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Yamaha CD-RW Drive Writes Images In Substrate 304

Posted by timothy from the cool-idea dept.
johnny5 writes: "Yamaha has recently demonstrated a new CD-RW drive that can write images into the unused space on a CD-R disc after the data track is written. The technology, called DiscT@2(TM), is due out in Japan in July. The images print on to the CD at approximately 250dpi, making graphics as well as text possible. More info can be found at Yamaha's CD-RW site (in English) as well as at Akiba PC Hotline (in Japanese, with better pictures. Babelfish for suitably akward translation). No word on a timeframe for U.S. availability"
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Yamaha CD-RW Drive Writes Images In Substrate

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  • This can be done now... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by qurob ( 543434 )

    Don't you know the value of PI, some specs on CD diameters, track separation distances....copy a bitmap over...

    • Re:This can be done now... (Score:4, Informative)

      by arivanov ( 12034 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @08:56AM (#3756316) Homepage
      Assuming it is as you say it is not so easy. You need to insure that the writer will not barf. After all you feeding it with some data which according to the red book is garbage or pretty close to garbage. So the writer should allow turning off all error and sanity checks.

      Alternatively it is very good software that merges an image on top of data that is acceptable to a normal CD writer.

      In either case it is not just PI, elementary calculations and a bitmap.

    • Re:This can be done now... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by iangoldby ( 552781 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @09:05AM (#3756345) Homepage
      The visibility of the burned track depends on the kind of substrate used on the particular CD blank. Green ones show up best. Pale yellow ones are often almost invisible.

      Does this mean that the Yamaha drive will only be effective on green CDs, or does the laser use a different strength to burn the piccies?

  • Finally!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by OmniVector ( 569062 ) <see my homepage> on Monday June 24, 2002 @08:32AM (#3756200) Homepage
    No more losing my WaReZ cd keys!
    • You know, this does actually make sense.

      Imagine that instead of editors sticking a label with your CD-key on the casing, why not engrave it on the CD.

      • Re:Finally!! (Score:4, Informative)

        by NickV ( 30252 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @09:25AM (#3756420)
        You can't do this on mass produced CDs for two reasons:

        1) Mass produced CDs are pressed, not burned. So I don't even know if this process will work for a pressed CD which uses a different authoring process.

        2) Even if this was possibile in that regard. Having a unique CD key pressed onto each CD would result in creating n templates (where n=number of cds pressed) which is too expensive to be useful. This is sorta the same reason as to why we see CD Keys on cd cases, but never printed onto the front label side of the cd.

        • There's no reason they need to make N templates for N CD's. That would be a huge waste of resources. all they gotta do is put all the alphanumeric characters they use on a series of wheel-presses (think of it as an odometer, with letters on it)that spin to the right Key each time a new CD comes along.

          Though the mechanism would have to be very precise and very fast, it's well within the manufacturing capabilities of any company that makes CD's ( A high precision exercise anyway.)
        • have you?

          They have the OEM number right on the cd...
        • This is sorta the same reason as to why we see CD Keys on cd cases, but never printed onto the front label side of the cd.

          And here I thought they didn't put the CD-KEY on the CD itself because it would be pretty hard to see the CD Key to type it in... when it's in the CD-ROM drive.

          huh.

    • Re:Finally!! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      apparently someone doesn't own a sharpie!

  • Special logo for the RIAA (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24, 2002 @08:33AM (#3756208)
    How about burning in something like 'Fuck you RIAA' onto every CD-R. That'd make them happy.

  • Hack (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lord Ender ( 156273 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @08:34AM (#3756216) Homepage
    For anyone wondering what the word 'hack' actually means, THIS IS IT.
    • HACK: Descriptive pronoun. See "JonKatz".

  • Why Hardware? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by hesiod ( 111176 )
    Maybe I'm missing something, but Why is it the drive itself that is important? I would think most CDs are pretty much the same (correct me if I'm wrong), so after doing a bit of math, properly enhanced CD-burning software should be able to do this, right? Well, maybe not, I never claimed to be a genius.

