Build Your Own PC Do-It-Yourself For Dummies by Mark L. Chambers

Author:Mark L. Chambers
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Published: 2013-12-01T19:56:54.668345+00:00

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158 Part III: Adding the Fun Stuff

What really goes on in my optical drive?

Okay, if you absolutely must know, your

This is how the laser reads these microscopic

DVD drive uses a laser to read a long series

pits: The laser light is directly reflected from

of tiny pits in the surface of a disc. (Ready

the smooth areas of the disc (lands), and the

for a totally useless fact? If you unraveled all

pits scatter the light and do not reflect it. A

the pits in a typical CD-ROM, they would

lens in your DVD drive picks up the reflected

stretch over three miles!) These pits repre-

light, and can therefore tell the difference

sent digital data — a string of zeros and

between pits and lands. The reflective surface

ones — that your computer can recognize as

on a disc is a thin layer of metal, which gives

program data or music. In fact, your com-

the disc a shiny appearance.

puter’s DVD drive is internally similar to a

regular audio CD player.

Manual eject hole

Figure 9-1: If a disc gets stuck, use the emergency eject method.

Doin’ the LightScribe thing

Are you old enough to remember laser-

DVD using the proper media, you can flip

etched vinyl record albums? (My favorite

over that new disc you just burned and use

was Styx’s Paradise Theater.) These albums

your drive’s laser to burn a silkscreen-qual-

played normally on your turntable, but car-

ity label onto the top of the media! No

ried cool-looking labels and borders around

printer or paper labels needed. The laser-

the edge of the album that were etched into

etched label looks awesome and will make

the vinyl using a laser. About right now, you

you the envy of all your techno-friends at

should be saying, “Hey, my DVD recorder

your next party.

uses a laser too! I wonder . . .”

One downside (you knew there’d be at least

Before you try and patent the idea, let me

one): A spindle of 50 LightScribe blank

tell you about LightScribe drives and media.

DVD+R discs is more than $50 at the time of

If your CD or DVD recorder supports this

this writing, so they’re several times as

new technology and you record a CD or

expensive as their less flashy brethren.

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Chapter 9: Installing an Optical Drive 159

What You Need to Know about

DVD and Blu-ray

Unless you don’t own a TV, you’ve probably already heard about DVD, which is short for digital video disc. (Some folks say that the abbreviation stands for digital versatile disc. Although it’s probably an urban legend, I’ve heard that a computer novice recently asked a computer salesman for a PC with a digital voodoo disc. ) The current generation of DVDs holds anywhere from 4.7GB to 9.4GB.

Although DVD drives work the same as those antique CD drives, they use a different type of laser, and the pits carrying the encoded data on the surface of the disc are smaller and packed more tightly. The denser the data, the more data a single disc can hold, as shown in Figure 9-2.

1.6 m

spacing

0.74 m

spacing

CD

DVD

0.4 m

0.83 m

minimum

minimum

Figure 9-2: DVD technology packs more of your data into the same space than a CD-ROM does.

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