Are Very High Capacity DVDs Available? available to general public?

[foolakadugie 0]

Backing up my files has become a horrible chore with all of my drives and huge files. I work with video/animation projects and stuff that take up huge amounts of space. It takes so long burning everything to 4.75 GB DVDs. I know that when movie DVDs are often on high capacity DVDs that hold much more information than a measly 4.75. So, my question is: Are high capacity DVDs available for people to purcahase anywhere? I tried looking on google and did find something about some DVD media over 20GB coming soon, but is there anything that might help for the time being?

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

yup, it's the original "Blu-Ray" before they spilt and became their own forum.It's now called HD-DVD.xboxrulz

[iGuest 3]

yup, it's the original "Blu-Ray" before they spilt and became their own forum.
It's now called HD-DVD.

xboxrulz

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are two different technologies, one is Sony and the other is Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo and promoted by MS both aimed at their consoles and for allowing movies.

You need a special drive for writing Blu-Ray discs and can't do it on your normal DVD Writers.

You can get Double-Layered discs known as DVD9 which allows you to hold double the amount of a single layer DVD 4.7GB. Only dual layer DVD writers/readers will be able to write and read from them but they are available but cost probably a lot more than 2 x 4.7GB DVD discs.

Cheers,


MC

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Yea I know the only places I've seen dual layer dvd's around here sell them for about 12 times the price or more. You can get blank dvd's for about a quarter a pop whereas the dvd9's are about 3 bucks a pop or more. I'm sure there are places that sell them for more/less, but regardless if you are worried about $/GB the single layered disks are better... otherwise look around for the dual layers.

[iGuest 3]

It may even work out cheaper buying a large capacity hard drive instead which you could use for backing up and transferring. Really just depends on how much you need to shift.Also have you looked at compressing your files too, just to make them smaller then move them over to the DVDs. It probably still takes the same amount of time for burning (added time for compressing), but you could fit more on the one disc.Cheers,MC

[foolakadugie 0]

Thanks for the input.Yeah I don't really want to buy new hardware. Hard drives are fairly cheap these days. I just bought a new one after an older one failed. I suppose I will stick to 4.75GB DVDs and my external drive for right now.

[James_K 0]

Well, as far as HD DVD vs. Blu-ray goes, it looks like we've pretty much passed the point of no return now; with each passing day it seems less and less likely that a compromise will be reached on a next-gen format. The ongoing peace talks between the two camps, which have been on-again, off-again for months now, seem to have finally dissolved. It's disappointing, but however you feel about the fact that the HD DVD and Blu-ray factions squandered countless chances to make it right and come together, it looks like in just a few short months they're going to be duking it out mano a mano right in our livingrooms. There may not be a lot we can do to fight back â apart from refusing to adopt either format out of sheer spite of their pigheadedness â but no matter what we might as well at least arm ourselves with the knowledge necessary to understand the nature of the situation at hand.
Here's the background:

Philips's development of the Laserdisc in 1969 yielded many of the technologies Sony carried over and adopted when they partnered with Philips to create a little something called the CD way back in '79. Both companies were hard at work together once again in the early 1990s on a new high-density disc called the MultiMedia Compact Disc (MMCDâoriginal name, guys), but their format was eventually more or less abandoned in favor of Toshiba's competing Super Density Disc (SD), which had the vast majority of backers at the time, such as Hitachi, Matsushita (Panasonic), Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Thomson, and Time Warner.

The two factions cut a deal, brokered by IBM president Lou Gerstner, on a new format: DVD. Toshiba wound up on top after the dust settled in 1995/1996, and Sony and Philips, who weren't cut in on the standard (and royalties) nearly as much as they'd have liked, immediately started work on a next gen system. The Professional Disc for DATA (aka PDD or ProDATA), which was based on an optical disc system Sony had already been developing in the side, would eventually become the Blu-ray disc. Toshiba, not to be outdone by the pair, also started work on a next gen system, the Advanced Optical Disc, which eventually evolved into the HD DVD. After thirty-five years of optical audio/video disc development we're back where we were years ago: two money-grubbing factions fighting each other and threatening to wreak havoc on the consumer electronics industry. Apparently history really does repeat itself.

So here's the technical nitty gritty before we drop the graphs n' charts on ya. Both systems use the same kind of 405nm wavelength blue-violet laser, but their optics differ in two ways. Since the Blu-ray disc has a tighter track pitch (the single thread of data that spirals from the inside of the disc all the way out-think grooves on a 12-inch vinyl single vs. an Elvis Costello full-length album), it can hold more pits (those microscopic 0s and 1s) on the same size disc as HD DVD even with a laser of the same wavelength.

The differing track pitch of the Blu-ray disc makes its pickup apertures differ, however - 0.65 for HD DVD vs. 0.85 for Blu-ray - thus also making the two pickups technically incompatible despite using lasers of the same type. HD DVD discs also have a different surface layer (the clear plastic layer on the surface of the data - what you get fingerprints and scratches on) from Blu-ray discs. HD DVD use a 0.6 mm-thick surface layer, the same as DVD, while Blu-ray has a much smaller 0.1mm layer to help enable the laser to focus with that 0.85 aperture.

Herein lies the issues associated with the higher cost of Blu-ray discs. This thinner surface layer is what makes the discs cost more; because Blu-ray discs do not share the same surface layer thickness of DVDs, costly production facilities must be modified or replaced in order to produce the discs. A special hard coating must also be applied to Blu-ray discs, so their surface is sufficiently resilient enough to protect the data a mere 0.1mm beneath - this also drives the cost up. The added benefit of keeping the data layer closer to the surface, however, is more room for extra layers.

