Hi all,

This morning, I thought it was worth taking the time to point something out that I have known for many years - but many do not.

Neither Sony, nor Philips nor companies like Pioneer invented Optical Storage technologies as we know them today.

This man did (Mr Jim Russell)

I was naivly challenged about this the other day on another forum that I will not make mention of. They claim their superiors invented all optical storage technology - but this simply is not the case.

Take a read, learn, become enlightened to the TRUTH.

While I realize that I may risk your fate, I have to point out that this gentleman may have done work on optical storage systems, but there were commercial optical disk systems *shipping* to consumers in 1975. So, it was a little late to be doing preliminary research into the idea.

The David Sarnoff labratories did a lot of very early optical disk technology research and development. They were the research labs behind RCA (much like Bell Labs was for the Bell System).

Did I miss something on the time line or some subtle distinction that rules out other early work?

(in reply to zebra)

Very interesting indeed! I guess the situation here is one of categorisation and context then!

i. A context of the market it existed in

ii. A context of who claimed the technology as 'shipped' rather than a proof of concept to begin with

For all we know - it probably existed several years before both our reports have suggested.

I agree completely. The optical storage systems that Sarnoff was working with were for television--we all remember LaserDisks, right? That *was* an analog media, not a digital one--like CD and DVD are. Maybe they meant to assert that this fellow was the creator of digital optical media?

Even that seems a bit questionable and I know that Sarnoff was an early leader in WORM optical systems and those were completely digital in nature. I'll be at the Sarnoff facility in a week or so. I'll ask the curator of their museum about it and I'll try to remember to report back what I find.

Cheers!

(in reply to zebra)

DVD disk SINCE 1991.
England.

(in reply to willmore)

Sounds like someone had a bad experience with a LaserDisk. :) I'd have to agree, I think they were a gross hack and not a nicely designed *NON-CONTACT* optical system like CD and DVD. I have always had friends who were 'early adopters' of stuff and one of them had both a Beta VCR system and a LaserDisk player.

Playing that 'early adopter' game always seemed like playing 'musical chairs'. You never know if you'll have some place to sit when the music stops. Cross that with 'hot potato' because you're left holding a useless system.

Personally, I prefer to live a bit further back on the technology curve. :) It's *generally* safer. My present Sony problem excluded. :(

(in reply to scorpio)

We actually have a Kano BluRay drive in the lab at the moment. For what it is worth, the technology as it stands is hardly marketable to the mainstream. Many problems exist. It will take significant streamlining before a consumer level product exists!

2-3 years minimum !

(in reply to zebra)

And, even then, what are we going to need it for? What is its use? With a DVD-9, we can put a full length high quality movie and sound track. What more demanding consumer application is there?

If we want to upgrade something, let's upgrade from MPG2 to MPG4. That will allow a DVD-9 to store a huge amount of high quality video.

I recently purchased a Philips DVP-642 DVD player and I was happily surprised to find out that it does a few cute tricks. Not only does it play CDs of MPG1L3 audio, VCDs and SVCDs, but it will play CD-ROMs full of MP4 files. So, I can get a DVDs worth of video on a CD with very little quality loss--for normal definition video/audio. Very nice. :) Now, a DVD full of MP4 files is a lot of video. I guess I need to go find a tool to convert my DVDs to MP4 files. :)

(in reply to scorpio)