    • Re:Why Hardware? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by sh00z ( 206503 )
      I've had a little bit of experience with lasers, and I'm pretty sure that the modulation required to accomplish this is going to be orders of magnitude higher than what is needed to burn data, and the time required for the on/off function just ain't gonna happen at 12X (or possibly even 1X). I'm betting that there's a physical shutter mechanism involved.
      • I've had a little bit of experience with lasers, and I'm pretty sure that the modulation required to accomplish this is going to be orders of magnitude higher than what is needed to burn data

        Not really. All they're doing is taking advantage of the fact that a burned part of a CD looks noticeably different from a non-burned part, and selectively burning.

        As there's a visible difference between used and unused sections on a normally-burned CD, I don't see why you'd need any special hardware to pattern this difference.
      • Uh, they use relatively high-power lasers in fibre optics to achieve gigabit speeds easily. It's not that hard - usually diodes are driven with a constant-current source, and a fast-switching FET is used to short out the diode to turn it off. The power supply isn't shorted because the constant-current source limits the amount of current the circuit can draw.

        Let's do some math: CD players turn at 1.2-1.4 m/s Constant Angular Velocity [umn.edu]. To get 250 dpi at that speed (1X), each dot is 78 uSec, or about 12,800 dots/second. Gigabit speeds are literally a million times faster.

        I'm not so sure that the laser is actually burning through the reflective backing, though - it looks like the pattern is only visible on the underside data area - just like you can see the difference between burnt and unburnt data.
        • Sorry, but angular velocity is not measured in meters/sec it's measure in radians/sec or rotations/sec. That's what they mean by "angular". :)
          • Perhaps he meant the linear velocity when spinning at a constant 1x angular velocity (which no CD-ROM drive does)?

    • Re:Why Hardware? (Score:3, Informative)

      by gmarceau ( 119282 )
      Cd drives have a very mild notion of their absolute position along the disk. I bet this drive has an extra sensor for angular position on the spindle.
      • CD recorders took a great leap forward when burnproof was released. New drives most certainly do have a way to understand positioning, that is how they pause the burn process and resume it. They waste a little cdr real estate in the process though.

  • FINALLY (Score:4, Funny)

    by rattler14 ( 459782 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @08:36AM (#3756221)
    So not only can we make pirated CD's, we can now put copy protected images on them as well... you probably can't see it, but I'm doing a little dance for joy over here, knowing that I can piss off the RIAA even more

    Next step, incorporating this wonderful gadget into your fridge/freezer/1970's jukebox

    what will they think of next

  • Cute (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @08:36AM (#3756225)
    Very cute, however for the home user this won't be a hit, unless it's reasonably priced. Otherwise most people will just stick with a perminant OHP pen and write on the CD. It's cheap and it works.

    For smaller companies, now that is a different matter and something likw that would be rather neat and useful.

    Plus, isn't the market moving more and more towards DVD burners? I have a 4x CD burner at the moment and when I upgrade i'll be looking more and more at a hybrid CDR/RW/DVD combination job and not a 32x CDRW with the ability to burn pictures on it.

    • Re:Cute (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @10:56AM (#3756854) Journal
      "For smaller companies, now that is a different matter and something likw that would be rather neat and useful."

      Do not underestimate the 'gimmick marketing potential' of this idea. Let me explain:

      I'm not talking about marketing this actual Yamaha drive. I am talking about using graphic-ized CDs as marketing tools in themselves to sell other products.

      If a company wants to sell something and have their marketing materials stand out, the marketing materials must have some sort of neat quirk. This can be in the form of a keychain with a built in puzzle, those business card shaped CDs, or whatever. They're neat things. The first time I got a business card shaped CD (marketing from MSFT no less) I did not believe when someone told me it was a real disc so I put it in my machine, and played the marketing video on the CD. Lo and behold it worked. And I ended up watching their marketing video.

      I think that CDs with graphics burned on the back of them would have similar appeal.

    • "Otherwise most people will just stick with a perminant OHP pen and write on the CD. It's cheap and it works."

      Hmm... I dunno if this'll be a hit with consumers or not. I kind of thought the CD burner market was already saturated.

      However, I would pay extra $$$ for a DVD burner that has this feature. It could make auto-backups a hell of a lot easier because I could skip the labelling step. One of the things I want to do is burn a CD of all my Lightwave projects. It'd be cool if the burner software was smart enough to get all the folder names and burn those into the disk.

