One of Blu-Rays big advantages

[KC-Technerd]

TDK DURABIS

"In comparison to conventional DVD media, discs incorporating DURABIS technology boast approximately 100 times greater scratch resistance."

"Even after 300 passes by a steel wool pad, a Blu-ray Disc (BD-RE135N) with DURABIS hard coating shows virtually no increase in jitter, attesting to its superior ability to resist scratching."

My understanding is that all Blu-Ray discs will incorporate the TDK Durabis coating, as it's the reason that Blu-Ray discs will not incorporate a caddy, as originally planned.

Sony and the Blu-Ray folks should be shouting this from the rooftops. Why are we are hearing so little about this?

Click on "TDK DURABIS" above for more info.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by KC-Technerd

...
Sony and the Blu-Ray folks should be shouting this from the rooftops. Why are we are hearing so little about this?

Great question!

[Shadowself]

The reason they are not shouting this as a major marketing pitch is quite simple. If the Blu-ray side claims the disks are as scratch resistant as they seem to be then people will start to abuse them. People will start thinking they are "scratch proof" rather than very "scratch resistant".

People will treat them as if they are "scratch proof" and then claim that the Blu-ray side lied to them about the durability of the disks. This then becomes a marketing nightmare for the Blu-ray side. Not only will people have scratched and damaged disks by treating them improperly you will have the HD-DVD side going around claiming that the Durabis coating is absolutely worthless.

This is no different than Apple never marketing the difference in the number of viruses/trojans/spyware/etc. on the Windows platform versus that on the Mac. Up until recently there have been absolutely zero such items in the wild on the Mac. Recently there have been several proof of concepts and even one single trojan on the Mac (it required the user to actively download it and then input the systems administrator password in order for it to install and try to replicate). Yet the media has gone completely nuts and made completely false claims as to what has been happening with the Mac on the security front.

Now think for a moment what would have happened if Apple had been claiming the Mac was significantly more resistant to viruses/trojans/spyware/etc. The media would have gone 1,000 times more nuts than they did, and they would have made even more false claims about the vulnerabilities of the Mac than they did. Additionally, there would have been lawsuits against Apple when people got viruses/trojans/spyware/etc. fro those people would not understand (or simply not care about) the difference between "many fewer" and "none".

Apple was wise not to make any such claims. The same is true for the Blu-ray team.

The Blu-ray side needs to get these disks out into the public. Then get the *public* talking about what is happening to the HD-DVD disks (scratches, damage, etc.) versus what is NOT happening with the Blu-ray disks.

[JTK]

^^ This person speaketh great truth.

[KC-Technerd]

Shadowself,

I agree to a point. However, IMO, the lack of viruses on the Macintosh platform has been much more due to the lack of interest in those creating viruses (why attack the smaller platform?), than any design feature of Apple computers, or the Macintosh operating systems.

The Durabis coating is strictly a design feature. I believe the durability of CDs back in 1984 and 85 was proclaimed (and marketed) as a great advantage over vinyl LPs. Even though people found various ways to damage and destroy CDs, look at where CDs are now. Of course I realize that Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD is a different story.

I'm sure it needs to be carefully marketed, but some word that Blu-Ray is more durable than either DVD or HD-DVD does need to get out. I've come across many who believe just the opposite, that the thinner coating indicates that Blu-Ray discs will be more delicate than HD-DVD discs.

[Shadowself]

Originally Posted by KC-Technerd

Shadowself,

I agree to a point. However, IMO, the lack of viruses on the Macintosh platform has been much more due to the lack of interest in those creating viruses (why attack the smaller platform?), than any design feature of Apple computers, or the Macintosh operating systems.

I'd rather not get into the "security through obscurity debate", but I do have one question.

If Apple computers are not attacked simply because they have a smaller market rather than because they have a better designed OS, then why was there a Microsoft Windows Vista virus in the wild when the OS was out in Beta to only 10,000 testers last year and had been out to those testers for only 10 days?

Surely Apple has more than 10,000 users out there and they've certainly been out them for much more than 10 days -- and still no viruses/spyware and only one limited capability trojan.

Originally Posted by KC-Technerd

The Durabis coating is strictly a design feature. I believe the durability of CDs back in 1984 and 85 was proclaimed (and marketed) as a great advantage over vinyl LPs. Even though people found various ways to damage and destroy CDs, look at where CDs are now. Of course I realize that Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD is a different story.

I'm sure it needs to be carefully marketed, but some word that Blu-Ray is more durable than either DVD or HD-DVD does need to get out. I've come across many who believe just the opposite, that the thinner coating indicates that Blu-Ray discs will be more delicate than HD-DVD discs.

I agree it needs to be very carefully marketed. That's my point. It does need to be a marketing point, but it must be done subtly. The Blu-ray team needs to have the users talking about it and make it appear as if it is a "popular knowledge" kind of thing. It can't be proclaimed by the Blu-ray team as a major feature as this can easily backfire on them.