Presenting The CDR-ROM 409
nachoboy writes "Here's a cool new idea: the CDR-ROM. Allows a portion of the CD to be written and them mass produced, leaving the remaining area recordable by the user. It may sound funny, but if AOL started sending out CD's like this I might just start keeping them around."
What would be better (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What would be better (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What would be better (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What would be better (Score:5, Funny)
Elmer Fudd would approve.
/me ducks
Re:What would be better (Score:3, Funny)
Why would AOL do that? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why would AOL do that? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why would AOL do that? (Score:3, Funny)
So I'll get an AOL cd (Score:2, Funny)
Viable idea (Score:5, Interesting)
The kiddies could use a program to take care of their little Pokemon/Yu-gi-oh/the popular electronic pet du jour, and write it to the cd when they're done and carry it around for them. No need to carry around a disc to play your saved game.
Re:Viable idea (Score:2)
Number of times one of my ideas becamed a patented product: 2.
Think about applications for games. (Score:5, Interesting)
Games don't use the windows registry at all, or they use temporary registry settings if necessary. All configuration info is kept on the CD.
The game is essentially playable off the CD. Your saved games go BACK ON the CD. Which is nice. That way you can carry around all your settings in a neat little package whereever you go.
(If this looks familiar, it's nothing but the Linux concept of keeping configs in files).
Why would games want to do this?
1) There is no issue of hard drive space.
2) The entire game is now portable.
3) It would be so much more convenient to customers.
4) It wouldn't cost them more.
5) They could even take this one step further by creating their own bootable CD thereby eliminating the need for a specific OS, but then...I'm not sure that's a very good idea as it turns a game company into an OS producer too, unless the micro kernel the game runs on is standardised for all games. If you manage that, you've essentially given PC users almost all the convenience of console gaming!
As a game developer... (Score:3, Insightful)
We desperately want our files off of the CD because it takes TOOOOOOO LOOOOOOOOOONG to load from CD. Hell, if I thought I could get away with it, I'd store my entire game in RAM so it'd be blazing fast.
Re:Think about applications for games. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Think about applications for games. (Score:3, Insightful)
This sounds like an idea that's most useful for console systems. Avoiding the need for a hard disk or a pluggable RAM cartridge for game saves seems like it would be a big win.
In the PC world, things are more problematic - I wonder whether the market penetration of CD-RW drives (as opposed to just CD-R) is large enough to make this useful for a few years to come? If only 30% of gamers have them, the games manufacturers aren't going to be very interested.
Viable Idea - Bootable interface (Score:5, Interesting)
Take the CD anywhere you chose to and use your own interface/desktop from any PC in the world that will let you have access to the CDROM drive and the reset switch.
Copyright (Score:5, Funny)
~geogeek
Not that new (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not that new (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea is that a subset of those sessions are write-once (CD-Rs). Maybe stamped, maybe burned (didn't read the article), but in any event, they can be written only once and never reused.
The rest of the disc would be CD-RW. So if you wrote a session and filled the disc, you could re-use a session burned to the RW section of the disc.
Not too useful. *Maybe* you could have a game run entirely from CD, saving progress in the RW area. If the drives are fast enough, and the game writers efficient with game state information required in a save file, this *could* be feasible. This is still a stretch as the cost/benefit ratio is still garbage...
Re:Not that new (Score:3, Interesting)
A really good idea... but a few hitches:
-What about drivers for the particular burner, or is there a generic?
-Needs to have it's own burning software.
Even rewritable discs have a finite lifetime, although technically so do diskettes.
[OT] Re:Not that new (Score:2)
Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Install once, write on the CD "I have been installed" and refuse nay other installation attempt.
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
But I don't use my writer to install from, so it wouldn't affect me.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Informative)
Looking at the specs [optical-disc.com]for this thing it is "Equivalent to an appendable single session CD-R". I get the impression that this might be just a standard CDR. What's new is that the've developed some faster way to write the disc.
