CD-R turns 10

Emedia Professional, Jan 1, 1999 by Robert A. Starrett

Birthdays are a time for celebration, and also an occasion to look at times past and to look forward to what is to come. As recordable CD begins its second full decade, looking back gives us a picture of a technology whose slow rise to prominence, even dominance in the personal data storage market, is about as unconventional and unlikely as anything one could imagine.

The progenitors of today's most popular personal secondary storage devices (behind the floppy drive) were crude hacks, albeit brilliant ones. They took a technology designed to read streamed audio data in a linear manner, and turned it into the computer-data-writing phenomenon we now know as CD-R by adding an error correction scheme and pulsing a laser at a disc covered with organic dye to make marks that would appear to a read laser as identical to three-dimensional pits usually produced by a metal stamper.

For hardware, they cobbled together a Yamaha audio disc recorder and a special circuit board that added layered error correction and error detection to enable CD-ROM recording. Write some software that would control the damn thing and off you go. The recorder was capable of writing a single session in real-time (1X) and could not read CD-ROMs. Price? $100,000.

HARD TIMES

Who were the early hardware providers and where are they now? Meridian Data, of Scotts Valley, California, once a closely held engineering firm, has gone on to be a publicly traded CD-ROM networking company with little hint remaining of their groundbreaking CD-R efforts. And Los Gatos-based Optical Media International, started out producing a competing recorder with a Mac emphasis, and soon became a software-only company later bought by Microtest, who eventually phased out its products altogether. In Boulder, Colorado, Reference Technology was providing recording products with little success and was later purchased by DataWare.

On the software side, don't forget Incat Systems, a small Italian firm producing a recording software called Easy CD. Later purchased by Adaptec, Easy CD is now Easy CD Creator, the most widely used recording software in the world. Adaptec buttressed its product line by later purchasing Corel's CD Creator and Astarte's Toast. Hot on Adaptec's heels is Prassi Software, formed by two members of the original Incat programming staff, with CD Right, a new, easy-to-use program that has since been licensed by Sony and HiVal. And out of the ruins of OMI came a programmer who founded Padus Software and produced DiscJuggler, a professional duplicating solution.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Today, all traces of CD-R's unlikely beginnings are gone. Recorders are now 5.25-inch, half-height devices produced worldwide which write CD-R at up to 8X speed and read all CD formats, some at up to 24X. Most recorders also have CD-RW capability. They use packet writing for direct disc access, can read and write multisession discs, can write in Disc-at-Once or Track-at-Once mode, and have Running Optimal Power Calibration (ROPC) to ensure smooth and stable writing.

The current state-of-the-art seems to be 4X record, 2X or 4X rewrite and 16X to 24X read. Smart and Friendly's 8X/20X CD Rocket leads the pack, not just with recording speed, but with the most comprehensive bundle of software tools available anywhere. The Rocket includes NTI CD-Maker Pro, Sonic Foundry CD Architect and Sound Forge XP, Diamond Cut Audio Restoration Tools 32, Macromedia Backstage Designer Plus, ECI Disc Inspector Pro, and MediaPath MediaAgent for Windows-based networks.

Other vendors are offering bolstered bundles as well. Sony's team-up with Prassi to include CD-Right with their new 4X/2X/24X CD-RW drive will likely be a winner, and Hewlett-Packard's bundle of the Sony mechanism with HP Fast Format, Adaptec Direct CD, Easy CD Creator, Easy CD Audio, Jewel Case Designer, and HP Disaster Recovery and HP Simple Trax is another example of aggressive bundling that should help HP retain its leading market share.

On the low-end, internal 2X drives can now be had for under $200, with Smart and Friendly's 8X bundle representing the high-end just below $1000. In between is a cornucopia of recorders from Sony, Philips, JVC, Panasonic, NEC, TEAC, Mitsumi, Plextor, Ricoh, and Yamaha.

NO MORE TWISTS?

What does the near future hold for CD-R and CD-RW technology? Likely not a lot that will be considered new or break-through technology. Interesting developments of 1998 included the long-due addition of CD-R writing functionality to PD drives, the proliferation of audio recording tools, sub-$1 media prices, the introduction of new dye formulations and silver reflective surfaces, and a continuing battle between the popular and trade press over media longevity and the spelling of "disc."

This new year will be the year of $99 CD recorders, finally giving the medium the credibility boost that comes with that magic number. What does the $99 recorder do for CD-R? It makes it cheaper than Zip, and slightly more expensive than LS-120 floppy. Media sales will continue to skyrocket and there will be increased emphasis on home recorders like the Philips 870 and 880 and media formulated specifically for audio recording.