwasher safe.

 

[Jack Briggs]

How long you wanna wait, Wayne?

This is the best thread going at HTF. Seriously good dialogue here. Excellent.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

to DVDs that seem to scratch too easily and don't have enough additional error correction to compensate

To build in enough error correction to make then play with the same finger-print imperviousness as CDs would use so much redundancy you couldn't fit a 2-hour movie on the disc. It's a trade off between error-correction reliability and how much information you want to store given the available surface area and size of the pit/land structure.

DVDs don't scratch more easily than CDs. They all have a laquered surface--they scratch the same. BluRay will also scratch the same as DVD and CD.

What's different is the *number of data-pits* that are rendered unreadable with the same scratch. Because DVD has smaller pits, comparatively more data is lost with the same sized scratch than would be on a CD. Blue-laser formats will loose even more data per scratch because their pits are smaller still.

The more data you cram in the same surface area...the more will be lost when the same amount of damage is inflicted.

Error correction can only do so much. To make it tough enough to recover all damamge you'd have so much redundancy on the disc you might as well not even go with a blue laser because you're giving up all your new potential data-space just to store error-correction "back up" data.

Make a tougher surface? You want Quartz? Too expensive?
Well...that's why Sony is using a caddy!

Not too much out there you can cheaply replicate with a surface toughness stronger than laquer that wouldn't be so brittle it would crack if the disc was flexed or bent. This is why I like the idea of an optional caddy. Rental outlets could use the caddy to protect discs as could private collectors if they lend out their discs to a friend.

 

[Todd Hochard]

DVDs don't scratch more easily than CDs. They all have a laquered surface--they scratch the same. BluRay will also scratch the same as DVD and CD.

Physically, while DVD and CD are the same (save the pit size, density), Blu-Ray is different.
In DVD and CD, there is a 0.6mm protective plastic layer between the surface of the disc, and the data. On Blu-Ray, that layer is reduced to 0.1mm, 83% thinner. 0.1mm=100microns = width of a human hair. This is a big reason for the caddy.

http://www.eureka.be/ifs/files/publi...le_may2003.pdf

Todd

 

[RobertR]

Thanks for the link, Todd. The article shows that the protective layer has been getting smaller since CD, indicating that it HAS to get smaller as the pit size decreases. I'd be nervous about NOT having a caddy with a 0.1 mm protective layer.

 

[Sean Laughter]

Picture of a DVD-R (I think), inserted into a Blue-Ray player that requires caddies on Blue-Ray discs:

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Great link. Thanks for posting!

The article also mentions that BluRay discs will have a new "hard coat" applied in the manufacturing process to make them durable despite the decreased thickness of surface layer.

We'll have to get some in our hands to give them a work out

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

It sounds like the 0.1mm substrate is the smoking gun. Like I suggested might exist earlier, here is the design decision in the direction of less durability. Instead of improving the optics of the substrate, they went with a thinner substrate and they knew that would mean it would need a caddy.

The Toshiba/NEC proposal called for the same 0.6mm substrate thickness and the same lens numeric aperture as DVD, and yet they proposed a disc capacity that is almost as big as Blu-Ray. What did they do that Sony couldn't figure out?

Does anybody know whatever happened to FMD, the fluorescent disc that was supposed to store hundreds of gigabytes on a disc using holographs or something like that? The most recent news I could find is that Constellation 3D was delisted from Nasdaq a year ago.

 

[Lars_J]

The more I read about Blu-Ray, the more I like it. Go Sony!

And I'm glad (if) it uses a caddy. I rent a lot of DVD's, and I'm really getting tired of cleaning them all before playing. Thumbprints and scratches galore. And that goes for owned DVD's as well, since I am a parent.

Wayne - May I humbly suggest that in your (admirable) quest for a durable recording format, that you are missing the forest for all the trees? You say they should foremost be looking into making the new HD format durable. May I suggest that the caddy is actually a proper solution?

You seem a bit hung-up on the disc being inside a caddy - See it from another perspective - forget that it is a disc inside for a moment, just view it as a square thin box medium. What is inside is really quite irrelevant - the data could be stored optically, magnetically, or with flash-ram. It really doesn't matter - It's a black box to the user. But it is an extremely durable medium, which anyone can appreciate.

