Teaser For New Type Of Hi-md

[Christopher]

I have a news bit about all of this in preparation that will be much more comprehensive, but I wanted to go ahead and give you guys a little taste.

Something like this.

[toxigenicpoem]

thats awesome. Do you think Hi-MDs will be able to burn these? (burn not play). It would be neat if they could, then the portable Hi-MDs would become even more coveted for their ability to export Hi-MDV.... Interesting.

[Latexxx]

This makes me (again) wonder why Sony didn't use same type of medium for both PSP and Hi-MD. Now they are pushing portable (?) Hi-MD video machines and on the other hand PSP which can play prerecorded content and homemade films from Memory Stick.

[Spare Tire]

Amen to that brother.

[toxigenicpoem]

I back you up on that too. PSP should have been Hi-MD based.

[xispe]

very nice!

[indeego]

nice, indeed.

while reading your txt, kurisu, I shortly stopped: too much "DRM, protection, secure and >Digital Content Protection<" for me

[Fray Adjacent]

This makes me (again) wonder why Sony didn't use same type of medium for both PSP and Hi-MD. Now they are pushing portable (?) Hi-MD video machines and on the other hand PSP which can play prerecorded content and homemade films from Memory Stick.

←

And Sony is known to do things that make sense since when??

[hobgoblin]

i guess they where hoping to kill of any piracy for the psp by using a strange media

and i second indeego's post, just reading "magic gate" is enough for me to go bang my head against a wall...

Edited May 12, 2005 by hobgoblin

[dex Otaku]

A simple answer as to why PSP isn't Hi-MD based:

Hi-MDs cannot be mass-produced.

UMD, being derived from the same manufacturing techniques used with CDs and DVDs [stamped discs], are easily mass-produced.

Hi-MD is, basically, a rewritable format only. They cannot be mass-produced using glass masters et al.

[Latexxx]

They could have invented something which could have been possible to mass-produce. And on the other hand an industrial robot + 1.000 Hi-MD drives woudn't be too far fetched.

[toxigenicpoem]

I agree, if they would have gone with the Hi-MD as the medium of choice, they wouldn't have stopped and said "Well we can't mass produce this.." They would have kept it in development UNTIL it was able to be written on in some way.. But since they didn't use it as the medium of choice, why bother with mass production.

[MDGB2]

If PSP ran on Hi-MD the popularity of the format would skyrocket!

Maybe for PSP2....

[The_Stamp]

i dont think there will be a PSP 2 at this point... unless PSP finds its niche. right now, the DS has it made.

[dex Otaku]

If PSP ran on Hi-MD the popularity of the format would skyrocket!

How? Why?

Yeah, I could really see popularity for the units skyrocketing if they relied on a media format that can't be mass-produced. I'm sure the fact that no software would then exist for them [or that the software would take aeons to copy at approximately 30mins per single full 1GB disc, which customers would then accidentally erase left right and centre because most poeple are daft as fenceposts] would really increase their popularity.

[MDGB2]

Anything can be "mass produced."

You just need a big enough production line.

Unless you mean they can't be 'pre-recorded?'

How do you know about software? Just because it isn't available now doesn't mean it will be unavailable in the future...

Edited May 15, 2005 by MDGB2

[BobS]

A reminder:

At one time Cassette was the most popular form of commercially recorded music. They have to be recorded, not stamped.

Eight track was also very popular. Again, they needed to be recorded. Open reel was also available with commercially produced albums. Even the now defunct DCC had several hundred titles available commercially.

They could be mass produced.

I would like to see it. They could offer all a CD does and more. With the ability of both data and audio, many details could be added. Short videos (a few meg, Quicktime or rm) that could be played back on a computer could be added. Short trailers on a Movie Soundtrack album for instance along with bios of the actors and photos of them. Both without reducing audio play time compared to CD.

When extra contend is added to a CD, play time is reduced below 78 minutes

[D-EJ915]

A simple answer as to why PSP isn't Hi-MD based:

Hi-MDs cannot be mass-produced. 

UMD, being derived from the same manufacturing techniques used with CDs and DVDs [stamped discs], are easily mass-produced. 

Hi-MD is, basically, a rewritable format only.  They cannot be mass-produced using glass masters et al.

←

"Pre-Recorded" MDs (Hi-MDs) are easily made by masters, MD technology (MO) only uses the magnetic head for writing, they made pre-recorded mds via stamping for quite a long time in Japan, and they still do.

[jadeclaw]

Three reasons, why the UMD-disc was chosen over HiMD:

First, Pre-Recorded MDs are regular MDs, not HiMD.

CD-Style stamping and DWDD won't work together.

Second, manufacturing cost. A HiMD disc is ten times more expensive to make, than a regular DVD. And UMD is just a smaller DVD.

Third, the time needed for manufacturing. With current technology, it takes roughly 15 minutes to fill a HiMD-disc completely.

It takes 10 seconds to make a DVD/CD/UMD.

The bottom line counts, not what the customer wants.

[Jurriaan]

CD-Style stamping and DWDD won't work together.

←

I don't understand why DWDD and stamping won't work together. DVD also uses DWDD and I assume they are produced/stamped like CDs.

[betamaxDATminidisc]

I don't understand why DWDD and stamping won't work together. DVD also uses DWDD and I assume they are produced/stamped like CDs.

←

Check it out:

http://www.minidisc.org/hi-md_faq.html#_q90

[jadeclaw]

DVD also uses DWDD and I assume they are produced/stamped like CDs.

