Optical recording

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The history of optical recording can be divided into a few number of distinct major contributions. The pioneers of optical recording worked mostly independently, and their solutions to the many technical challenges have very distinctive features, such as

Contents

Gregg 1958

Laserdisc technology, using a transparent disc, [1] was invented by David Paul Gregg in 1958 (and patented in 1961 and 1990). [2] [3] By 1969 Philips had developed a videodisc in reflective mode, which has great advantages over the transparent mode. MCA and Philips decided to join their efforts. They first publicly demonstrated the videodisc in 1972. Laserdisc was first available on the market, in Atlanta, on December 15, 1978, two years after the VHS VCR and four years before the CD, which is based on Laserdisc technology. Philips produced the players and MCA produced the discs. The Philips/MCA cooperation was not successful, and discontinued after a few years. Several of the scientists responsible for the early research (John Winslow, Richard Wilkinson and Ray Dakin) founded Optical Disc Corporation (now ODC Nimbus).

Russell 1965

While working at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, James Russell invented an optical storage system for digital audio and video, patenting the concept in 1970. [4]

The earliest patents by Russell, US 3,501,586, and 3,795,902 were filed in 1966, and 1969. respectively. [5] [6] He built prototypes, and the first was operating in 1973.

Russell had found a way to record digital information onto a photosensitive plate in tiny dark spots, each spot one micrometre from centre to centre, with a laser that wrote the binary patterns. Russell's first optical disc was distinctly different from the eventual compact disc product: the disc in the player was not read by laser light. A key characteristic of Russell's invention is that a laser is not used for the reading the disc, instead the entire disc or oblong sheet to be read is illuminated by a large playback light source at the back of the transparent foil. As a result, the information density is relatively low.

By 1985, Russell held over 25 patents to various technologies related to optical recording and playback. [7] Russell's intellectual property was purchased by Optical Recording Corporation (ORC) in Toronto in 1985, and this firm notified a number of CD manufacturers that their CD technology was based on patents held by ORC. In 1987, ORC signed an agreement with Sony whereby Sony paid for licensing of the technology. Further licenses followed from Philips and others. Warner Communications did not sign, and was sued by ORC. In 1992, the large CD manufacturer, now called Time Warner, was ordered to pay ORC US$30 million in patent violations. [8]

In the 1970 patent, the spot diameter was around 10 micrometres. Thus, the areal information density was around a factor hundred less than that of the CD as later developed. Russell continued to refine the concept throughout the 1970s. [4] Philips and Sony, however, were able to put far greater resources into the parallel development of the concept, arriving at a smaller and more sophisticated product in just a few years. Russell's various partners and ventures failed to produce a single consumer product. [8]

Korpel 1968

Adrianus Korpel [9] worked for the Zenith Electronics Corporation, when he developed very early optical videodisc systems, including holographic storage. [10] [11]

Kramer and Compaan 1969

The Philips development of the videodisc technology began in 1969 with efforts by Dutch physicists Klaas Compaan and Piet Kramer to record video images in holographic form on disc. [12] [13] Their prototype Laserdisc shown in 1972 used a laser beam in reflective mode to read a track of pits using an FM video signal. Together with MCA, Philips brought the optical videodisk to market in 1978. The cooperation between Philips and MCA did not last long, and discontinued after a few years.

Immink and Doi 1979

The Compact Disc (CD), which is based on MCA/Philips Laserdisc technology, was developed by a taskforce of Sony and Philips in 1979–1980. Toshi Doi and Kees Schouhamer Immink created the digital technologies that turned the analog Laserdisc into a high-density low-cost digital audio disc. [14] The CD, available on the market since October 1982, remains the standard physical medium for sale of commercial audio recordings

Standard CDs have a diameter of 120 mm and can hold up to 80 minutes of audio (700 MB of data). The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 mm; they are sometimes used for CD singles or device drivers, storing up to 24 minutes of audio. The technology was later adapted and expanded to include data storage CD-ROM, write-once audio and data storage CD-R, rewritable media CD-RW, Super Audio CD (SACD), Video Compact Discs (VCD), Super Video Compact Discs (SVCD), PhotoCD, PictureCD, CD-i, and Enhanced CD. CD-ROMs and CD-Rs remain widely used technologies in the computer industry. The CD and its extensions have been extremely successful: in 2004, worldwide sales of CD audio, CD-ROM, and CD-R reached about 30 billion discs. By 2007, 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide. [15]

See also

Related Research Articles

Compact disc Digital optical disc data storage format

The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It was released in 1982 branded as Digital Audio Compact Disc.