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

I can't ignore that it is apparently going to ride on such a razor thin margin. It's the engineer in me who expects backups, redundancies, failsafes, tolerances, and leaving some headroom instead of continously running at the extreme limit. Especially with anything that's mass produced for consumers.

The United Package Stompers have yet to weigh in on just how durable it really is.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I agree that the thickness seems to really be cutting it close. But keep in mind that BluRay has significantly more capacity than Toshiba's format (at least by a few gigs) and Sony also has a direct-history developing CD and they know how thier PlayStation games get thrown around...I'm confident that the coating they will use will provide adequate durability...at least I'm going to assume innocent until proven guilty

 

[Steve_Pannell]

I like the idea of disks being enclosed in a cartridge. I wish DVD's had been done that way from the start.

As far as backward compatibility, if we think of Blu-Ray/HD-DVD as a NEW format then what does it matter, really? I'm sure most of us here have vinyl LP's that won't play on a CD player or VHS tapes that won't play on a DVD player. That said, I think that DVD and HD-DVD will probably co-exist for some time.

 

[DaveGTP]

When I was in high school (in the mid-90s), we had the school library Infotrac (magazine and article searching programs). The computers all had caddys that you put into the drive, CD inside. No big deal. Easy to pull the discs out. Cases were all scratched to hell, discs worked perfectly. Great stuff. A logical move, and very good for rentals and places that sell pre-owned discs. Thus, I have dealt with caddys personally, and think that they are a good idea.

they know how their PlayStation games get thrown around

You would not believe how scratched up a playstation 1 game can be and still play. Amazing. And, I think everyone doesn't truly realize how many people got into DVD because they had a PS2 in the house (As a gamer, I know we did). IF Sony powers the PS3 with Blu-ray, and IF they maintain their crushing lead in the videogame market (not that I necessarily want that), they have a giant headstart on everyone else.

 

[Sean Laughter]

Sony's coming portable gaming system, the PSP, uses an optical disc called a UMD. I THINK (please note the "think" ) that the UMD may actually be Blu-Ray in a smaller form factor, because it is an optical disc enclosed in a caddy. If they feel its up to the abuse usually given to portable games than I think it will be fine. It's a 2.4inch, dual-layer disc that holds 1.8Gigs

UMD:

 

[Todd Hochard]

At 2.4" and 1.8GB on a dual layer, that must surely be DVD-spec pit size and density. That's about what a DVD of that size would hold.

 

[Sean Laughter]

I'd agree with you except for the fact that Sony seems to be hinting that the UMD may be able to have the same hybrid format as a Blu-Ray where part of the disc can be read-only and part can be rewritable. So, while the pit size may be different they may be using many of the same processes as Blu-Ray in other areas.

 

[Adam Horak]

I'll be thrilled if Blu-Ray ends up with a caddy.

The way I see it they have two choices:

1. Spend a lot of money (probably millions) developing a new protective layer for the blu-ray disc. this means a longer time to market and more expensive discs and players to offset that investment (at least in the short term). the format would likely still be somewhat vulnerable to smudges and scratches.

2. use a caddy. little development cost. shorter time to market. no smudges or scratches to worry about.

Caddys are a simpler, and better solution. KISS!!!! If I have a fully working product now, why would I spend of bunch of money to change it?

who cares if the disc itself is fragile as long as the entire product is not? There is no indication that a thin layer product with a caddy is any more likely to fail than a thick layer product without.

 

[Richard Paul]

It was originally capable of around 50 Gigabytes and as time went on it increased to over 100 Gigabytes (at least in their press releases it did). The whole idea of the technology was to use many layers of data holding only a few Gigabytes each, similar to how DVD uses two layers to go from 4.7 to 8.5 Gigabytes. The problem was that it was NOT a holographic way of holding data and instead relied on gluing dozens of layers together which would have been really expensive and ridiculously hard. In truth FMD was basically a sham since they never got more than a few layers to be read even though they promised that it could be done on dozens of layers. Even if they had gotten it to work it would be incapable of being a writable format since even today there are no consumer DVD recorders that can write to dual-layer discs.