🚀 go-pugleaf

paladin@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Robin Yang) writes:

|     Sony recently introduced a new generation of music compact disks--2.5"
|in diameter with the same playing time as a normal CD.  The key differences
|other than size are its caddy (it looks like a smaller version of a 3.5"
|floppy disk) and re-writability--more than one million times per bit.

Two very important key differences are:

Lossy compression. These disks are not CD quality. I've read some
reviews where people were able to to hear differences, especially
during quiet passages. Naturally this means nothing if they're used to
store data, except that they don't hold as much raw data as a CD.

SCMS. These players have built-in copy protection. This becomes quite
an issue when one considers an external controller. Allow absolute
access to the disk and one can zero out the SCMS bits. I.e. make a
copy of a CD, and then deprotect that copy, allowing infinite copies
to be made from it. This copy protection may be adaptable to software.
So will manufacturers produce an MD that allows full access to the
media format? Who knows. No doubt it's patented and no doubt Sony can
dictate parameters of use.

Sean