Optical disc Flat, usually circular disc that encodes binary data

In computing and optical disc recording technologies, an optical disc (OD) is a flat, usually circular disc that encodes binary data (bits) in the form of pits and lands on a special material on one of its flat surfaces.

Compact Disc Digital Audio Audio data format used on the compact disc

Compact Disc Digital Audio, also known as Digital Audio Compact Disc or simply as Audio CD, is the standard format for audio compact discs. The standard is defined in the Red Book, one of a series of Rainbow Books that contain the technical specifications for all CD formats.

CD player Electronic device that plays audio compact discs

A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs, which are a digital optical disc data storage format. CD players were first sold to consumers in 1982. CDs typically contain recordings of audio material such as music or audiobooks. CD players may be part of home stereo systems, car audio systems, personal computers, or portable CD players such as CD boomboxes. Most CD players produce an output signal via a headphone jack or RCA jacks. To use a CD player in a home stereo system, the user connects an RCA cable from the RCA jacks to a hi-fi and loudspeakers for listening to music. To listen to music using a CD player with a headphone output jack, the user plugs headphones or earphones into the headphone jack.

LaserDisc Optical analog video disc format

The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in the United States in 1978. It is not a fully digital format and stores analog video signals.

Videodisc Laser- or stylus-readable random-access disc that contains both audio and analog video signals recorded in an analog form

Videodisc is a general term for a laser- or stylus-readable random-access disc that contains both audio and analog video signals recorded in an analog form. Typically, it is a reference to any such media that predates the mainstream popularity of the DVD format.

Magneto-optical drive

A magneto-optical drive is a kind of optical disc drive capable of writing and rewriting data upon a magneto-optical disc. Both 130 mm (5.25 in) and 90 mm (3.5 in) form factors exist. In 1983, just a year after the introduction of the Compact Disc, Kees Schouhamer Immink and Joseph Braat presented the first experiments with erasable magneto-optical Compact Discs during the 73rd AES Convention in Eindhoven. The technology was introduced commercially in 1985. Although optical, they normally appear as hard disk drives to an operating system and can be formatted with any file system. Magneto-optical drives were common in some countries, such as Japan, but have fallen into disuse.

Digital recording

In digital recording, an audio or video signal is digitized, converting into a stream of discrete numbers representing the changes over time in air pressure for audio, or chroma and luminance values for video. This number stream is saved to a storage device. To play back a digital recording, the numbers are retrieved and converted back into their original analog audio or video forms so that they can be heard or seen. The digitized number streams themselves are never actually heard or seen, being hidden by the process.

Eight-to-fourteen modulation (EFM) is a data encoding technique – formally, a line code – used by compact discs (CD), laserdiscs (LD) and pre-Hi-MD MiniDiscs. EFMPlus is a related code, used in DVDs and Super Audio CDs (SACDs).

Kees Schouhamer Immink

Kornelis Antonie "Kees" Schouhamer Immink is a Dutch scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur, who pioneered and advanced the era of digital audio, video, and data recording, including popular digital media such as Compact Disc, DVD and Blu-ray Disc. He has been a prolific and influential engineer, who holds more than 1100 U.S. and international patents. A large portion of the commonly used audio and video playback and recording devices use technologies based on his work. His contributions to coding systems assisted the digital video and audio revolution, by enabling reliable data storage at information densities previously unattainable.

CD Video Hybrid analogue video/digital audio format

CD Video is a format of optical media disc that was introduced in 1987 that combines the technologies of standard compact disc and LaserDisc. CD-V discs are the same size as a standard 12-cm audio CD, and contain up to 20 minutes' worth of CD Audio that can be played on any audio CD player. It also contains up to 5 minutes of LaserDisc video information with digital CD-quality sound, which can be played back on a newer LaserDisc player capable of playing CD-V discs or CD-V-only players.