      In other words, I could burn and forget instead of trying to decypher my handwriting later. ;)

      Who knows, it may very well be a hit with the organizationally impaired such as myself. I damn bought a dedicated CD-Label printer.

  • So its

    the revolutionary DiscT@2TM Laser Labeling System,
    pronounced as Disctatoo trademark LLS

    How do normal people know how to pronouce this or non-english speaking people like me. In German it would be "DiskTatzwei" trademark LLS. So Marketing only focuses on the english speaking clientel or what ?

    • Good marketing (Score:2, Interesting)

      by af_robot ( 553885 )
      I think that marketing deps just looked into numbers and figured that 90% of all CDR made by teenagers (mainly porn, divx and warez stuff)
      So they named new technology according to their target group preferences.

      - Hey l00k DuDe, That DiscT@2 sounds KooL :)

    • Re:The names got weirder every Year (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24, 2002 @09:13AM (#3756384)
      pronounced as Disctatoo trademark LLS

      Heh, I thought it was
      Disc, Tea at 2:00
      But yours makes more sense. :)

    • Re:Disc Tattoo (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Speare ( 84249 )

      the revolutionary DiscT@2TM Laser Labeling System,

      ...pronounced as Disc Tattoo Laser Labeling System.

      [Google doesn't show a German word for tattoo.] A tattoo is a permanent marking by stippling ink designs into living skin. Or in this case, a permanent marking by stippling burn designs into compact disc designs.

      Stupid ASCII Rebus puzzles [unclerebus.com]. Leet Speek trademarks.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • So Marketing only focuses on the english speaking clientel or what ?
      That's because dim-witted morons (the majority of people out there) think that the yankees are the best thing since sliced bread, so if you want to sell anything to the majority of dim-witted morons, you kave to make it look like it's a merry can...
      • Didn't know that only Yanks spoke English now. Hmm!

        I can't figure out how you got enough Karma for a +2 post with inflammatory posts like that, not to mention a pessimistic and trollish sig.

        • The rest of the world speaks english because the yankees are too stupid to learn other languages, everyone (but the yanks) know that...

          As of the Karma, that's because yanks aren't alone on Slashdot; plenty of folks here know that the yanks have their head shoved into their arses quite far...

    • So its "the revolutionary DiscT@2TM Laser Labeling System, pronounced as Disctatoo trademark LLS." How do normal people know how to pronouce this or non-english speaking people like me.

      Hell, even some of us who do speak English found the name just a little too clever. "DiscT@2? HTF do you pronounce that?" Cleverness like that is OK on license plates, but I'm not sure it's a good idea for a product name.

  • Wanking while watching pr0n CD's just took another dimension.

  • It´s a cool feature but... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fabiolrs ( 536338 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @08:40AM (#3756239) Homepage
    is there any actual use for this? Id rather buy a drive that burns faster than one that prints images on my CDs. That thing must cost lots of money, and its not a actual new feature, I already saw some presentation CDs here in the company I work for with text printed but I believe those were done with MUCH professional (expensive) equipment.
    • "is there any actual use for this? Id rather buy a drive that burns faster than one that prints images on my CDs. "

      Colour and physical appearance are important to many. Remember when the Yellow Gameboy Advance came out? People swarmed the stores to get them because of the pokeyman video game. Similarly, those transparent Diamond 56K USB modems sell real fast because they are transparent blue. Btw, do you wonder why the iMac sold so well? And have you seen the new iMac - it *looks* sweet. Asthetics and gimmicky appearance effects sell products.

    • If you took the time to read the article, you would notice that the drive burns at 44x, which is pretty darn close to the fastest cd burners (48x). Plus, this drive shouldn't cost much more than typical cd burners. Nobody will pay a $75 dollar premium in a market this saturated.

  • Neat but (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Sc00ter ( 99550 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @08:42AM (#3756249) Homepage
    "The CRW-F1 is the first CD-RW recorder to offer the revolutionary DiscT@2TM Laser Labeling System, which allows graphics and text to be burnt onto CD-R disc, eliminating the need for labels. Customers can put graphics, such as signatures, logos, memorandums, and photo images onto CD-R's unused area after data writing. This unique feature will certainly enhance the CD-R recording experience for many users"

    So it will only "draw" on unused parts of the disk, basically taking up space... crap.