The reason they don't have RW is because they cost a lot more and also because a user could accidently erase the entire disc (or important tracks). One of the selling features is to create a disc with your software and then burn a second session with a disk-id or DRM info. You wouldn't want the user to be able to delte the disk-id.
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
It used to be nobody had a CDROM drive. Now days, everyone does. And how long until "everyone" has a CDRW? Pretty much everyone I know (yep, all 2).
A software vendor could develop an installer that requires you install from a CDRW drive. It only installs if the writeable portions hasn't already been modified (by the installer on the first installation).
good (Score:2)
Too little...too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little...too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, 'cuz DVD writers and their associated media are so incredibly cheap, right? Oh, wait, DVD burners cost on the order of 5 to 6 times more than their CDRW counterparts, and the difference in media cost is even greater!
Well, then again, at least compatibility amongst DVD writers is really good, right? No, wait, we have a variety of competing standards, and only now does it appear that a consensus is forming.
Sorry, but from everything I can tell, DVD writing is still in it's infancy, compared to the now-mature CDRW technology, so I wouldn't ring the death nell on CDR just yet. In five years, though, you might be right.
Re:Too little...too late (Score:3, Insightful)
Mods forgive me if I'm going off topic here, but can some explain to me why exactly this sort of competition is so bad? We certainly argue that having a variety of desktop environments / window managers encourages competition and progress.
Don't get me wrong. I can see some (at least short-term) pitfalls with competing standards. But isn't the idea that the possible outcomes of competition overshadow these pitfalls?
I say, let there be competing standards, especially while DVD writers are expensive. Eventually one standard will probably prevail, and by the time prices go down standards won't be an issue.
I could be wrong. Like I said, someone please enlighten me if I'm missing something.
Re:Too little...too late (Score:2)
Whoa, don't get me wrong here. I don't think having competing standards is bad at all. My only point is that, until a single, usable standard is in place, there is no guarantee that Joe Sixpack A would be able to by a set of DVD-Rs and have them be fully compatible with his drive. Moreover, the burned DVD-Rs might not work on Bob's DVD drive down the street.
Until we can have a reasonable guarantee of compatibility, your regular user will not flock to DVD-R as a CDR replacement, simply because of the difficulty of use.
Is this good or bad? (Score:5, Interesting)
Bad (and the likely goal): CDRs that have DRM features written at the beginning of the disk to keep you from writing "untrusted" content to the rest of it. Watch these replace normal CDRs and hurt the CD remixing industry. (While the RIAA collects a higher piracy tax on them anyway.)
Re:Is this good or bad? (Score:2)
While this may be the goal, I highly doubt it will actually happen unless a law comes about requiring DRM on CD-Rs. Otherwise, there are simply enough people that won't tolerate DRM-tainted CD-Rs to sustain a healthy market for plain ol' regular CD-Rs.
Re:Is this good or bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
Could you describe how this could possibly be implemented? You'd have to have something in the CD burner, or software on the computer, which can take advantage of the data which is written to the pre-written part of the disk to enforce these "DRM" features. But 1) the disc is supposedly fully compatible with all existing CD burners (which don't have said features), and 2) anyone can use their own software for burning CDs (cdrecord, at the minimum).
Basically, without proof, I don't see how this is anything more than paranoid...
Re:Is this good or bad? (Score:2)
Re:Is this good or bad? (Score:2)
Re:Is this good or bad? (Score:2)
Re:Is this good or bad? (Score:3, Interesting)
It would probably be just as cheap to publish the software onto a CD-R directly than it would be to publish it on a CD-R/CD-ROM hybrid disc anyway.
what?! (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The Ideal Use (Score:2)
Sounds like a step towards DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
I know I know I'm being totally paranoid. There are a million and one potential NON DRM uses for this idea.
Re:Sounds like a step towards DRM (Score:2)
That would only work if:
1. You had to use software to play the songs and,
2. You where playing it on a CD-RW
It's technically difficult and expensive. Also, with current technology CD-RW's are only good for a finite number of rewrites.