←

DVD doesn't use DWDD.

DVD is from 1995, DWDD is from 2001.

[Michael1980]

But if the PSP had used HiMD's as the media, can you imagine the loading times? They would likely be exceptionally high.

[hobgoblin]

that depends on the spin speed they could put on it. the read speed of a mo media should be similar to a cd/dvd if it can get the right rotation speed. writing is a whole diffrent beast as heating to just the right point takes time...

[jadeclaw]

And exactly that is the problem with HiMD.

You have to heat during read as well.

The DWDD-Layer has to be spotheated to a certain temperature to initiate the magnification effect and that limits the maximum reading speed.

[hobgoblin]

oops, forgot that hi-md isnt just your normal mo system

so basicly it must heat a special layer so that the laser thinks its reading a much bigger pit then it realy is? that most definetly puts a dent in the read speed for hi-md media...

Edited May 16, 2005 by hobgoblin

[toxigenicpoem]

As did I. I thought the only difference was the Read Blocker, which prohibits other pits from being read, since the pits are smaller then normal CD/DVD.

[hobgoblin]

so how can a dvd player read a cd? a second read head with a diffrent laser?

[toxigenicpoem]

I believe its lense focus.

[jadeclaw]

DVD-player have two lasers with a different wave lenght, infrared for CD and red light for DVD.

Visible light doesn't work on a multitude of CD-R/RW discs.

Btw, HD-DVD and BlueRay will have to use three different lasers, unless CD-R/RW compatibility is given up.

[hobgoblin]

not very likely that they give that up...

[Fray Adjacent]

What amount of storage would we be seeing with a MD sized disc using HD-DVD or BlueRay? Wasn't it somewhere around 4-5GB?

I think the MD media format with a DVD type disc would be great. Use existing technology to support a superior media format.

[Guest NRen2k5]

i dont think there will be a PSP 2 at this point... unless PSP finds its niche.  right now, the DS has it made.

←

Hey, finally somebody else who has it figured out.

[dex Otaku]

Anything can be "mass produced."

You just need a big enough production line. 

Unless you mean they can't be 'pre-recorded?'

How do you know about software? Just because it isn't available now doesn't mean it will be unavailable in the future...

←

Please note that "software" in the context I used referred to anything that can be played on hardware; music discs are software, tapes are software, &c., or at least, their contents are.

And yes, Hi-MDs could be mass-produced at great expense, but the discs would be erasable because HiMD relies on DWDD, as has already been pointed out.

Cassettes were popular, yes, but you can mass-duplicate cassettes at many times normal speed. HiMD would have to be written at its maximum write speed, which depends on how fast a laser can heat the write layer and how quickly the write layer can cool down afterwards. Trying to make it go above a certain speed would just write garbage data to the disc.

I can't imagine how expensive pre-recorded HiMDs would be. Aside from the currently high cost-per-unit for manufacture, the equipment and time required to do the job would inflate retail prices per unit to probably the $40 range here in Canada. If you think that's ridiculous, consider how much it costs to mass-produce CDs - very, very little, and yet they retail here for $20-25CAD a pop, once you take into consideration the artists' cut, the distributor/record company's cut, packaging, shipping, and retail markup.

HiMD is impractical, at best, for mass-production. It's not impossible, but it would be very expensive.

[MDGB2]

They could write music to a disk like a normal recording and then remove the erase tab slider thingie!

Technically it would then be read-only...

Bit far fetched like......

[Breepee2]

If Sony had just incorporated a ROM format, which uses a DVD-like die, it would have been made no difference. They put effort in the new UMD, which they could have put in a new HiMD/UMD hybride that would have supported ROM discs and writable discs.

[hobgoblin]

there is one way to press himds, but you have to do it with the write layer and then put the "lense" layer on afterwards. it complicates the prosess a bit tho...

[jadeclaw]

The problem with DVD type media is, you need a second laser.

And exactly that is the problem, when size and power source is limited.

DVD+RW writing would flatten an AA cell in less than 15 minutes.

plus, there is no space in that little optical block for the second laser.

Imagine, how many HiMD recorders would have been sold,

if you could not use your old discs, could not play your old recordings and could only record with the power cord plugged in.

And UMD was no effort at all. It is regular DVD reading technology.

Think 8cm DVDs, then you are almost there.

Cheap mass production and not being available as a recording format in current DVD-recorders was the goal here.

And that has been achieved.

[toxigenicpoem]

Cheap mass production and not being available as a recording format in current DVD-recorders was the goal here.

And that has been achieved.

And is exactlly what is killing the PSP. No one wants to buy 1) An $20 movie they can only play on thier PSP, or 2) Several expensive memory sticks to carry around a good amount of portable music. And when people relize how expensive these two features are alone, it now becomes a very expensive handheld gaming system, and Nintendo wins for thier 'Keep it Cheap' way of thinking.... I'd rather just carry around a PS1 with a LCD montior and a batterpack...

How is that Sony makes Apple look like a Nun in a strip joint...

Edited May 17, 2005 by toxigenicpoem

[JFK]

It looks like that the "Public Notice" we have seen a few months ago has some child... What bitrates and what codecs can we expect from the actual speed of the media ? Thinking of that I am afraid that the overall performance of the units won't be very impressive, like for the DH10P. Regarding possibility vs. price the unit interest falls deeply. Anyway I should wait to see the real specs before saying that !

Edited May 17, 2005 by JFK