    • Re:Neat but (Score:2, Informative)

      by tswinzig ( 210999 )
      So it will only "draw" on unused parts of the disk, basically taking up space... crap.

      Don't they mean literally the unused part -- the space in between the pits that the laser writes?

      Look at this picture here:

      http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/akiba/hotline/20020 622/image/nya2.html [impress.co.jp]

      • You're wrong (Score:4, Informative)

        by af_robot ( 553885 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @09:54AM (#3756548)
        "Customers can put graphics, such as signatures, logos, memorandums, and photo images onto CD-R's unused area after data writing."

        Look closely: there is a very small data area (inner circle) on the picture, all other space is unused.
    • Actually, probably there's differences in the number of 0's or 1's in the blocks anyway. Therefore if you were to take all of the blocks of data on one CD, sort them by intensity, you could arrange for the data blocks to be positioned to approximate to the image you wanted to write, on the data portion of another CD.

      Of course doing this would completely scramble the disk data up, so the poor CDROM laser would be jumping around like a lunatic; and CDROMs are peculiarly slow at jumping... So accessing the data would work, but really, really sllllllllllooooowwlllllly.

      Still, it would be very cool ;-)

    • Now what would be really cool is if they could interleave the "data" and "picture" on the CD. I imagine the density of a typical CD-R (in terms of raw pits and lands) is probably several orders higher than 250/inch. If that's the case, then shouldn't it be possible to alternate data and picture sectors at some ratio, say 1:3, and still come up with a legible picture spanning over the whole CD? A space tradeoff of 1/3 isn't really that high, and who knows, perhaps it could be pushed even further. I realize this probably annihilates every standard for CD--data, audio, video, whatever--in the book, but this burner sound pretty souped up as it is. Perhaps it could me modified to support this?

  • AOL's way ahead of them. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Christopher Thomas ( 11717 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @08:44AM (#3756255)
    AOL stamped their logo by similar methods into a wave of CDs a while back.

    I was keeping a few as extra-pretty coasters, but they were thrown out behind my back...

  • Whee (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Enry ( 630 ) <enry.wayga@net> on Monday June 24, 2002 @08:49AM (#3756273) Journal
    I was doing that 10 years ago with optical cards. You could print an image on the optical surface in a similar way as the CD-RW. Of course, you couldn't put any data on there...and the writers/readers cost $10k each...and they were SCSI only...
    • There's an old story circulating among my geekier friends about someone who figured out how to do this with disk packs while working as a third shift a systems operator. Disk packs used to fail at a fairly high rate and it was not possible to tell a good pack from a bad one by looking. This operator figured out how to use the read/write heads to chip sections out of the top platter so that the word DEAD could be read at a glance.

  • As easy as a floppy! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jerky McNaughty ( 1391 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @08:50AM (#3756283)

    I like this text from the product info page:

    Allows you to write, rewrite and backup data on CD as quickly and easily as you would on a floppy disk.

    Yea! Yippee! Those floppies sure are quick! And with the amount of data loss I've seen, those floppies are easy, too! Someone should sit down with their marketing people and show them that most of us probably wouldn't interpret that sentence as a compliment to their product.

  • *Sigh*... gotta flip it to see the images (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Goldenhawk ( 242867 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @08:52AM (#3756295) Homepage
    Unless I'm misreading this, the image only appears on the data side of the disc. And the last time I looked, even on a bare no-label CD, I couldn't see where the data ended from the label side.

    I don't know about you, but I'd never label the data
    side of my CD-R.

    Whenever they figure out how to show it on the LABEL side, call me.

    • They do have the technology now! (Score:4, Funny)

      by mekkab ( 133181 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @09:37AM (#3756478) Homepage Journal
      Look! You can make your own front side labels on your computer! [amazon.com]

      I know becuase I did a lot of research on this. I went to Best Buy and talked to their knowledgable staff and they told me this was the thing we needed. And they said it was "Sweet" so I had to get it. They also told be I should buy the extended warranty contract, so of course I did- you never know when some "new technology" is going to break and you won't be able to fix it.
    • Whenever they figure out how to show it on the LABEL side, call me.

