By Peter Cochrane, 14 July 2006 11:10
COMMENT
Written at a Guilin, China hotel and despatched via the free wi-fi service
Many years ago I gave up using floppy disks because they had become totally ineffective. Average file sizes were growing in response to computers' bigger hard drives, larger quantities of RAM and greater operating system speeds.
Application producers had also created new mechanisms to do a lot more a lot faster. And finally, the leading machine designers dropped the floppy drive facility from PCs and laptops in favour of CD-only formats. Accessing a floppy now seems to warrant a trip to a museum and I cannot remember the last time I saw one being used. They just seem to have disappeared overnight.
The next big fatality was the VHS tape, overtaken in a few years by the DVD. Again they seemed to vanish in less than a year. So will the DVD share this fate as the next higher density format overtakes it? And where does this leave the CD? I'd say both are at great risk!
Already the ubiquitous USB memory stick is sidelining the CD for many applications and is augmented by the rollout of broadband. Downloading or sharing ~700MB of data, movies, games or applications is more conveniently achieved using broadband and/or USB sticks than CDs.
Another interesting development has been the process of local file transfer between machines. Sure we can all do it online but the configuration hassle is no mean undertaking, and how much easier and certain it is with a stick!
So my prediction is that the CD will go quickly, overtaken by the DVD and USB stick, and promoted by exactly the same mechanisms that killed the floppy - file size growth, increased storage demand, plus a growing universality that will leave the CD in the dust.
The really interesting arena is in the next transition - from DVD (~9GB) to a much higher definition version (~50GB). The snag is we have two competing standards and they are in the entertainment arena rather than IT alone.
When we transitioned from floppy to CD the capacity multiplier was over 300:1. The move to USB sticks, which have effectively become the new floppy in terms of pure convenience, is already over 500:1. In contrast the move from CD to DVD was only ~10:1. This seems to be a magic ratio in the industry. We tend not to react to marginal capacity or speed changes that are sub 2, 3, 4 or 5:1 but as we approach 10:1 a stampede is triggered and big changes become certain.
There are 2GB USB sticks on the market today and 5GB models are on the way. Relative to the standard CD we will see the density ratio quickly grow from ~3:1 to 6:1 and beyond. Moreover, they will be cheap and remain simple to use - and as disposable as the 256MB sticks today, which are already given away for free instead of pens at conferences! And so, as the new higher definition DVDs take hold, the cost of DVDs can be expected to fall rapidly too. Suddenly CDs will be gone, consigned to the museum with floppies and VHS tapes!
On the timing front there is a snag - an almost identical rerun of the 'tape wars' between VHS and BetaMax. Which should we choose as the new storage media standard: BlueRay or HD DVD? The former uses new production techniques that mean retooling production plants, whilst the latter means modifying existing plants. The latter got to market first, whilst the former is just being launched.
Both technologies have an impressive line-up of content providers and box makers in support, and the first HD movies are now being shipped to feed avid viewers who have already laid out for their own HDTV. So it looks like the battle lines have been drawn.
Personally, I favour BlueRay because it the most advanced technology and can offer 25GB per side, whilst the HD DVD is closer to 15GB per side. This is only just enough space for a full HD movie! Furthermore, the theoretical capacity limits for the technologies are around 200GBfor BlueRay with demos up to 100GB so far, whilst HD DVD is at 45GB with 60GB demos reported.
Interestingly BetaMax was technically better than VHS but lost the race. In fact it seems to be a general rule that the worst technology generally wins the day. But for HDTV and IT I sense a sea change in thinking by the consumers - and ultimately they call the shots.
My real suspicion is that the TV, game and PC box makers are siding more with BlueRay, as are the content producers. If I have to buy in the next few months it will be BlueRay because of all the advantages, and most likely, it will come free on my PC and laptop anyway!
Comments
There are 8 comments. Join the discussion
1. Nate Bird
I believe another competitor to Blu-ray and HD DVD is Broadband. In other countries (non-USA) Broadband can compete with Blu-ray and HD-DVD. I think that physical media will go the way of the floppy disk (the big 5 1/4 inch ones) in a few years.
