Well, at least the Xbox did something right :)

[Shalmanese]

Well, this isnt really HT but I figured some of yuo old geezer smight now this little tidbit of arcane knowledge

Why the hell did every single CD/DVD write from the inside out before the Xbox? If you want to maximise data transfer, you write the outside first. When you write from the inside out, you have the lowset possible average data transfer rates.

With the Xbox, games have started being written from outside in. I guess it's one way of stopping amatuer pirates copying the data but its still a damn good idea nonetheless.

Is there some bit of convention from ye olde dayes which forced CD's to be written inside out?

 

[oLLie]

Damned if that doesn't make more sense! Seriously, why wasn't it done this way before?

 

[Agent004]

<< With the Xbox, games have started being written from outside in. I guess it's one way of stopping amatuer pirates copying the data but its still a damn good idea nonetheless >>



Not if it's copy using a cue/bin or an iso file. With those methods, you retain the actually layout/format of the dvd.

 

[JeremiahTheGreat]

Just my experience..

Once i 'accidentally' got one of my burnt CDs shoved in with lots of paper into the paper shedder. You hear the normal cutting sound then it slowed down as if it had hit something really hard (i.e my disk). Major problems as now the disc had stripes where it had been cut into about 4cm into the disc.

I simple straightened out all the stripes, popped it back into my CD drive and reburnt it! Its lucky that the data section itself wasn't damaged.. so i think it may be a case of relaiblilty. Maybe back in the old days, CD's weren't that.. uh.. stable and writing inside to out was for security of the data.

 

[Shalmanese]

Well, if you are burning a known amount of data onto a disk, I would sure as hell like to know that my data is corrupt at the START of the burn rather than at the end, especially with 1x burners.

If the data is corrupt, just cut some data out and try again. closer in the disk.

Agent004: What I am saying is that some 14 yr old warez kiddie with daddies DVD burner at work cant make bootleg copies of games at work becuase the burners cannot burn from outside in. Of course, professional pirates will eventually get the gear neccesary but it might take a while and be expensive.

 

[alpha88]

I think you can do it with a regular DVD burner, just do the equivalent Bin/cue as someone said and it will come out the same, its not a burner issue, its software (its gonna start from inside, just burn blank and the the data backwards)

 

[flot]

Uh, you may have a higher data transfer rate, but you'll have a SLOWER seek time, as the head will have to wait longer for the data to be in the right place...

Also, in the 'good old days' I believe CD-Roms were rated at ACTUAL throughput speed, not this "max" garbage we have now. Yeah, actually I'm almost sure they were.... So if you assume a constant data transfer rate, then it makes more sense to put the data in the center of the CD, because you'll be able to move the head back and forth more quickly.

...maybe. hehehe. I started thinking about this some more, and it might be a wash - because you'll have to move the head further since the data will be over a wider in-to-out area. Damn. Well it was a nice idea.

 

[crypticlogin]

IIRC, the in-out was a relic of phonographs and earlier disc media; with CD audio it was congruent with the legacy that was vinyl. I *think* phonographs did in-out because of a design decision: one of the earlier and easiest ways to get the arm to track the grooves was simply to hang a calibrated weight that hung over the edge. The first set of mass produced discs didn't have a great manufactured groove and the head wouldn't always move correctly, so they just slapped on a weight to make it always go outwards.

 

[Shalmanese]

ahh... another qwerty design I see

flot: assuming rpm stays the same, wouldnt seek time be the same on the outside. You would measure how far you want to go in radians, not cm so seek time should not depend on distance

I suppose accuracy would be better on the inside though for dodgy motors

 

[LordMagnusKain]

the direction of data flow of the origonal CDs was to take into acount what was thought was goign to be a verry popular form of cd; the mini-cd;

look even in your DvD rom drive; there's a little divit there to take into acount thost little CDs that wher origonaly inteded to have singles on them *because of the lower production costs*;

well making a full sized CD with 2 songs is cheeper than having 2 kindos of CDs, so they rilly never took off as verry popular and peole to day have to ask 'so why did they put the data on the inside'?;

oh yea; and filling up the inside of the CD makes it look like more of the CD has data on it quicker; people like to feal like they're geting a lot for there money, so they used to have double albums with 2 cds whare 1 would be enough, and then say "it wouldn't fit" becase when you looked at the disk they both LOOKED over 1/2 filled.

sure there are techinical resons, but non of them are nearly as inportant as the marketing ones.

 

[Peter]

Just for the record (ouch, what a pun), vinyl runs from the outside in.

CD media originally were audio, with constant linear speed and varying RPM. Transfer speed was constant, and running from the inside out has two major advantages: Media of different diameters (8 cm CD single vs. 12 cm full size CD) are possible without requiring the drive to know one from the other - and the bigger advantage, the media are less prone to damage from handling as long as they aren't filled to the brim (which audio CDs usually aren't).

In case of damage, having the media start on the outside would also mean you have the directory on the outermost tracks. Such a CD with a handling damage would be a total loss, whereas in the existing scheme you'd lose a handful of files or the last audio track.

regards, Peter