So just how much do you think they'll charge us for a single disc durinbg the first year, huh?
The manufacturers say it's 15 times bigger than a DVD-ROM and 200 times bigger than a CD-ROM.
A CD-ROM = 650mb, so an FMD-disc = ~130 GigaByte...
It is made out of ten transparent layers lying on top of eachother, but it's the same physical size as a CD.
So just how much do you think they'll charge us for a single disc durinbg the first year, huh?
Man this development is going too fast. The average joe hasn't even got use for a 40Gb harddrive.
I have 550 mp3- and wavsongs, 4 gigs of pictures and movies, five games installed at any given time, yet I don't need more than perhaps 15Gb on my HD. The rest is just slowing down my "Defrag".
So why do the big corps force us to buy 30- or 40-Gb HD's with our new machines??? BECAUSE THEY CAN!!!
Let me just say
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!
Anyone else remember those credit-card sized dealies that were supposedly 2.4 TERRABYTES? Access rates of 100 MB a second? And less than $50 per medium?
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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM
"FMD is an acronym which stands for Fluorescent Multilayer Disc.
Whereas current DVD reflective technology only writes data to two layers on a CD, FMD technology allows data to be stored in multiple layers on a CD (up to 20 right now, and potentially up to 100 within a few years), while utilizing a red laser which maintains backwards compatibility with current CD, CD-R, and DVD formats.
Since each layer of a DVD data density format disc can store 4.7GB of data, 20 layers means approximately 95GB of storage on a single disc, with an access speed of 50-60ms and a data transfer rate of approximately 1 Gigabit per second.
Constellation 3D's research has shown that 100 layers are possible, which would allow a single 120mm CD to store 450GB+.
If a blue laser was utilized (which has a smaller wavelength than red laser, but is currently expensive to manufacture and too hot for consumer applications), 1 TeraByte is possible. If that isn't revolutionary, I don't know what is."
1 Terabyte on one plastic disc!!!!! Be still my heart...
Here's the whole article. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/articles/c3d-spot/index.html
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!
Impossible.
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Not even a god can deny that I have squared the circle of a static Earth and cubed the Earth sphere by rotating it once to a dynamic Time or Life Cube.
--
Gene Ray
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Read three (three!) chapters of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet" Or don't. You know, whatever.
I meant that the current range of storage devices are of a much bigger class and size than the public demand. They could wait a little longer until we really need these behemoth-harddrives, not just build them to be better than their competitors...
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!
Data crystals, here we come! 
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You know, you really should keep a personal log. Why bore others needlessly?
The Gigantic Collection of Star Trek Minutiae
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Not even a god can deny that I have squared the circle of a static Earth and cubed the Earth sphere by rotating it once to a dynamic Time or Life Cube.
--
Gene Ray
****
Read three (three!) chapters of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet" Or don't. You know, whatever.
So a 40 gig HD wouldn't be much use for me at all.
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You know, you really should keep a personal log. Why bore others needlessly?
The Gigantic Collection of Star Trek Minutiae
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Not even a god can deny that I have squared the circle of a static Earth and cubed the Earth sphere by rotating it once to a dynamic Time or Life Cube.
--
Gene Ray
****
Read three (three!) chapters of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet" Or don't. You know, whatever.
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At that point, McDonald fired his gun three times in the air to emphasize his point. The crowd, estimated at 350,000, loudly cheered the new candidate.
"Let me make this clear: I am the law! I am your ruler! And you will have fries with that, motherf*cker!"
I feel that one of the downsides with a mega-HD is similar to the problem with having a great lot of RAM. If you have 256Mb RAM or more, some applications takes longer to load. I know for a fact that Mac's take longer to start up the more memory they have.
It's the same with harddrives, the spin-up/spin-down time takes longer. If you don't want to buy some advanced Ultra-DMA/Bigass-SCSI thing, costing you a fortune just to get good rounds per minute (10000, 15000).
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!
Apparently it can be used in many other areas except personal computers, and the cost for one 15 layer disc lands at 76 cents. Has someone been selling their soul to the devil?
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!
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"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"
-Nimrod 16/4/2001
I know for a fact that DVD are vastly superior to CD in both video and audio.
If this FMD utilize the same tech as the CDs, then it only offers bigger storage then, which mean as a videophile and audiophile, I still go with DVD with higher quality.