2. Richard
With so many myths and superstitions, data storage is almost a new religion:
All over the web, people plead for help with their problems writing to CDs and DVDs: Their pleas are answered by "Gurus" who proclaim the (true and only) "proper method," "proper equipment" and "proper materials" necessary to achieve success. Other Gurus proclaim other approaches.
Writing CDs & DVDs should be a scientific, deterministic process but the lack of reliable information from manufacturers, together with commercial secrecy, spawn this air of magic.
While reading this, I'm vainly trying to recover precious photos from a corrupted xD camera card, another branch of the "religion."
The camera manufacturer has now revealed that these cards are electronically incompatible with some of their cameras, but has still not given any useful details. I now suspect that some card readers also have problems.
Many consumers still find these new storage devices & media extremely unreliable & troublesome.
3. Peter Cochrane
Richard = You should have bought a Mac!
Seiously - wet cameras used to fail too - all technology does at some point. But now the instances are insignificant compared to the wins.
Sorry to hear yoiu are having a bad day!
4. Peter Cochrane
Nate = Yep - real broadband would do the trick - along with a big HD/server. BUT it just aint going to happen fast enough!
5. MusicFan
Interesting thoughts but.....
i think the CD is here for a while, at least as long as the DVD player sits beneath our TV's. I dont think "carriage" of the media is important anymore, with USB sticks / CD / DVD able to carry so much information. What is important is what we play the media on.
Lets think where the biggest market for blank media is = Pirated films / music / games.
The biggest selling point of a DVD player is the ability to play "pirated" films. Which lets face it, we all watch.
When films are released onto the web, they are either AVI or bin files. Bin files are specifically for converting to video CD's, which will play on DVD players. You cannot use Bin files on DVD, only AVI you can burn to DVD, but then you have a large amount of wasted space on the DVD.
While we still use DVD players to watch films and we can still download films from the web, we will still need CD's.
Also, most car stereos do not play DVD's, so until they do, we need CD's to play our downloaded music.
Slightly off topic, but still valid:-
Does anyone still use a Hi-Fi????
Mine went last year in favour of the DVD player that plays MP3's in conjunction with the surround sound system. One system for all!
Soon i think we will just have a PC connected to our HD Monitor in our living rooms. Sky / broadband straight to the PC, no need for music systems / dvd players etc.
6. Richard
What about the myths and superstitions?
My serious point is that very few of us have the scientific or engineering understanding to cope with everyday technological failures.
This is made worse when companies, understandably, limit information about their products so as to protect their commercial interests.
Hence, we turn to "Gurus," rather like our ancestors turned to priests when their crops failed.
To someone with no understanding, tricks like putting a faulty hard drive into the kitchen freezer overnight sound as barmy as being told to chant a magic spell!
Some "Gurus" even tell us that Macs are essential for serious multi-media work! Others advise buying (cheaper) PCs and spending the savings on extra software or cameras etc.
Some revere Intel; some AMD.
I've now recovered most of the missing photo files, but have no idea what caused the problem or how to avoid it in future - other than to avoid this type of camera card and hope that the problem was not caused by something else (eg. Manual handling or airport x-rays etc. etc.).
ps. The expensive commercial file recovery program was useless; the free program worked beautifully!
7. Betty Swollocks
Myths & superstitions?
"whoop whoop" Fruitloop alert!
When my car breaks down, i dont think my mechanic waves a magic spanner at it and its fixed! I just no i dont have the neccessary skills to fix it thats all. Same with any tradesmen including Techies. Too believe these trained individuals posess some magic art is just plain nuts!
8. Jim Price
Four or five years ago I transferred the content of my five and a quarter inch floppies (I never used any eight inch ones), willy-nilly to a hard disk. The chances are I will never need any of it but I carefully catalogued them, just in case. There wasn't all that much of it anyway because as Peter points out file sizes were smaller in those days!
More recently, I had to decide what to do with a much bigger collection of similar material on three and a half inch not-so floppies. There were too many to catalogue and copy and not enough time to sort them, so I have carefully packed and stored them, together with a pristine USB FDD in the hope that should I ever need any of the information, I shall still have a PC with a PC with a USB port!
The few 100MB ZIP disks I have will easily go on a small (by today's standards) HDD and that has to be a project for the not too distant future.
As for the CDs .....
..... and the DVDs ....
..... and the HDDs ....
..... and the ........