I question the durability of the disks - Blu-ray Forum

Anonymous · 05-14-2003, 09:42 PM

I'm a little suspicious, I like the idea and its possibilities, but to me DVDs where marketed without serious attention to durability and I find unless you take extreme care they soon deteriorate with surface scratches, especially with children around.....this being another type of "CD" format(correct me if I'm wrong) but the plastic optical underside surface will be even more sensitive to scratches.....I think they are too fixated with the DVD compatability...a design along the lines of the floppy disk cassette which protected the surface will be more appropriate.

flyingdutchman · 05-15-2003, 02:21 AM

They can't be damaged because they are in a caddy.

Marwin · 05-15-2003, 05:43 AM

I don't know if you've looked at the https://www.blu-ray.com/media/ section with pictures of various Blu-ray discs from JVC, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and TDK. Most of the media found in the gallery use a cartridge to protect the surface from dust and fingerprints. While there still hasn't been any definitive decision about the cartridge it looks like the discs will use one.

markw · 05-15-2003, 05:13 PM

I know the competing standard won't have caddy's which they seem to market as a plus but to me I'm glad to see caddy's and wish the same had been true with DVD's. maybe they will take more space but I remember the talk about them being indestructable. I have seen so many get scratches and damaged. I know over time videotape wears down and I have had my share break on me but actually have noticed more of a problem with dvd's getting scratched and damaged. I have a videotape recorder as well as dvd recorder that I just bought but yet my son has a combo dvd/videotape player but yet I have seen how dvd's have been scratched up by being left laying around in his room. I plan to either make a 2nd copy of dvd's for him to use to preserve the original or just put shows on videotape that he wants.

Marwin · 05-16-2003, 05:01 PM

Just thought I'd share that TDK recently presented a paper about improving the durability of Blu-ray discs at the Optical Data Storage 2003 conference in Vancouver, so there is research going on to improve the durability of the discs even without requiring a cartridge

Anti-fingerprint property of the hard-coat for cartridge-free Blu-ray disc
N. Hayashida, H. Itoh, K. Yoneyama, T. Kato, K. Tanaka, H. Utsunomiya, TDK Corporation, Japan.

Anti-fingerprint hard-coats for cartridge-free Blu-ray discs were prepared. They can make Blu-ray discs cartridge-free. No approach to solve the problem of fingerprints by hard-coat has been reported. Quantitative evaluations of anti-fingerprint property were another achievement.

James · 05-17-2003, 12:15 AM

That's good news marwin.

I think this is one thing that will hold back blu-ray for mass adoption.

If there's no cartridge, then the disc can be used in laptops etc.

i would also be interested in seeing a mini blu-ray disc (ie half size) that can be used for mp3 players and other portable devices - maybe even to replace mini-disc!

Also concerned that the specifcation was released too early, if they are developing better versions of blu-ray then sony's current model will be obselete before it really takes hold.

Marwin · 05-17-2003, 08:19 AM

Philips appear to be working on a rewritable mini optical disc format dubbed SFFO (Small Form Factor Optical) based on blue-laser technology that should be usable in PDAs, Mobile phones, MP3 players, and other portable devices. The disc is 3 centimeters in size and the first versions will hold 1GB-2GB of data, but using dual-layers they expect to increase the size to 4GB of data. The product should be ready for sale in 2 years. As the disc and drive supposedly are based on the same characteristics as Blu-ray it doesn't sound impossible that it would be possible to support playback of them in a regular Blu-ray Disc recorder.

More information about SFFO:
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1136111
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,105602,00.asp
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-937621.html

James · 05-17-2003, 11:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marwin

Philips appear to be working on a rewritable mini optical disc format dubbed SFFO (Small Form Factor Optical) based on blue-laser technology that should be usable in PDAs, Mobile phones, MP3 players, and other portable devices. The disc is 3 centimeters in size and the first versions will hold 1GB-2GB of data, but using dual-layers they expect to increase the size to 4GB of data. The product should be ready for sale in 2 years. As the disc and drive supposedly are based on the same characteristics as Blu-ray it doesn't sound impossible that it would be possible to support playback of them in a regular Blu-ray Disc recorder.

More information about SFFO:
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1136111
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,105602,00.asp
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-937621.html

Yeah, I remember Philips press release on this. But i thought it was in a little catridge as well. I wonder if this type of thing will be used by Sony it's new portable games console that was recently announced at E3 - not released until late 2004. They said it should hold about 1.8GB.

Anonymous · 05-21-2003, 12:21 AM

I never thought about that but maybe it is best to go without a cartridge. If it does have a cartridge though would it still fit into regular PC Blue-Ray Drives or would they be too big to fit in a computer's case? Seems like there are possible changes to blue-ray and maybe it was released too soon. Mini blue ray would be nice.