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What is the difference between a terriorist and your girlfriend?
- With terrorist, there is a chance of negotiation.
FMD disc ROM (25-100 GB)
Digital cinema
HD video
HD games
Multimedia compilations
FMD disc WORM*, R/W (25-100 GB)
Data warehousing
PC storage
HDTV recording
Motion picture post production
FMC (ClearCard) ROM (5 GB)
Portable game, movie players
E-books
GPS
In-car, in-plane entertainment
FMC (ClearCard) WORM*, RW (5 GB)
PDA
Mobile phones
Digital cameras
*WORM = "write once, read many", such as a CD-R.
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!
Well not really...
But as far as the question goes, "Who needs that much space?" As I mentioned early I have a 40gig hd and only use about 8gigs. I could see how big corporations or something might find this FMD technology useful. But the average person...no.
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"Anatomically impossible, Mr. Garibaldi, but you're welcome to try .. anytime .. anywhere." - Bester
Federation Starship Datalink: Brand new look, fresh minty scent, same great taste!
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"Goverment exists to serve, not to lead. We do not exist by its volition, it exists by ours. Bear that in mind when you insult your neighbors for refusing to bow before it." J. Richmond
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I knew a blonde that was so stupid that she studied for a blood test.
[This message has been edited by TLE (edited March 25, 2001).]
"I know for a fact that DVD are vastly superior to CD in both video and audio."
Er, really? For a fact?
The difference between DVD and CD is not like the difference between CD and cassette. Both DVDs and CDs are digital storage formats. Their only difference is their size, so the quality of recordings is based on HOW they are stored. For example, Video-CD's used the MPEG1 format, and DVD's use the MPEG2 format.
I'm not sure how the audio will be better, since there aren't a huge number of music DVD's (I don't mean the video ones. I mean DVD's that contain albums and are targatted at people the same way that CD music album's are), so I don't know if they are stored any different.
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You know, when Comedy Central asked us to do a Thanksgiving episode, the first thought that went through my mind was, "Boy, I'd like to have sex with Jennifer Aniston."
-Trey Parker, co-creator of South Park
quote:
Both DVDs and CDs are digital storage formats. Their only difference is their size, so the quality of recordings is based on HOW they are stored.
That is absolutely correct, Liam. There is no difference between DVDs and CDROMs when it comes to quality of audio or video. The only difference is file size, and how it is copied to the disk. The information doesn't change, only in how it is transferred. As others have noted, the only advantage DVD has is its capacity.
And as for CD burners, I have one. I also have over 150 CDRs of information. I still think I need a bigger hard drive.
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"Goverment exists to serve, not to lead. We do not exist by its volition, it exists by ours. Bear that in mind when you insult your neighbors for refusing to bow before it." J. Richmond
I suppose if I saved every file I use, I could probably fill up something like that. Or if I wanted to save whole episodes on disk...
As it is, I have two operating systems running on my computer - MacOS and Windoze 95 (via VirtualPC) - and I STILL have a large percentage of my HD free.
I need to buy more games...
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You know, you really should keep a personal log. Why bore others needlessly?
The Gigantic Collection of Star Trek Minutiae
then why are DVD so much better in quality then VCD
Is it only because of format??
Doesn't DVD use different spectrum of later light as well?? Doesn't this contribute to some improvement in quality?
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What is the difference between a terriorist and your girlfriend?
- With terrorist, there is a chance of negotiation.
As the FMD-guys say, the common "red" laser is planned to be succeeded by the "blue" laser, who is (at the time) too big and hot to be installed in a personal computer's Disc-drive.
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!
CD's were designed to store 74 mintues of 16-bit audio. To fit video onto them, the picture has to be compressed. Like JPEG and GIF are still picture compression format's, MPEG is a video compression format. MPEG-1 was designed to allow 74 minutes of video on a CD, but because of the lack of available space they are fairly heavily compressed. The resolution is half that of VHS, I believe, but because of the lack of ghosting and other analogue effects, the picture seems better (as long as it isn't paused).
DVD was designed from the ground up for video. Is uses the MPEG-2 compression format, which is more efficient, and produces a better picture (as an aside, they're up to MPEG-4, which can apparently just about fit a DVD quality movie on a CD. Ho hum). There is a lot more space to play with on a DVD, several gigabytes, as opposed to 740 mb. So they can store more information, which equals better picture and sound.
