Lens That Writes on Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray 289
morpheus83 writes "Ricoh claims they have developed an optical component that reads and writes all disk formats -- Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD, as well as DVD and CD -- with one pickup and one objective lens. The component is a 3.5-mm diameter, 1-mm thick round diffraction plate with minute concentric groves on both sides which function as a diffraction grating. Based on disc information the drive can identify which format disk is loaded, Ricoh's optical diffraction component adjusts the laser beam with its diffraction grating for each format and passes it to the objective lens."
well, now that that's settled (Score:4, Insightful)
Phew! I thought there'd be no solution to the format wars.
Oh wait, there's still:
But, at least now we've gotten that pesky dual-compatible use-a-single-object-lens issue out of the way. Now I can tell all my friends and family the hurdle has been cleared and to let the floodgates of new consumers open.
Not.
I'm going out for a bicycle ride.
Read only....for now (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a good start. Legal issues may end up being the biggest hurdle.
Re:hurrar (Score:3, Insightful)
Except for those who... (Score:2, Insightful)
And all those who don't give 2 hoots about the PC3 or any other gaming toy (especially XBOX) for that matter.(This is actually the majority of computer users if you care to research the stats)
IMHO, the capacity of BLURay of HD-DVD is still an order of magnitude less that what I really need for a backup device. IN the past few years, HDD capacitied have increased dramatically and there are more increases on the horizon. But, backup media affordable by the masses has not increased buy anywhere the same amount. So, I think it is useless!
Why do I think so, Well as a professional software developer and systems integrator for the past 25+ years, I don't:-
Play DVD on my PC's
Listen to MP3's on my PC's (my Ipod is good enough)
Play shoot'em up games of any sort
So, why do I need HD-DVD or BluRay?
What I want is an optical device tat can backup my 100Gb laptop HDD on ONE volume in less than 1 hour.
Give me that, and I will eat my hat
Re:well, now that that's settled (Score:4, Insightful)
Hurry out and buy it NOW! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:well, now that that's settled (Score:5, Insightful)
Because copyright law in the US is constitutional only insofar as a work is protected for a "limited time." DRM violates the limited-time clause, so the DMCA and any other DRM-promoting legislation is prima facie unconstitutional.
Re:well, now that that's settled (Score:5, Insightful)
We should be able to take media, aquired legitimately, and come up with our own means of accessing it. We transfered from records to CDs - but it's still perfectly legal to make your own record player, which you might want to do if no one will sell you one. It'll be a real shame if we transfer away from some DRM-encumbered format and can no longer access legitimately aquired media from the time when that format was in popular use, because the content providers (if they're still around) are no longer interested in making players.
Usage licenses are nonsense and nonintuitive. Ford doesn't get to tell me whether I can tinker with my car's engine or what hours of the day I can drive the car; Maytag doesn't get to tell me I can't replace a broken part with one I've reverse-engineered; Sony (or whomever) shouldn't get to tell me I can't play there CDs (or whatever) in anything other than an authorized player. They're free to apply the DRM and make it difficult for me, but I'd better be free to try and crack it.
Re:well, now that that's settled (Score:5, Insightful)
- cable wars (digital, analog)
- DRM wars (they're all just added to each other, not which one's the best)
- HD wars (each has its own pros and cons)
- provider wars (market competition)
- DVR wars (market competition)
- did I mention DRM wars? (did I mention they're stacked, not competing?)
- compression wars (again, tradeoffs, though all avoid fixing the actual problem)
- price wars (you're complaining that competition lowers prices?!)
To be fair, the so-called DRM war is a valid point, just not with the examples you used. It's more of an iTunes M4P versus PlaysForSure protected WMA thing. DVDs have macrovision, CSS, region coding and more, not one or the other, and the HD formats are or will be the same way. Likewise for cable wars, but it would be HDMI vs DVI vs that new HDMI-esque thing for computers that doesn't have the crazy licensing fee. Aside from that, it's either two separate entities or market competiton (which is a good thing, unless you LIKE monopolies).Now back to cleaning out my room.
Re:well, now that that's settled (Score:2, Insightful)
If you buy an LCD, it won't become obsolete when Plasma "wins the war" (wtf?)
Similarly for most of those items. My Toshiba PVR will still be useful if TiVo wins some sort of war.
Re:well, now that that's settled (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes! Then our privacy and openness ideologies would be just as successful as Marxism is right now! It is so on the Move in The U.S., Europe and China! The free trade thing has just totally been repudiated.
Thank you for bringing this option to our attention!
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hurrar (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How unexpected....NOT! (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:well, now that that's settled (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They shouldn't be owned (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not? Let's review. Because:
Eventually, they will be broken anyway.
Likewise, people shouldn't be allowed to own cars. Eventually, they stop running anyways.
Microsoft should not be allowed to monopolize the market by locking in users to their Office formats
Locking in users to their formats? Sorry, the consumers have done that themselves.
the media industries should not be allowed to screw over their own customers by creating formats that are designed to be combative against those customers.
Consumers shouldn't buy from those companies in the first place. Anyways, historically screwing over your consumers has been a pretty unsustainable business plan.
Just imagine how many decades we'd be ahead in technology if things worked this way.
Business does not exist to further technology. It exists to generate revenue.
Re:Who would buy this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I have to second this. (Score:3, Insightful)
Err.. PCs took off because the IBM PC was reverse engineered and clones proliferated the market, and because of the business software that was available. And was well before Windows became commonplace. As far as media formats, there were tons of competing technologies.. WORM drives, magneto-optical, hard drives, ZIP drives, and all sorts of proprietary storage tech. PC makers eventually adopted standard interfaces for RAM, the expansion bus, and eventually the CPU itself, but that's not really the same thing. About the only standard interface back then was RS-232, and even that was plagued with 9-pin vs. 25-pin and male vs. female.. you were lucky if you could connect any device without at least 1 adaptor. Once hard drives became common, pretty much everyone was using SCSI except the PC market, which mainly stuck to IDE because it was cheaper. And then there's EGA vs CGA vs VGA and early 3D graphics cards.
The PC took off either because of, or in spite of, format wars.. not format compliance.
Re:well, now that that's settled (Score:2, Insightful)
That portion (and the Commerce Clause... did you read the ruling regarding medical marijuana in California a while back? Wha'?!?) have gotten so beaten, stretched, and diluted that Congress can interpret any ol' way that suits them, and the Court just caves at the most obtuse applications.
Re:You PC users (Score:5, Insightful)
All these people derived inspiration from their contemporaries. All they did was "steal" ideas from others and make them better.
Steve Jobs' saying, that "real artists ship," is right on the money. Production, after all, has a more lasting impact than theory and prototype. Now let's hear from you an example of Linux community innovation even by the diminished standards set by the aforementioned inventors, or fail.
Re:This is already used in several DVD players (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you need to use the correct wavelengths?
Blueray discs use blue lasers because the pits are smaller than the wavelength of the infrared laser used for CDs. But why would that stop you reading a CD with the blue laser? The wavelength is still smaller than the pits so all you'd be doing is seeing the pits in a higher resolution, right? (or am I missing something?)
Re:well, now that that's settled (Score:3, Insightful)
Bull. That is EXACTLY the original intent of copyright. Originally, a copyright holder was REQUIRED to lodge a copy of the protected work with the Library of Congress to ensure its eventual availability to the public domain. The whole idea behind the Library of Congress was guaranteed physical access to protected works.
Now, the law not only doesn't require this assurance, but it explicitly sanctions technological measures designed to ensure that a protected work never becomes copyable.
How anyone can reconcile that fact with the Constitution's plain-language mandate is beyond me... but then, IANAL.