Anonymous · 05-26-2003, 07:46 PM

While I can understand the "cartridge" debate, I can't "believe it".

Nothing is more important to me that, after going through the trouble/time/expense of producing my data, after going through the trouble/time/expense of backing it up to discs (say, DVD-R), to be able to read it w/o ANY problems at any time in the future.

For this, the disc must be "scratch proof" and very compatible/stable.

If not, the format is worthless as back up of anything.

A cartridge is one of the BIG pluses for me.

But I understand that two versions of this standard could and should easily be made. One with cartridges for people who value their recordings and one without it for people who don't mind the occasional "skip/error/erasure" on theirs.

"Consumers" could just use cheaper, smaller discs w/o cartridges.
"Prosumers/Professionals" will use more expensive, larger discs with added protection.

Anonymous · 09-10-2003, 12:59 PM

how can the blu-ray be backwards compatible with dvd, if the players eat cartridges?

Anonymous · 09-18-2003, 09:51 AM

You just put CDs/DVDs in an open tray-cartridge before insertion.

Anonymous · 09-24-2003, 09:06 PM

life problems.

I am not so concerned with scratches as I am of the
media blanking itself back to neutral losing all my data,
pictures, etc.

The article I read from CNET or PCMAG said disk using
phase change like Blu-Ray were supposed to atleast
go 10 years and were found to have irraddic shelf lifes
from 1.5 years to almost 3 years, giving great concern
according to the researcher writing the article.

nextyoyoma · 10-10-2003, 01:55 AM

I am an avid PDA user, and one the of the biggest concerns in the consumer market for pda's is the storage size. Currently, all pda's use flash ram and ROM to store everything. With this new technology, such an increase in the storage capacity would greatly extend the usefulness of a PDA. Some considerations, however, would be power, speed, and size. Obviously, if the disks and their writers cannot be made to fit into a PDA, the technology is useless; I assume, however, that this is being addressed by Phillips and others as they appear to be planning handheld implementation of the media within the next several years. Power is probably a greater issue than size. Even using compact flash cards and memory stick formats, battery-life is painfully short in high-end devices, and adding a disk drive would probably drain the batteries even harder. Unfortunately, battery life is one thing that has not seen improvement in the past several years of PDA development. I would guess that the only way to really improve battery life would be to create a more power-efficient PDA. Although, (slightly off topic) I did read an article about batteries that run on alcohol at wired news, I think...lol. Anyway, hopefully blu-ray will eventually have some impact in the PDA industry.

Anonymous · 11-03-2003, 03:25 PM

Prays that they are in a caddy

thunderhawk · 07-14-2004, 05:17 AM

I also want the disk to have a cartrigde...
I got enough trouble with 'nacked' discs

Tim · 09-02-2004, 03:58 AM

If Blu-ray is set to replace VHS as a durable long term storage medium then it should definately be encased in a caddy. The way VHS casettes are handled should show that to be a viable replacement, the Blue Ray standard should use a caddy.

I think it was a mistake to bypass using the caddy for DVDs. Who wants to keep renting movies where points in the movie turn to artifacts from the scratches. When you consider the fact that DVDs are rented out many times to people who won't handle the disc as if it is their own then you see why rented DVDs get scrated up to the eventual point of becoming unreadible. People don't want to have to handle video carefully - they want it to be able to take the same level of abuse that the VHS casette can hold up to. I'm not too familiar with using caddys but engineers should be able to design a rapid insertion model of caddy to easily overcome backwards compatibility with DVD discs.

There are two ways to look at the issue - long term and short term.

The short term way of looking at it is another optical disc upgrade not unlike CD to DVD where backwards compatibility is desired. (and how may people honestly listend to CDs through their television speakers)

The long term way of looking at it is that this is the future replacement to VHS! (The designers of the VHS at even made sure that the exposed side is covered unlike an audio casette for example.) The long term reprocussions of a bare disc will outweigh the short term impact of utilizing a caddy.

If it is change that some people are afraid of then they need to realize the whole purpose of Blue Ray is change - change from VHS as the most widely used video medium. Caddys would have been nice for DVD's but they're going to be essential for replacing VHS for the long haul.

th3archiv3 · 06-18-2005, 03:17 AM

renting a dvd from a store isnt that bad.... the ppl behind the counters are required to look at the dvd and see if it is scratched severely... if it is then they charge the renter with damage... but even if they made it backwards compatible with cartride its not going to be cheap....

zombie · 06-18-2005, 05:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by th3archiv3

renting a dvd from a store isnt that bad.... the ppl behind the counters are required to look at the dvd and see if it is scratched severely... if it is then they charge the renter with damage... but even if they made it backwards compatible with cartride its not going to be cheap....

