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A word to the wise, Joe - the Halfbakery isn't just about having ideas, it's also (mostly) about sharing them. I'm sure all your ideas make sense inside your own head; you just need to try a little harder to make them make sense in other people's. |
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I do try, but half the time your posts are just inpenetrable. I know there's an idea there, but the way you word things just doesn't bring it out. |
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Well, I think it makes perfect sense. |
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As for usefulness, I suppose you
could use it to add track names or
lyrics to CDs after burning... |
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The amount of data you could
store magnetically would be a few
percent of the capacity of a CD. |
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Of course, in Europe it's common
to use Magneto Optical systems. |
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They were first introduced about
the time Steve Jobs developed the
NEXT computer. A laser heats a
spot on the disk, which when hot
can be written to magnetically, but
when cool can't be changed. |
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We don't use them much in the
USA 'cause they're slower. |
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Problem is that the read/write head has to fly SO close to a magnetic platter that putting a layer of anything on top of it renders the whole thing useless. |
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The data layer of a CD resides at the top of the CD, while the entire bottom is clear plastic--that's most of the thickness of the CD. That's about 1.2 millimeters of plastic. A little research gives a figure of 12 *nanometers* for the glide height of a drive head. So you're blocked by a piece of plastic 100,000 times too thick to read through. |
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Except now you've got this magical transparent ferrous material exposed to the open air where people can touch it. Having manufactured hard drive platters for a living, I can tell you that a single fingerprint on a platter is cause to throw the platter away. The thickness of the oil of the fingerprint is enough to cause the head to crash, and that's not nearly as big as a dust particle. No can do. |
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How about encasing the disk in a tamper-resistant housing ... this makes it more cumbersome, yes, but for servers which use automated back-up systems in which the media is rarely handled anyway, this could be quite useful ... |
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//The only real technical challenge is getting a device to access both optical and magnetic media spinning at the same speed.//
Alternatively, if the volume of data on the magnetic portion was fairly small (which I think likely given the suggested applications), you could read the entire magnetic content in one pass and cache it in the player. Then if needed the disk could spin at different rates for the different modes, without much of a penalty. |
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Darksasami, I don't think this is intended to provide storage density on the level of a hard disk platter, but rather something similar to what can be found in an old 5.25" floppy. By placing a layer of magnetic media within the disk, it may be possible to rewrite some data to the disk, such as last position accessed, in order to let you start where you left off on a DVD. Even though my DVD player is able to identify the last 16 disks that have been played and lets me start where I left off, I give this one a +. |
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Potential ulterior motive: |
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Patent the way this works, and trademark a cool name for it so consumers know where it is available. License it to DVD player manufacturers as a way to make DVDs easier to use and more customizable. |
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Now deny licenses under your patent & trademark to anyone who makes a rewritable form of this disk. You've just created a significant disadvantage to buying a pirated copy of a DVD....they can't access the customizability features. |
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[admin: corrected spelling in idea title Opticly -> Optically.] |
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Despite the problems associated with exposed magnetic media, I like this idea for the concept, so + from me. |
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Okay, yeah, that might work--a strip of magnetic tape that holds a few k. If you're going that direction, you might actually be able to work out some kind of floppy-like protective covering. You end up with a disk with moving parts, which is always iffy, but it would, in fact, work. Fishbone rescinded. |
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"No workie."
"Right, so the magnetic storage area would need to be on an outside surface..."
I don't think so. The read/write head on a hard drive sits close to the platter because it's very low power - it has to be precise. That's not the case here. |
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Why not just use DVD+/-RW or CD-RW? |
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Magneto-optic data storage =
MiniDisk (and its ilk). I like
[krelnik]'s caching
implementation. |
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If we're just talking concept, I think a read-only disk with a read-write section has already been made on dataplay disks. Unfortunately, I can't check this at the moment as I am currently sitting behind a seemingly random firewall with a dislike of the domain dataplay.com (link). |
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For me a read-only DVD with a small read-write section would be useful. I could set my preferences up and take them between DVD players. It would beat RW disks by the virtue that nobody could erase data, and would beat a WORM drive by letting me change my preference (lots of times). |
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With the magnetic section on the top side (label side), this could even be retrofitted on existing DVDs by making self stick magnetic media lables. Care would have to be taken in applying these to avoid unbalancing the DVD. This would have the advantage of allowing a manufacturer to implement this and include a large pack of labels with the DVD player so people can use it before it has wide industry acceptance. |
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The one place this wouldn't work would be on double sided disks, but this idea in general wouldn't work with those unless someone developed the magical transparent magnetic media. |
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If we wanted a system that could support double sided disks, the magnetic part could be just on the clear section near the hub. This might require redesigning the mechanism used to hold the disk on some players that clamp the disk using that area. Another option would be to put the magnetic media along the outside edge: the magnatic media would then be a very wide short cylinder. That doesn't work with my label retrofitting idea, and both of these limit the storage capacity. |
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If you only need to memorize where the DVD movie was last at you would only need a few hundred bits of information to memorize that would you not? |
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An alternative would be to embed a small memory chip in the clear inner hub of the disc, and have contacts on the clamp of the player to communicate with it. |
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I understand that some digital video tapes have a small amount of flash memory inside, though I've no idea what it's used for. |
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