Either way, I bet the RIAA is already researching it!
73, Chris KG4TSM
Copy Protection use... (Score:3, Insightful)
AOL's floppies (Score:2)
Geez, this is exactly what I used to do when AOL was spamming everyone with floppy disks. Remember those?
Re:AOL's floppies (Score:2)
Great for copy protection. (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, you could limit how many times a program can be installed ... endless possibilities.
Re:Great for copy protection. (Score:2)
Re:Great for copy protection. (Score:2)
Most likely, the use relating to copy protection will be to eliminate the hassle of the end user having to connect to a clearinghouse to authorize software opon reinstallation.
For example, you'd install Windows XP and it would connect to Microsoft and burn your authorization code to the CD. If you gave away/copied the CD, it would say "Windows XP Licenced to Bob Pirate, code 4125-35221-53532-2312*, etc." On subsequent reinstalls, you wouldn't need to connect to activate the software.
Re:Great for copy protection. (Score:2)
How is this different than multi-session? (Score:2)
Re:How is this different than multi-session? (Score:3, Informative)
It's a disc that is divided into two segments. One segment is your standard ROM disc, that sounds like it will be stamped using normal duplication methods. The remainder of the disc is to be surfaced as a CD-R, allowing people to burn information on there.
There are some possible applications (Score:2, Interesting)
Imagine game that you dont need to install, it plays off the CD itself and writes save games there. Bad thing about it -- games could become "one time playable" only.
Or even worse -- one time installable software, that writes some reg. info to CD itself.
How about some exams on CD that you pass or not pass and it saves your results directly to CD?
But again, could be possible to create copy of this CD and do this again, and again, and again...
Re:There are some possible applications (Score:3, Insightful)
Updatable apps (Score:5, Interesting)
Another app could be a way to distribute homework to students. The homework/text is on the stamped portion. As the students do their homework, it can be burnt on the cd. At the end of the year you have a permanent record of the class. You could extend this to storing markup information (bookmarks, notes, etc) and adding supplemantal info as well.
Re:Updatable apps (Score:2)
Those are great ideas... but a lot of companies would rather just sell you a new CD ;-).
--sex [slashdot.org]
Good for Canadians... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good for Canadians... (Score:2)
Re:Good for Canadians... (Score:2)
Re:Good for Canadians... (Score:2)
Re:Good for Canadians... (Score:2)
~GoRK
Re:Good for Canadians... (Score:3, Interesting)
Save HD space with games (Score:2, Interesting)
Send AOL cd's back? (Score:2, Funny)
Virus-Orama! (Score:2, Insightful)
Slashdotted (Score:2)
Business Editors
DCD Expo 2003
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 26, 2003--Optical Disc Corporation (ODC), a leader in optical disc mastering systems, today announced the introduction of its CDR-ROM(TM) disc. This revolutionary new product provides many new possibilities for digital content delivery, not previously possible.
ODC's CDR-ROM (patents pending), combines CD-R and CD-ROM on the same disc using its advanced mastering technology. The CDR-ROM is a standard size 12 cm disc that provides a pre-recorded ROM area and a writable CD-R area on the same disc. Although the format has been published for years, available manufacturing technology has limited the ability to record on standard CD-R writers worldwide. ODC's advanced technology provides a breakthrough, allowing the writable portion of the CDR-ROM to be recorded by the content provider, or the end user on their own computer. Either area can be as large or as small as required by the application with a total capacity of up to 700 MB. The CDR-ROM conforms to all specifications of the industry Orange Book standards for hybrid discs and is compatible with standard CD-R writers worldwide.
The ODC CDR-ROM, with its desktop CD-R writer compatibility, provides the ultimate in application flexibility. The CDR-ROM opens a world of opportunities for new applications such as, Anti Piracy/Copy Protection, Enhanced Data Security, Direct Marketing with mail-merge, and unlimited other software applications.