I don't think that's the policy of Blockbuster, at least not our local one. That or they're not enforcing the rule. I've had to return a few movies over the last few years that wouldn't play due to numerous scratches.

th3archiv3 · 06-18-2005, 03:06 PM

iono.... at blockbuster near me theres a policy then also they make the policy true...

05-14-2003, 09:42 PM	#1
Anonymous Member Member since:May 2003	I question the durability of the disks I'm a little suspicious, I like the idea and its possibilities, but to me DVDs where marketed without serious attention to durability and I find unless you take extreme care they soon deteriorate with surface scratches, especially with children around.....this being another type of "CD" format(correct me if I'm wrong) but the plastic optical underside surface will be even more sensitive to scratches.....I think they are too fixated with the DVD compatability...a design along the lines of the floppy disk cassette which protected the surface will be more appropriate.

05-26-2003, 07:46 PM	#10
Anonymous Member Member since:May 2003	I WANT A CARTRIDGE, PLS, PLS, PLS While I can understand the "cartridge" debate, I can't "believe it". Nothing is more important to me that, after going through the trouble/time/expense of producing my data, after going through the trouble/time/expense of backing it up to discs (say, DVD-R), to be able to read it w/o ANY problems at any time in the future. For this, the disc must be "scratch proof" and very compatible/stable. If not, the format is worthless as back up of anything. A cartridge is one of the BIG pluses for me. But I understand that two versions of this standard could and should easily be made. One with cartridges for people who value their recordings and one without it for people who don't mind the occasional "skip/error/erasure" on theirs. "Consumers" could just use cheaper, smaller discs w/o cartridges. "Prosumers/Professionals" will use more expensive, larger discs with added protection.

09-24-2003, 09:06 PM	#13
Anonymous Member Member since:May 2003	Study just done showing Phase Change Media having shelf life problems. I am not so concerned with scratches as I am of the media blanking itself back to neutral losing all my data, pictures, etc. The article I read from CNET or PCMAG said disk using phase change like Blu-Ray were supposed to atleast go 10 years and were found to have irraddic shelf lifes from 1.5 years to almost 3 years, giving great concern according to the researcher writing the article.

10-10-2003, 01:55 AM	#14
nextyoyoma New Member Member since:Oct 2003	re:pda uses I am an avid PDA user, and one the of the biggest concerns in the consumer market for pda's is the storage size. Currently, all pda's use flash ram and ROM to store everything. With this new technology, such an increase in the storage capacity would greatly extend the usefulness of a PDA. Some considerations, however, would be power, speed, and size. Obviously, if the disks and their writers cannot be made to fit into a PDA, the technology is useless; I assume, however, that this is being addressed by Phillips and others as they appear to be planning handheld implementation of the media within the next several years. Power is probably a greater issue than size. Even using compact flash cards and memory stick formats, battery-life is painfully short in high-end devices, and adding a disk drive would probably drain the batteries even harder. Unfortunately, battery life is one thing that has not seen improvement in the past several years of PDA development. I would guess that the only way to really improve battery life would be to create a more power-efficient PDA. Although, (slightly off topic) I did read an article about batteries that run on alcohol at wired news, I think...lol. Anyway, hopefully blu-ray will eventually have some impact in the PDA industry.

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05-15-2003, 02:21 AM	#2
flyingdutchman Active Member Member since:May 2003	They can't be damaged because they are in a caddy.

05-15-2003, 05:43 AM	#3
Marwin Developer Top contributor Member since:May 2003 Blu-ray collection:10 DVD collection:5 iTunes collection:1	I don't know if you've looked at the https://www.blu-ray.com/media/ section with pictures of various Blu-ray discs from JVC, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and TDK. Most of the media found in the gallery use a cartridge to protect the surface from dust and fingerprints. While there still hasn't been any definitive decision about the cartridge it looks like the discs will use one.

05-15-2003, 05:13 PM	#4
markw Member Member since:May 2003	I know the competing standard won't have caddy's which they seem to market as a plus but to me I'm glad to see caddy's and wish the same had been true with DVD's. maybe they will take more space but I remember the talk about them being indestructable. I have seen so many get scratches and damaged. I know over time videotape wears down and I have had my share break on me but actually have noticed more of a problem with dvd's getting scratched and damaged. I have a videotape recorder as well as dvd recorder that I just bought but yet my son has a combo dvd/videotape player but yet I have seen how dvd's have been scratched up by being left laying around in his room. I plan to either make a 2nd copy of dvd's for him to use to preserve the original or just put shows on videotape that he wants.