      This new and exciting technology [aswexpress.com] is just what you are looking for!!!

      - A.P.
  • It's a great feature if you want to have something eye catchy for your burned cd's.
    I can imagine you want to have eye catchy demo cd's if you send your bands demo to a record label and you're afraid they'll throw away most of the stuff without listening to it.

  • Gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sacremon ( 244448 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @08:55AM (#3756307)

    So I can put graphics on the data side of the disc, though the more I put on the disc, the less space I have for my graphics.

    Compare this to using something like a CD inkjet printer, where I have the whole of the top of the disc to use for color graphics, that I don't have to turn the disc over to see.

    I can see the geek appeal, but I really don't see this as practical.

  • Genuinely useful, genuinely innovative, not just some more "we're 8% faster using our own benchmarks on a good day with the wind behind us, and really almost pretty much compatible" nonsense.

    Partial solution to a perfectly real problem.

    The computer industry has gotten ossified... there are so many problems that have now been around for so long that nobody sees them as problems any more.

    Of course, I know all of YOU are religious about labelling your media and are neat and tidy, so I'm sure none of YOU have ever been guilty of saying "You can recognize that diskette, it's the one with no label on it..."

  • Combine this with that Aphex Twin graphic... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by colmore ( 56499 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @08:56AM (#3756313) Journal
    Ahhh cool non-musical tricks for music.

    It would be cooler if someone would design a disk that could display a picture in the area where data is stored (perhaps store data on a lower level, like on double-density DVDs) so you could have art on the underside of a full-length album.

    Frankly I think all of this is a little bit cheesy, and while cool every once in a while, would get old fast if put into general use.

  • What would go along well with this is double sided CD-R disks. I've always wondered why they aren't around. Have one side completely free to write these pretty graphics, text, warez keys, and the other side for the data or music.

    • Re:Double Sided? (Score:3, Informative)

      by White Shade ( 57215 )
      double sided cdr disk would have to be twice the thickness (and consequently twice the mass...) of a regular disk, because the data is actually recorded on the 'upper' side of the disk; the plastic actually helps focus the laser onto the grooves. This is why it's far easier to destroy a CD-R (and a regular cd too) by scratching the label side than scratching the 'data' side.

      A double sided CDR would have to be exactly like two CD's stuck on top of each other, or they'd have to do some extremely fancy tricks to get the laser to focus properly through a data layer.

      • This is what high refraction index plastic is for. You get a plastic that has exaclty twice the index of the regular CD-R plastic (which probably has a range that it can be, so we have some wiggle room) - one layer of plastic, one layer of CD-R material, a thin layer to sepertate the foils, another layer of foil, another layer of high index plastic.

        They haven't done it because you can get several CD-Rs for the cost of one double sided CD-R, it's only a gimmick, and anyone who needs more than 650M and less than a few Gig is going to get DVD-R pretty soon.

        -Adam

  • Sounds familiar (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Dooferlad ( 101535 )
    I am sure I have heard of someone doing this before in software, but I can't find a link. It should be quite simple to do if you know bit widths and track diameters I guess. As long as Yamaha haven't patented it I can see this turning up as a plug in for CD writer software quite quickly.

    This will probably start turning up on ISO's soon, and it would be cool to have a nice Debian [debian.org] mini-CD ISO [olemiss.edu] hacked to say "Woody" in the unused space! Of course, now we have the possible pain of ISO adverts...

  • Use rikai.com instead of Babelfish (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MaPfJa ( 90764 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @09:50AM (#3756523)
    Hi, those who want to understand more of the Japanese text should try Rikai's [rikai.com] free Japanese->English web reading tool. It fetches the Japanese page and inserts DHTML to provide information about the words, that simply pops up when the mouse hovers over an unknown word.

    To read the page mentioned in the article simply cut-and-paste the URL.

    • Darn near useless. I typed in the japanese url, pressed the Go button and Wowie! I get a Japanese web page with a little popup window that gives me an English translation of the word under the cursor.

      I suppose if I was willing to move my cursor over each and every word to try to figure out what each and every word was, it might be useful but I think I'll stick with Babelfish.