"The major challenge in CDR-ROM disc manufacturing has been the requirement to produce a stamper with widely varying pit and groove geometries from the same master. This has proven very difficult to do with photoresist mastering, which is why this type of disc has not yet been readily available. ODC is uniquely capable of readily producing CDR-ROM masters, stamper and replicas because of the tremendous flexibility in ODC's Dye Polymer Mastering process," states Richard Wilkinson, President and CEO of Optical Disc Corporation. This capability has been demonstrated within the last year and is ready to be placed into pilot production. Major software companies and copy protection companies such as Macrovision Corporation (Nasdaq:MVSN) and Smarte Solutions have expressed a keen desire to develop applications for the CDR-ROM.
ODC is now taking orders for the CDR-ROM, which is manufactured at ODC's headquarters facilities in Santa Fe Springs, California. ODC also plans to license the CDR-ROM technology to other manufacturers.
For More Information
Optical Disc Corporation is a leading and the world's only remaining independent supplier of mastering systems for CD, DVD, and other optical disc formats, and has been in the business for over 20 years. The company provides a complete line of high-quality optical disc mastering equipment to CD and DVD manufacturers worldwide. Optical Disc Corporation's corporate headquarters is located at 12150 Mora Drive, Santa Fe Springs, California 90670 USA; tel. +1.562.946.3050, fax +1.562.946.6030, http://www.optical-disc.com. ODC maintains regional sales and customer support facilities in Europe/Amsterdam, tel. +31.36.546.3095, fax. +31.36.546.3074; Asia-Pacific/Hong Kong, tel. +852.2541.1732, fax. 852.2541.1766.
First Application: Microsoft (Score:2)
Say MS releases Windows 2004 next year.
instead of sending out a regular CD like they usually do, they'll send out one of these CDs, which upon installation will write a small portion of information to the CD, with your computer's hardware info and specs on it. After that point, it might be restricted to installing ONLY on a computer with those specs, and additionally, only a limited # of times, at which point you would have to go and buy a new copy of windows...
Here's why it won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with this idea is that you can't mass produce CDs like this with a writable area for the consumer. For one, it's a totally different process to make the media. It's also more expensive. Not only that, why should I use this monster? I can't erase what's already in the session. It's like using those preformatted Zip disks with that 50ways.exe and not being able to delete it. Oh, so I can store a few documents amongst the hundreds of megs of AOL crap on the CD. Talk about a autorun nightmare...
You're also rising the cost of manufacturing disks. Eh, I guess you could burn the CD roms by hand, but that would take forever even on a mass produced scale. You end up looking like some pirate operation. Plus how do I know the CD hasn't be adulterated somehow? At least with a silver CD I know that if it's fake, they went to a lot of effort to get a facility to make it. Gold, Green, or Black CDs can be made by anyone.
Eh, why bother? Just buy blank CDs. They're cheap enough and you know what you're getting. You're also putting only what you want on them.
CDR-ROM (Score:2, Insightful)
Or save user specific information.
This OS could be for a game or could be for some sort of appliance. Maybe game console, TIVO type thing.
Not good at talking to large group forgive me.
I don't like the idea ... (Score:4, Interesting)
I always believed the inability to write over a distributed CD coming from a kind of trusted company is a good idea because it disallows such kinds of faking.
Khalid
Overload.. (Score:5, Funny)
We've come so far ahead in technology that we now have Recordable Read Only Memory!?
Maybe I should invest in that frozen hell stock after all..
Not a bad idea! (Score:4, Interesting)
This would be a really good idea for bands jsut starting out. Record a CD with three songs and leave the rest blank, give away free. People burn other stuff on the end, and hear your tracks first. Free advertising marketed to people who might actually dig your sound.
Of course, you could do the same with recorded commercials...
AOL will almost definitely use it (Score:2)
Maybe I shouldn't be telling the Slashdot community this! *quickly jumping on bandwagaon*
DRM Use (Score:4, Insightful)
2) Place in computer and run program
3) Program reads BIOS, Hardware config, Windows GUI, etc.