05-16-2003, 05:01 PM	#5
Marwin Developer Top contributor Member since:May 2003 Blu-ray collection:10 DVD collection:5 iTunes collection:1	Just thought I'd share that TDK recently presented a paper about improving the durability of Blu-ray discs at the Optical Data Storage 2003 conference in Vancouver, so there is research going on to improve the durability of the discs even without requiring a cartridge Anti-fingerprint property of the hard-coat for cartridge-free Blu-ray disc N. Hayashida, H. Itoh, K. Yoneyama, T. Kato, K. Tanaka, H. Utsunomiya, TDK Corporation, Japan. Anti-fingerprint hard-coats for cartridge-free Blu-ray discs were prepared. They can make Blu-ray discs cartridge-free. No approach to solve the problem of fingerprints by hard-coat has been reported. Quantitative evaluations of anti-fingerprint property were another achievement.

05-17-2003, 12:15 AM	#6
James New Member Member since:May 2003 Location:Melbourne, Australia	That's good news marwin. I think this is one thing that will hold back blu-ray for mass adoption. If there's no cartridge, then the disc can be used in laptops etc. i would also be interested in seeing a mini blu-ray disc (ie half size) that can be used for mp3 players and other portable devices - maybe even to replace mini-disc! Also concerned that the specifcation was released too early, if they are developing better versions of blu-ray then sony's current model will be obselete before it really takes hold.

05-17-2003, 08:19 AM	#7
Marwin Developer Top contributor Member since:May 2003 Blu-ray collection:10 DVD collection:5 iTunes collection:1	Philips appear to be working on a rewritable mini optical disc format dubbed SFFO (Small Form Factor Optical) based on blue-laser technology that should be usable in PDAs, Mobile phones, MP3 players, and other portable devices. The disc is 3 centimeters in size and the first versions will hold 1GB-2GB of data, but using dual-layers they expect to increase the size to 4GB of data. The product should be ready for sale in 2 years. As the disc and drive supposedly are based on the same characteristics as Blu-ray it doesn't sound impossible that it would be possible to support playback of them in a regular Blu-ray Disc recorder. More information about SFFO: http://www.vnunet.com/News/1136111 http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,105602,00.asp http://news.com.com/2100-1040-937621.html

05-21-2003, 12:21 AM	#9
Anonymous Member Member since:May 2003	I never thought about that but maybe it is best to go without a cartridge. If it does have a cartridge though would it still fit into regular PC Blue-Ray Drives or would they be too big to fit in a computer's case? Seems like there are possible changes to blue-ray and maybe it was released too soon. Mini blue ray would be nice.

09-10-2003, 12:59 PM	#11
Anonymous Member Member since:May 2003	how can the blu-ray be backwards compatible with dvd, if the players eat cartridges?

09-18-2003, 09:51 AM	#12
Anonymous Member Member since:May 2003	You just put CDs/DVDs in an open tray-cartridge before insertion.

11-03-2003, 03:25 PM	#15
Anonymous Member Member since:May 2003	Prays that they are in a caddy

07-14-2004, 05:17 AM	#16
thunderhawk Moderator Member since:Jul 2004 Location:Belgium	I also want the disk to have a cartrigde... I got enough trouble with 'nacked' discs

09-02-2004, 03:58 AM	#17
Tim New Member Member since:Sep 2004	If Blu-ray is set to replace VHS as a durable long term storage medium then it should definately be encased in a caddy. The way VHS casettes are handled should show that to be a viable replacement, the Blue Ray standard should use a caddy. I think it was a mistake to bypass using the caddy for DVDs. Who wants to keep renting movies where points in the movie turn to artifacts from the scratches. When you consider the fact that DVDs are rented out many times to people who won't handle the disc as if it is their own then you see why rented DVDs get scrated up to the eventual point of becoming unreadible. People don't want to have to handle video carefully - they want it to be able to take the same level of abuse that the VHS casette can hold up to. I'm not too familiar with using caddys but engineers should be able to design a rapid insertion model of caddy to easily overcome backwards compatibility with DVD discs. There are two ways to look at the issue - long term and short term. The short term way of looking at it is another optical disc upgrade not unlike CD to DVD where backwards compatibility is desired. (and how may people honestly listend to CDs through their television speakers) The long term way of looking at it is that this is the future replacement to VHS! (The designers of the VHS at even made sure that the exposed side is covered unlike an audio casette for example.) The long term reprocussions of a bare disc will outweigh the short term impact of utilizing a caddy. If it is change that some people are afraid of then they need to realize the whole purpose of Blue Ray is change - change from VHS as the most widely used video medium. Caddys would have been nice for DVD's but they're going to be essential for replacing VHS for the long haul.

06-18-2005, 03:17 AM	#18
th3archiv3 Member Member since:Jun 2005	renting a dvd from a store isnt that bad.... the ppl behind the counters are required to look at the dvd and see if it is scratched severely... if it is then they charge the renter with damage... but even if they made it backwards compatible with cartride its not going to be cheap....

06-18-2005, 03:06 PM	#20
th3archiv3 Member Member since:Jun 2005	iono.... at blockbuster near me theres a policy then also they make the policy true...

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