Still with us? No? Blu-ray discs are more expensive, but hold more data - there, that's all.

So now that you know why Blu-ray discs cost more and why Sony/Philips and Toshiba are all harshing on one another so much, we can get to the really important stuff: the numbers, and who's supporting who.


Capacity

Blu-Ray
ROM single layer: 23.3 / 25GB
ROM dual layer: 46.6 / 50GB
RW single layer:23.3 / 25 / 27GB
RW dual layer:46.6 / 50 / 54GB
Highest test:100GB
Theoretical limit:200GB

HD DVD
Single layer:15GB
Dual layer:30GB
-
-
Highest test:45GB
Theoretical limit: 60GB

Codecs

Blu-Ray
MPEG-2
Microsoft Video Codec 1 (aka VC1, WMV HD, etc.)
H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC

HD DVD
MPEG-2
Microsoft Video Codec 1 (aka VC1, WMV HD, etc.)
H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC



Security

Blu-Ray
Mandatory HDCP encrypted output
ROM-Mark watermarking technology
BD dynamic crypto (physical layer)
Advanced Access Content System (AACS)

HD DVD
Mandatory HDCP encrypted output (for HD)
Volume identifier (physical layer)
Advanced Access Content System (AACS)



Studios (movie and game) listed as supporting members

Blu-Ray
20th Century Fox
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Electronic Arts
MGM Studios
Paramount Pictures
Sony Pictures Entertainment
The Walt Disney Company
Vivendi Universal Games
Warner Bros.

HD DVD
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
New Line Cinema
Paramount Pictures
The Walt Disney Company
Universal Studios
Warner Bros.


Format founders
Blu-Ray
Sony Corporation
Royal Philips Electronics

HD DVD
Toshiba Corporation
Hitachi Corporation

https://www.engadget.com/

[cherri 0]

I know it takes a long time burning them..... but you can leave the computer overnight... I mean it doesn't get tired at all... but I dont recommend compressing fotos etc because I think they lose quality... but anyway you can do it anyway you want to do it..... These days pople need more space cheaper,better and smaller (in size)well good luck

[iGuest 3]

As we speak I'm backing up an AComdata 320gig drive that's started acting really funky. I've had two IBM deathstars blow up on me, and I generally smell the death as its coming, and it come come quick, so you always have to act quickly. At this point, I've had maybe one cd/dvd fail out of hundreds, so I'm going back to burning discs. THis HD crap is out of hand. Its good to have external hard drives and burn backups if you're someone with data that can not be lost. This is the absolute achilles heel of digi photo. With slides, and negs, you always have the originals, unless they burn up, much less likely than fricking HDs, which I think by nature will all fail after 5 years. My Acom320 is less than a year ago. I'm not impressed.

[Grafitti 0]

They're selling Blu-ray drives for around $200, i think. But then the Blu ray dvds cost like $40 each.... so they're heavily slashing the burner costs, but they make it up with the burning media costs. I would love to be given one of those, but I'm not going to go out and buy it. I still prefer the 4.7 GB dvds. Both because of cost, and also because they only can hold that much, so if it goes bad all you've lost is that. What if you damaged your Bluray disc? Alot more's at stake. I'm also soured on the whole external HD backup idea... I got a Western Digital 500GB external, and backed up everything onto it. After 3 months the drive failed, and though WD gave me a new one in exchange, if I had been keeping that as my only backup source, I would have lost irreplaceable data.

[ABSDaemon 0]

I've seen BRD burners, but I've yet to see an HD-DVD burner. I have seen the media (blank discs) at Staples though. Personally I use USB2.0 external Hard drives. I bought one a couple months ago for $130 on sale at Best buy. They may even be cheaper now, who knows.

[iGuest 3]

As we speak I'm backing up an AComdata 320gig drive that's started acting really funky. I've had two IBM deathstars blow up on me, and I generally smell the death as its coming, and it come come quick, so you always have to act quickly. At this point, I've had maybe one cd/dvd fail out of hundreds, so I'm going back to burning discs. This HD crap is out of hand. Its good to have external hard drives and burn backups if you're someone with data that can not be lost. This is the absolute achilles heel of digi photo. With slides, and negs, you always have the originals, unless they burn up, much less likely than HDs, which I think by nature will all fail after 5 years. My Acom320 is less than a year ago. I'm not impressed.

[Markymark2 0]

Why do you think big companies still use tape drives to back things up? cos the best safest and easiest way to save data is onto a tape or dvd.Hard drives by their nature have an expiry date on how long they work for, if you make sure you use decent quality tapes and DVDS your data is certain to be safe for a longer time.Also tapes fair well when dropped and abused, the same with a dvd in a cover, how about a HD? ever dropped one from waist height and got it to run again?Maybe tapes and DVD backups will become a thing of the past the way flash memory is going down in price and going up in memory density, but we are way off being able to backup a few tera bytes on them, but not too far away its not reachable and achievable.

[iGuest 3]

DVD Large Capacity - Where to purchase?Are Very High Capacity DVDs Available?

I have a 7.1GB DVD that I would like to copy. Where do I find a DVD that will accomodate this? The company that sent it to me had to get it from a supplier. Who? Where? Any ideas you can share?

-reply by Sueze