4) Program writes this data to CD-R portion
5) Use CD on a different machine -- whoops data doesn't match calling "Piracy Police"
Good Plan, But You Forgot A Step! (Score:4, Funny)
2) Place in computer and run program
3) Program reads BIOS, Hardware config, Windows GUI, etc.
4) Program writes this data to CD-R portion
5) Use CD on a different machine -- whoops data doesn't match calling "Piracy Police"
Good plan, but you forgot the most important part:
6) Profit!!
(sorry)
Evil CDR-ROMs (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, I would grab lots of free AOL CDR-ROMs everytime I saw their display. Use them when I needed to archive away a modest amount of data. What good would that do AOL, to have a few geeks who know better than to use their "service" snarf up all their free media? Strikes me as the last thing they would want.
The only people who are likely to use these are people who see them as yet another way to impose copy protection and further restrictions on the users. Install and write to the CDR-ROM. Information already written there? Opps, you need to buy another copy of the tax software to use on this computer. What, you say you bought a new computer? -- too bad, but another copy. You say you need to recover your tax data from 2 years ago and the 2 year old version is no longer sold in stores? Too bad, our copy protection prevents you from installing again.
Disk and Floppy-less Server! (Score:5, Insightful)
I can think of all kinds of uses for such a CD.
I can see the hamfisated DRM attempts now (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, for the competent user, this would be about as hard to defeat as the infamous "enhanced CD" scheme that you can defeat with a felt pen. But it would still be annoying and user-hostile. Although that seems to be a consciously decided marketing strategy for the Big Content conglomerates these days.
Canada Rejoices! (Score:2)
The loophole, though, is that the tariffs don't apply to prerecorded media.
I am quite willing to give up a few bytes of CDR space in the name of saving a buck per CD in purchasing costs.
Different demographics (Score:5, Funny)
2) People who actually know how to burn a CD.
You'd have more success packaging foie gras with Milwaukee's Best.
AOL cds? NOOOOOOO (Score:3, Funny)
I have thought about this idea before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Manufacutring cost:
It's more expensive to produce a disc like this than it is to manufacture a blank CDR or a pressed CD-ROM. For any application where this type of thing would be required, it could easily be written during the manufacutring process onto a regular CDR. I would imagine that there is roughly an equivalent cost to producing one of these hybrid discs versus publishing on CD-R to begin with. In addition to this, think about all that would be involved with retooling a plant to be able to manufacture discs with a different ratio of CD-ROM to CD-R, not to mention the additional burdens it's going to place on testing equipment that will have to be able to verify both the pressed disc and the blank section.
Reduced capacity:
The CDR-ROM disk will have a reduced capacity compared to a normal pressed CD-ROM or a CD-R because no data will be able to be written at the point at which the two disc types meet. The reduction in capacity would be small, but prevalent.
Drive compatibility problems:
Secondly, the huge installed base of CDROM drives out there will not have good compatibility with this kind of a disc. Most drive firmware treats CD-R and CD-ROM media differently to achieve optimum read performance with different kinds of media. When you put this hybrid thing in your 50x cdrom you got three years ago, it's going to spin up to maximum thinking it's a pressed disc then read error all over the fucking place when it hits the CDR section. The onl thing to do is to fake the cdrom into thinking that the disc is a CD-R in its entirety, but then you don't get any of the advantages of having a pressed disc anyway, such as increased read speed without new drives that cater to this special format.
Software compatibility problems:
Due to the way ISO9660 works, the table of contents (including the TOC for the data on the pressed section) will likely have to be re-burned by any software that writes to the CD-R section of the disc. Thus, a faulty burn would render the entire disk unreadable by most systems.
