Transcript Optical Media Technologies

OPTICAL MEDIA
TECHNOLOGIES
Arthur Hunt, Period 2, A+, Mr. Rodriguez
What is optical media?

Optical media is essentially the incorporation of
laser technology and forms of media such as
compact discs to store data.
History
Optical media has been present for decades but only
came into popularity around the 1980s. At that
time, we had CDs (compact disc). In today’s society,
we have made advancements to other forms such as
DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs.
How it works

There are a couple of types of discs, write once,
and rewritable. Typically, data is burned onto a
disc which has “bumps” which hold data. The less
space between bumps, the more data a disc can
hold. The same applies for DVDs as well.
Installing optical drives

Optical drives are very versatile and are
practically found on every computer. It is essential
to installing software from CDs and DVDs.
Therefore, usually, it is plug and play where the
user plugs in power and the SATA/IDE cable and it
shows up as usable under the computer’s hardware.
USB cabled devices are currently coming into great
importance
Troubleshooting

CDs and DVDs are very delicate discs, they can not
be scratched, otherwise, the data may not be
readable anymore. There are two layers, one for
the label, and one which has “bumps” or “pits” to
hold the actual information.
Types of CDs/CD Drives

All CD drives can read CDs, however, not all CD
drives can write onto CDs. CD-RW drives allow
data to be written and accessed.
Types of DVDs/ DVD Drives

There are several types DVD drives. All of them
read data, but not all of them can write data. DVD
drives typically can do everything that a CD drive
can do and more. Furthermore DVD drives can be
DVD-RW.
Other

There are many other types of optical drives
emerging into today’s society as technology
advances. For example, the implementation of BluRay days are being used. Another type of disc and
drive debuting is LightScribe. With so many new
discs emerging, each just gets better as time
progresses
Newer DVD technologies

Since today’s society has grown, technology has
also grown. Newer forms of DVDs include Blu-Ray
and HD-DVDs.