You ever looked at Realplayer files? Noticed that the bigger ones are better quality?
(I know that my figures might be a bit off. That's because I made them up).
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You know, when Comedy Central asked us to do a Thanksgiving episode, the first thought that went through my mind was, "Boy, I'd like to have sex with Jennifer Aniston."
-Trey Parker, co-creator of South Park
So if the limit to a video file's quality is set by how much space it can rest in, then this new file format will let us store full motion pictures of the highest quality on these new babies!
And since they don't cost that much more to produce, I think it's safe to say that we have some nice things to look forward to, yes?
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!
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"Goverment exists to serve, not to lead. We do not exist by its volition, it exists by ours. Bear that in mind when you insult your neighbors for refusing to bow before it." J. Richmond
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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
On the "just thought I'd tellya" side, I recently finished a meal consisting of a whole pack of bacon (8 slices cut in half for bitesize), three fried eggs, two loafs of fried toast, a bunch of silly baby tomatoes and 3/4 litre of milk, plus some applejuice. I haven't felt this good in months, been very long since I had bacon.
And now for a good ceegar! (No wait, I hate cigars.)
I think I'll just fall asleep in this chair...
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!
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"Goverment exists to serve, not to lead. We do not exist by its volition, it exists by ours. Bear that in mind when you insult your neighbors for refusing to bow before it." J. Richmond
DIVX still sucks.
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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
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"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"
-Nimrod 16/4/2001
I would like to point out that all DVD players receiving an upgrade to support MPEG-4 is about as likely as Simon fitting into a pair of hot pants.
What we buy is largely determined by very big companies. They told us to get rid of our vinyl records, and buy CD's, because they were better. And lo and behold, we did. A decade later, admitedley, but still.
When the companies went off on their own, they got failures (CD-I for one, Minidisc for another AND DON'T START!). When they all worked together, they got successes (CD's, and DVD's). It's took them around 10 years to get everyone buying CD's. It's taken them 4 years to get us to start buying DVD players and Widescreen TV's (and they still aren't at the point of CD success). Can you really imagine them turning around and saying "Oh, we're now going to release a NEW DVD format, so that all you who have bought DVD players will feel really pissed off! BWAHAHAHAHA!"
They're not selling to computer nerds who are quite happy to upgrade their computer every year. They are trying to sell to the general public, who hate anything remotely new.
We won't be seeing these new discs getting mass-market penetration any time soon. At best, they'll become the new laserdisc. At worst, they'll be a foot-note, until, in 10 years time, Sony and Philips deceide will all need to upgrade our stuff again.
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You know, when Comedy Central asked us to do a Thanksgiving episode, the first thought that went through my mind was, "Boy, I'd like to have sex with Jennifer Aniston."
-Trey Parker, co-creator of South Park
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"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"
-Nimrod 16/4/2001
Even Darkstar took things better than you do.
BTW - Yes, upgrading you hot source of hands3xx0r, or computer, every five months is a major source of nerdage.
BTWA - Liam, a kid? Uh. As compared to you?
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"Instructed by history and reflection, Julian was persuaded that, if the diseases of the body may sometimes be cured by salutary violence, neither steel nor fire can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind."
-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.
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"As part of Mr. Lee's good neighbor policy, all Rat Things are programmed never to break the sound barrier in a populated area. But Fido's in too much of a hurry to worry about the good neighbor policy. Jack the sound barrier. Bring the noise."
-Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
However this isn't a perfect world. We have things called industry standards and copyright laws and the like. Movie making labels sell, almost exclusively, their movie rights to supporters of the VHS and DVD communities.
I can see the need for this immense storage capacity.
Anybody ever heard of TiVo? The device that allows Television views to prerecord their favorite television programs to a hard drive and watch it at any time they wish? This device is amazingly useful, but theonly downside is that the quality of recording is SHIT. It isn't even VHS quality, and by my standards, VHS is not quality. if you want VHS quality, the usual 90 hour recording time is rediced to 30 hours. Like I said, this FMD thing could really be useful for TiVo, as the gargantuan size would mean views could view VHS quality TV shows (what we view normally) with a considerable record time still available.
I had a view other things to say, but I forgot, so I guess you're all pretty lucky I'm not going to continue to talk.
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"Turn off every .sig!"
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!