The only good application I can think of for this is for a console game system where you have the luxury of ensuring a uniform set of hardware capabilities between users, and the ability to break standards to accomplish this weird hybrid design stuff. A game could keep save data on the disc or extra game data or something while protecting the game data itself. The media, though, should be CDRW and not CD-R. For those of you who remember, think about the dreamcast's data format -- use some kind of DVD format for the "outer ring" of game data, and use CDRW for the inner ring of PC/CDROM compatibility. You could pop your Xbox2 game into your PC to download new levels or whatever. Unfortunately, internal storage, and fast network connections inside of future (and some present) game consoles would render this idea pretty pointless also.
~GoRK
Re:I have thought about this idea before... (Score:2)
How much more expensive? 1 cent per piece? 99 cents per piece? It'll be a very small additional cost. There is no retooling needed. Anyways, doesn't matter. Some folks interested in this are content providers hoping for DRM. Including software vendors using an installer that marks the CD so that the install is limited after the first time.
Reduced capacity
That's not a concern, either. I remember years ago getting Apple Dev Network CDs where Apple included bonus music on the data CDs (you didn't know this until you popped the data CD into your car player). I thought it was kinda cool and for a while would burn my CDs in mixed-mode...no real reason, just being spaztic. Anyways, I wasn't worried about reduced capacity then. I wouldn't be worried about it here. CDs are used for convenience, not space. Take a look at the next Reader Rabbit CD you buy for your kids (or yourself?). Even with AOL and other crap bundled onto it we're talking well under 30mb used. Anyone worried about the waste? If "The Learning Company" thought they could prevent even just some piracy by using 1 byte of that wasted 610mb of space for an additional 1 cent of cost...why not? The only why-not is they have to hope that most of their target audience has a CDR drive.
Drive compatibility problems
There is no issue here. No firmware problems. A driver update wouldn't even be necessary.
Software compatibility problems
Who ever said the entire disk is ISO9660? Yet another non-issue. There are many ways to mix discs. I guess you haven't tried it.
The only good application I can think of
If that's where your imagination on this topic ends, then I seriously doubt your opening sentence:
I have thought about this idea before...
Great for hiding porn! (Score:5, Funny)
Why? (Score:2)
Multisession (Score:3, Insightful)
--------------------
DVDR-ROM: Nifty commentaries? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then people like me could host "Mystery Science Theater"-esque parties where we make fun of the movie. Loads of laughs, and the memories would last indefinitely!
More info from the manufacturer... (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.optical-disc.com/CDR_ROM.htm [optical-disc.com]
~GoRK
A positive use... (Score:2, Insightful)
I wouldn't mind a spindle of these.
-bhs
Why Can't I Do This Already? (Score:2)
I agree, there are some good uses here... but for many of the suggested apps, why can't I do this already? I believe it's called a multisession CD.
I have a CD, I burn a copy and leave the disc open. Vola, I now have a disc I can continue to add data on to: be it maps, server configs, what have you.
Granted this would mean the functionality for automatically saving a game to disc wouldn't be built into software sold on conventional pressed CD's, but for many of the idea's people are suggesting for these special discs this would work just fine... and be much cheaper.
What? (Score:2, Funny)
Sony Minidisc (Score:3, Interesting)
Shortly after the MD was released, I recall reading about Sony's intention of releasing an MD-Data. This was to have come in three flavours:
The MD-Data had a capacity of only 140MB, and I never actually saw one on sale.
Here we go (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:speaking of aol... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Could be used for drm. (Score:2)
Re:good idea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A few stupid ideas (Score:2)
There is a knoppix version to play i.e. movies, so you can put a bootable linux, and add the movie you want.
Or SuSE Live CD version, that have a lot of example applications, if you have some space you can decide some of the extra applications included.
Or Linux firewalls on CD, have it preburned, configure it and burn the configuration in the writable space.
Re:A few stupid ideas (Score:3, Funny)
Runs off the disk? That went out of the window with the BBC Micro.
I've not been in programming for a while, but apparently it is no longer possible to write a program that does not require "installing", and the creation of about 6 bazillion registry entries.