James T. Russell is an American inventor. He earned a BA in physics from Reed College in Portland in 1953. He joined General Electric's nearby labs in Richland, Washington, where he initiated many types of experimental instrumentation. He designed and built the first electron beam welder.

DiscoVision is the name of several things related to the video LaserDisc format.

Disc rot is the tendency of CD or DVD or other optical discs to become unreadable because of physical or chemical deterioration. The causes include oxidation of the reflective layer, physical scuffing and abrasion of disc, reactions with contaminants, ultra-violet light damage, and de-bonding of the adhesive used to adhere the layers of the disc together.

Philips Consumer Lifestyle is a division of the Dutch multinational electronics company Philips which produces consumer electronics and small appliances. It is the only Philips division headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The Americas division is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.

History of optical storage media

Although research into optical data storage has been ongoing for many decades, the first popular system was the Compact Disc, introduced in 1982, adapted from audio (CD-DA) to data storage with the 1985 Yellow Book, and re-adapted as the first mass market optical storage medium with CD-R and CD-RW in 1988. Compact Disc is still the de facto standard for audio recordings, although its place for other multimedia recordings and optical data storage has largely been superseded by DVD.

The preservation of optical media is essential because it is a resource in libraries, and stores audio, video, and computer data to be accessed by patrons. While optical discs are generally more reliable and durable than older media types, environmental conditions and/or poor handling can result in lost information.

David Paul Gregg was an American engineer. He was the inventor of the optical disc (disk). Gregg was inspired to create the optical disc in 1958 while working at California electronics company, Westrex, a part of Western Electric. His patent for a "Videodisk" was filed in March 1962 while working to advance electron beam recording and reproducing.

CD-ROM Pre-pressed compact disc containing computer data

A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs, i.e. it is a type of read-only memory.

LV-ROM LaserDisc-based format designed for the simultaneous storage of analog video and computer software

LV-ROM is an optical disc format developed by Philips Electronics to integrate analog video and computer software for interactive multimedia. The LV-ROM is a specialized variation of the CAV Laserdisc. LV-ROM is an initialism for "LaserVision Read-Only Memory".

References

  1. ↑ U.S. Patent 3,430,966 Transparent recording disc, 1969.
  2. ↑ U.S. Patent 3,530,258 Video signal transducer, 1970.
  3. ↑ U.S. Patent 4,893,297 Disc-shaped member, 1990.
  4. 1 2 "Inventor of the Week Archive: The Digital Compact Disc". Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Archived from the original on 2003-04-17.
  5. ↑ U.S. Patent 3,501,586 Analog to digital to optical photographic recording and playback system, March 1970.
  6. ↑ U.S. Patent 3,795,902 Method and apparatus for synchronizing photographic records of digital information, March 1974.
  7. ↑ "The Invention of Optical Digital Recording with James T. Russell". Audio Engineering Society.
  8. 1 2 Marshall, Cavendish (2008). Inventors and Inventions. 5. Tarrytown, New York: Marshall Cavendish. pp. 1288–1292. ISBN   978-0-7614-7761-7.
  9. ↑ "ADRIAN KORPEL, FICTION AND SCIENCE". user.engineering.uiowa.edu.
  10. ↑ U.S. Patent 3,585,848 Method and Apparatus for Recording Acoustic Images and Holograms, June 1971.
  11. ↑ U.S. Patent 3,931,459 Video disc, Jan. 1976.
  12. ↑ U.S. Patent 4,041,530 Video disc with phase structure, 1977.
  13. ↑ U.S. Patent 5,068,846 Reflective optical record carrier, 1991.
  14. ↑ Kees A. Schouhamer Immink (2007). "Shannon, Beethoven, and the Compact Disc". IEEE Information Theory Newsletter: 42–46. Archived from the original on 2014-11-04. Retrieved 2009-03-15.
  15. ↑ Compact Disc hits 25th birthday
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