All-in-one combo drive

[Henri Tapani Heinonen]

There is an all-in-one combo drive -petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/combo/. Please, sign it.

At least, LG is not going to make a CD/DVD/Blu-ray/HD-DVD -combo drive in the near future. Maybe this petition helps a little. What do you think?

[[buck]]

Welcome to CDRLabs

It's not a bad idea, but I don't think anyone takes online petitions seriously.

[Henri Tapani Heinonen]

Welcome to CDRLabs

Thank you!

It's not a bad idea, but I don't think anyone takes online petitions seriously.

I do not know, how many names the petition needs to be taken seriously. I am going to send some papers to some optical disc drive manufacturers about the "soup of disc formats" and all-in-one combo drive petition.

[dolphinius_rex]

Sorry, I won't sign the petition. Why?

1) The number one reason behind the delay in combo BluRay and HDDVD drives is cost. It will cost more to make 1 combo drive, then to make 2 seperate drives. This however, is not taking into consideration the new chip NEC has developed for both technologies, which may reduce the costs down to a more reasonable level (but this remains to be seen).

2) Beyond the costs, there are contractual obligations to *NOT* create a dual format BluRay and HDDVD drive for the first 2 years. We're still in the first year of the technology, so we've got more then a year to wait before the earliest drives can hit the market.

3) I actually *WANT* a winner in the technology. I hope it will be BluRay. I believe pushing dual format drives will only push to allow both formats to survive, but it will be a much MUCH worse situation then with DVD-R and DVD+R, since the pre-recorded media will have seperate formats as well, and it will become very messy (it already is!).

4) No one REALLY needs these drives yet anyways... maybe in another year or two it will be more of an issue.

[Henri Tapani Heinonen]

Where can I find the post addresses for some manufacturers, if I decide to print the petition and send it via snail mail?

LG, Sony, Plextor, NEC, BenQ, Pioneer?

[dolphinius_rex]

I think people might be interested in reading this petition, so I'm going to post it here as well:

To: Manufacturers
There are many optical disc formats out there nowadays. It would be pretty sad, if you cannot read your DD-CD-R, PD or DVD-R -discs in the future. No manufacturer wants to build "all-in-one" combo drive, which could read and write all the media. Oddly enough, "all-in-one" combo drives would not even be very expensive. The main reason that there are no "all-in-one" drive in the market is that nobody has begged for one. Now you have your chance to change this situation. All you have to do is to undersign this petition.

It is not our fault that there are so many formats, but it sure *is* everybody's problem. Please, undersign this petition and perhaps we have "all-in-one" combo drives some day.

You probably think that it is impossible to make a drive which can read and write all those formats. I do not think so that is impossible. I think that it only needs some minor modifications to the drive's firmware. Of course, it needs somewhat complicated electronics, but it is not impossible.

We, undersigned, want "all-in-one" combo drives that satisfies the following features:
- It should be easy to put a 120 mm, 80 mm or 60 mm disc with or without a cartridge on the drive's tray. For example, DVD-RAMs, PDs and probably BluRay Discs have a cartridge around the disc. ML CD-R(W)s have the new 60 mm form factor.
- "All-in-one" combo drive must be able to read (and write) all the optical disc formats: CD-R, CD-RW, DD-CD-R, DD-CD-RW, ML CD-R, ML CD-RW, FMD, PD, GD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-R(A), DVD-R(G), DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW and all the different versions of them including Dual Layer (DL)."
- "All-in-one" combo drive must be ready for the future formats: BluRay, HD-DVD, EVD, VMD, DMD, HVD, etc., and all the different versions of them."
- "All-in-one" combo drive must be cheap, silent and have a high MTBF.
- "All-in-one" combo drive must have BURN-Proof technology and/or related technology, and DAO, TAO, SAO and PAO.

These features are optional but still rather important:
- DiscT@2, LightScribe, TrueX (72x or better speed for CD-ROM), "Bit-for-bit" copying, 8 MB buffer memory, Play button, Volume control, Headphone jack, digital output for sound, emergency eject hole, etc, etc.

Please, visit at http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~hetahein/tiede/laserlevyt.html.

Thank you

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Umm, I think you might be asking for a few physically impossible things there...

[Henri Tapani Heinonen]

I think people might be interested in reading this petition, so I'm going to post it here as well:

...

Umm, I think you might be asking for a few physically impossible things there...

Please, explain.

I am now writing the proposal. Here's an early version of it. Please, give me some comments about it.

[Ian]

I wouldn't bother supporting stuff like DD-CD, HD-Burn, True-X etc. The technologies are dead. Technologies like ML-CD never made it to market either. Why bother implementing them?

You also have to consider that supporting all these technologies costs money. Not only the time in research but licensing fees. If a drive had everything on that list, the licensing fees would probably cost just as much as the hardware itself.

If you want to create a petitioni for a hybrid drive, shoot a little lower. Maybe support for all standard CD and DVD formats, Blu-ray and HD DVD. That's simple and to the point. If someone in the industry reads that with all its extra requirements, they're probably not going to take it seriously.

[dolphinius_rex]

If you want to create a petitioni for a hybrid drive, shoot a little lower. Maybe support for all standard CD and DVD formats, Blu-ray and HD DVD. That's simple and to the point. If someone in the industry reads that with all its extra requirements, they're probably not going to take it seriously.

My thoughts exactly!

[Henri Tapani Heinonen]

I wouldn't bother supporting stuff like DD-CD, HD-Burn, True-X etc. The technologies are dead. Technologies like ML-CD never made it to market either. Why bother implementing them?

At least, DD-CD and HD-Burn are important, because there are millions of DD-CDs and HD-BURNed discs in the world.

You also have to consider that supporting all these technologies costs money. Not only the time in research but licensing fees. If a drive had everything on that list, the licensing fees would probably cost just as much as the hardware itself.

Licensing fees.

If you want to create a petitioni for a hybrid drive, shoot a little lower. Maybe support for all standard CD and DVD formats, Blu-ray and HD DVD. That's simple and to the point. If someone in the industry reads that with all its extra requirements, they're probably not going to take it seriously.

Yes, but they probably are already researching CD/DVD/BD/HD-DVD -hybrid drives...

[Henri Tapani Heinonen]

If someone in the industry reads that with all its extra requirements, they're probably not going to take it seriously.

That is why I have made different stages for all-in-one combo drive. Stage 1 drives will not have the "UFO stuff" like HVD/Tapestry/PDD. Maybe Stage 2 drives will have PDD and Stage 3 drives will have also HVD and Tapestry, etc...

That is also why, I made the list of optional stuff like Play-button and Headphone jack and those extra LEDs...

Please, can you guys still review my proposal and tell me, if I have missed something "important"? My face: Your faces:

[Ian]

At least, DD-CD and HD-Burn are important, because there are millions of DD-CDs and HD-BURNed discs in the world.

You really think there are that many discs out there? I don't. DD-CD was supported by only one drive and the format never took off. HD-Burn was supported by what.. two or three models and their clones? Unlike Gigarec, the discs weren't readable on other drives so most people didn't use it.

HVD and PD support? You're definitely not going to get holographic support in these things. And PD.. the format is going to die off now that Blu-ray is out. Not to mention, cartridges add a whole other level of complexity.

I'd drop the last two stages from the petition. Like I said before, keep it simple.