DVD+RW dual layer (8.5Gb) format

Not really HiFi but many here probably interested to know that Philips have announced the first ever dual layer recordable DVD format. Not only will it allow you to record a lot more off the TV with a DVD recorder but it will make copy DVDs (not that anyone here does that of course :devil: ) a lot easier. Even if you use software like DVDShrink you'll be able to use a lot lower compression levels.

See here for details: http://www.dvdrw.com/press/duallayer.htm

Yet another plus point for the "rogue" Philips +R/+RW format

Michael.

 

Sounds like a brilliant concept. I bought a dual-format drive for my PC a couple of months ago. Looks like new drives/recorders will be needed for the 8.5GB format though

 

DVDs are transient. The future is hard disc.

Amen to that.

 

Don't you work for a hard drive maker, unkie lamboy

 

Maybe so, but he's right. All my music comes from hard drive now, never looked back. Bollocks to jitter, vibration, scratched CD's etc...

 

Yep I doth worketh for a hard disc company. I wont shy away from an obvious bias.

Question: Does a hard disc offer better alternative to any other optical drive transports? One for the techies out there

clue: the answer begins with a Y (but their are some political caveats along the way)

The futures so bright, I gotta wear shades.

 

Err... You must be joking?



Michael.

 

LOL

Yep, siree the humble hard disc offers whaahay better performance than ANY optical drive - the trouble is that noone has yet really bothered with a real high end attempt at pooling a hdd with a really good line out.

I bet if this was done and you fed it to your dac64 it would be superb.

 

I think you may well be right there

There will always be a market for making some form of more "permanent" recording though on some form of optical disk.

Michael.

 

Agreed. People need to have tangible physical ownership of something to feel like they own it.

But times are a changing and the likes of iPod and sky+ are helping to educate the masses.

 

True, but... aren't hard discs and any other electro-mechanical storage media just another stop gap?

What everyone is really waiting for I'm sure is affordable solid state memory with Gb storage, and all the benefits that that can bring e.g. reduced power consumption for portable devices and freedom from mechanical noise.

I'd be very happy for Santa to leave me a 30Gb iPod for Xmas, but what I'd really like him to leave me would be iPod that uses solid state memory. Something like a 30Gb memory stick/media card/etc. Yes, I know I'm living in cloud cuckoo land! :zzzz:

 

Modern hard drives are all but completely inaudible nowadays, and very quick too..... solid state memory is pointless and too expensive, and always will be. Sure you will be able to get several gigabytes of memory shortly, but the demand for storage capacity constantly rises too, ensuring that this solution will never keep up with the need for hundreds of gigabytes.

 

Yep, its down to cost. Especially NVRAM (retains data after a power cycle) - this is veeery expensive.

 

I did say in my earlier post with the proviso of current costs for solid state memory. Although I don't see why say a 10Gb memory card solution couldn't be affordable in say 2 years time (that's a complete guess-timate on my behalf). That should do for the masses, I mean if they are content with 128kb/s MP3, then I don't see why demand for storage will need to increase in the future, unless hi-res audiophile/videophile storage is going to make headway which IMO it won't - the masses are happy with the current-state-of-the-compressed-art formats I reckon.

Fair point re the noise of modern HDs though. I'd not have agreed if it weren't for the personal experiences with the HD in my current PC at home which after many years of PC ownership is the first ever drive I've owned that I'd deem as quiet or near silent. Shame the same can't be said of the HDs fitted as standard to the Sky+ and other such HD based video recorder boxes that I've seen and very much heard in Dixons for example.

 

Hard disk is the best format......... bang!

Oh dear - my drive's just crashed/the motor bearing's burnt out/the heads have failed/CRC errors etc etc.

Result - ALL data down the swanny in one fell swoop.

So what do you do with NO backup, 'cos if you're implying optical storage is not anywhere near as good, why would you be using it?

I for one don't like the idea of keeping all my eggs in one basket thanks. Hard drives, as any other technology, are not infallible, and with the ammount of heat and high speed electromechanical parts, in a vacuum-sealed enclosure means getting any data off a dead hard drive could be potentially very awkward; at least with a scratched CD some of the data is user-retrievable - let's see a home user fix a fried HDD....

 

One word for that: Backups

 

warning*** heavy personal bias alert***.........Why dont you buy a Seagate drive, they ALL have FDB (fluid dynamic bearings (ie no steel ball bearings)).

HDDs are very much improved (reliabiility wise) over the last 3 years, the shock, temp, vibe etc are all still there, but minimised. I can quote specs of current products but I dont want to bore you even further

On a personal note I have only ever had one hdd that went tits up on me, that was a Quantum (no longer around - merged with Maxtor) drive from about 3 years ago. But I have had 3 CD transports (players) go wrong in that same time. Bear in mind this is still a mechanical optical device.

I dont know the dppm specs for a mass market cd or dvd transport so I cant make industry comparisons.

Will we ever see a 'high end' brand break from the mould and incorporate a hdd as the main transport?

 

Don't Linn already make a HDD based machine? Can't remember it's name but I think it ends in 'K'

From what I remember it's little more than a high spec PC in a Linn box for which they charge you £5K+ :bub:

Michael.

 

Yeah its called the Linn Kivor and its about £4650 ok 5 grand
it holds 250 hours of uncompressed music which = 2 80 gig hard drives but you can up this to 4 80 gig hard drives.

The reviewer in hifi choice wasn't impressed with it
especially for 5 grand

Robert

 

It isnt that high in spec either.

This type of product does nothing for mass market uptake - I would like to see a single player with non of the multi room shenanigans (although there is a market for this).

If only SACD and DVDA would allow digital copies (on hard disc that is) then we could truly see a universl player. Im not sure what the uncompressed size of a typical dvda or sacd release is, but I guess to hold 100 titles would need some serious capacity.

But then we would also see external SACD/DVDA official DACs too!!!