      OTOH, Babelfish yielded this Gem...However, as for this besides the fact that you cannot use in the CD-RW media, light and shade expression to differ, cannot use with the product " of the CRW-F1 " time before even with CD-R/RW drive of the same company with the media.


  • More Pr0n (Score:3, Funny)

    by Lobsang ( 255003 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @09:50AM (#3756529) Homepage
    So, it means that now I can have a CD full of pr0n and still squeeze one more picture in by printing it in the media. Cool! :)
  • I mean, it's cool and all, but I don't want it to automatically put images of Rocco on my "back up" CDs. It would make them easier to find in a pinch, but...
  • http://www.yamahamultimedia.com/press_02.htm [yamahamultimedia.com]

    When reading the original writeup it sounded like it was being burnt between the tracks or something - apparently this is not so. It also begs the question of whether this could be done in software with current CD burners...
  • If you or anyone you know has a green card, work or student visa, check the back side that has the optical data stripe.

    Now you know how they do that. This is old tech, but is just now making it to the consumer market.

    I just happen to know this because I did a little bit of work on the green card printer system.

    For those of you who don't have access to them, they print the images of the first 32 presidents on the back. In uber-DPI, it's not much of a challenge to fit them all. I think there's other stuff too, like your picture. It's one of the many features of the new green cards that helps to discourage forgery.
  • Users would happily pay for copy protected CD's if enough extra features were added to the CD. The copy protection becomes less of a drawback if the number of extra features grows.

  • Digital's PDP-1 paper tape did it first! (Score:5, Funny)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @12:26PM (#3757369) Homepage
    Obligatory complaint: why, this is barely news at all; a very similar story was reported in Slashdot just a few decades ago, in 1961.

    The PDP-1 used eight-channel punched paper tape as the predominant storage medium, punching at a speedy 60 characters per second and reading at an ungodly-fast 200 characters per second.

    On program tapes, prior to the start of the actual binary program data, the assembler would punch a human-readable label in which the title was spelled out in human-readable format in the block letters made out of patterns of holes. IIRC a 5x7 matrix, a little ugly because a horizontal line of little feed holes ran through the center of the character which meant that not only did the characters look "overstruck," but the spacing between rows 3 and 4 was a little wider than the spacing between other rows.

    I wonder what the earliest use of "kludging directly human-readable data into a medium that was intended only to be machine-readable?"

    I seem to recall that IBM card decks had a couple of preamble cards in which the punches spelled out a code number in block letters.
  • My first reaction to this was cool.
    My second reaction was cool.
    My third reaction was, couldn't something like this be done through changes in existing software?
    I suspect this is far more a funtion of software than the burner itself, and hope to see it added as a 'feature' by Ahead -soon-.

    I can see the pr0n collectors lined up to buy it.

    The DOD should love it, FOU, EYES, etc could be more useful when it's not just on a label that can be pasted over.

    For me it's the geek factor.
  • so if i burn a picture of a felt tip marker slash on the edge can i make an un-protectable cd?;)
  • The next thing is obviously to put a printer in the drive and print the label side. You can get CD printers, but they cost about $2K and are bulky. There's a thermal transfer CD printer available that fits in a full-height 5.25" drive bay. But so far, there's no low-cost integrated solution.
  • Apparently no one on here reads MaximumPC [maximumpc.com] magazine. There was an article about this CD drive about 5 or 6 months ago.

    Some of the stories on /. are about as fresh as meat sold at WalMart.

  • I actualy thought of this several months ago, and even submited an ask slashdot (rejected of course...) to find out if it could be pulled off through specialy constructed ISOs. Anyone ever tried doing this?
  • How long after this drive becomes available in the United States will someone be on the streets of New York selling their artwork burned onto dirt cheap CD-Rs for $5.00 a pop? How long will it take for every pr0n retailer to start including pr0n piccie CD's with every sale.

    Yikes, and I only thought AOL was bad about innundating the market with their wares.
  • I can see this technology as being very useful for double sided DVDs and CDs. It would let you use the whole disk area for a label instead of just the little ring in the center.

    Now I wonder when we'll see high contrast disks...

    -Mike_L
  • Give me the ability to burn on the top side and don't mess with the data side (of ANY disc).

    Those damn labels always bubble up after a couple of years anyway.

    -info

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