Self-erasing discs coming our way?
Category: Industry, Posted: 04/23/2008 at 09:42PM CDT by Chris Abiuso, Staff Writer
Scary new trends are taking hold in Scandinavia, France, Italy, and Germany. DVD movies are being placed on a new format, called DVD-D. What's so special about this format? Well, it destroys the information on it after an allotted time slot has been used.
To be exact, for DVD-Ds with movies on them, the allotted time slot is 8 hours from the time the disk is inserted into a DVD player. Discs with software have a 48 hour time slot before erasing themselves. These discs cost less than regular DVDs and are sold at gas stations and kiosks.
This new format seems to be growing in popularity. Already, blank DVD-Ds are being made so that users can make their own self-erasing discs. The user can than specify when the information will be destroyed.
It is probable that this format will spread to other countries and become a popular medium for sensitive information that the content producer wants to be viewed only once. An even more scary possibility is that game developers and movie producers catch on to the idea, and use these disks to force buyers to pay for special "keys" to keep their products active, or suffer their content being destroyed, all in the spirit of generating greater revenue.
Game developers may also use this as a deterrent against piracy, making online purchases through clients such as Steam more preferable to the suicidal DVD-Ds. Or perhaps developers would want more money by forcing users to purchase of the game saving "keys".
Let's hope it doesn't come to that-God know games already cost too much as it is.
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Any developers that jump on this will go under shortly afterwards.
I don't think this is feasible in the game market whatsoever. In fact I'm having a hard time understanding what France is using it for, other than the novelty value of "oooo look what I can make it do!"
It''s perfectly legitimate to install a game again a year after first getting it.
even a variation where the data is erased after say, 5 installs seems pretty detrimental
how does the disc know its being inserted into a dvd player or whatever device that the disc is for...?
That's kind of cool. Makes for a good "Buy this movie for two bucks! *After one viewing* OOOH! Now you know why it was $2." But otherwise... I don't see the point.
I'm surprised his hasn't caught on sooner. It knows that it is inside at dvd drive because of the heat generated on the disc by the laser.
Except for movies like "The Covenant" that you wish would disappear after one viewing, I don't see the need. A determined person will figure out how to make an image file. You know the rest. Next.
So, the first read of the disc will be a dump to the HDD.
Next problem?
just heat? thats it? cuz if one can "code" it onto the disc for self-use or whatever... that implies something else entirely more than heat...
on a side note... whats the temperature that the disc gets while in use in a dvd player or disc drive or whatever? wouldn't the burning process or whatever then count as a use if heat is the "catalyst" or whatever...?
This would be good for a rental system of some kind i think...
Be good for james bond
@dooganking
Well since the DVD has no processing power of its own it can't "decide" to erase itself. Therefore heat is the logical answer. If you "coded" that data onto the disk, then the player would have to "know" how to erase it, that majority of DVD players cannot erase, so that option is out the window. It would be a lot easier to coat the disk with a chemical sensitive to heat and once a determined temperature is reached, the coating on the disk starts destroying the data over a desired amount of time.
You bring up a good point about burning the disk initially. I would think the chemical is added after the disk is burned, or they use some special burner. I don't see gamer publishers moving to this type of disk, however, after seeing how Bioshock screwed a lot of people I wouldn't hold it past game publishers.
I think this sound like a great idea.
If your goal is piss off consumers and promote piracy.
@alex6969
i do agree heat would seem like the most logical method for this. and i'm not trying to be a dick here at all, i am really just curious about how this sort of thing works. There is a wikipedia on the dvd-d but its short and very lacking in the hard info. They say it has to do with the rotatons (?!?) of the disc or that it has to do with a reaction with the laser (i would think that means heat...). but the above gamernode article states "This new format seems to be growing in popularity. Already, blank DVD-Ds are being made so that users can make their own self-erasing discs. The user can than specify when the information will be destroyed." does that mean that they are sold with different sprays for different time amounts?
all of the other info for the wikipedia page seems to be in german... and my own knowledge of german is lacking...
other than that i agree with snakeoiler, it just seems like a good way to piss consumers off.
though i can certainly see it for business use and for critical information of that sort...
@dooganking
No dickness taken. Rotations seems like a logical method as well, after X thousand/million times the disc is spun in a complete circle, that data is erased. Probably how they are sold is in different time incraments, like you would buy a week,month,year,5 year pack of disks and they would all erase at that time once burned.
This seems a little late IMHO. As of today, DVDs seem like they are on the outs to better formats. i.e. Digital downloads, Blu-ray, flash media, Dual layer DVDs, etc. I think in the next 5 years or so we'll see the decline of DVDs much like CDs today.
There's a while yet to go, before other media overtake DVD-Rs. Blu-ray is going to be too expensive for wide adoption for some time still.
I'm curious also about how this self-erasure process would work. It's strictly academic, though. I have no intention at all of ever giving in to a format like this, for anything.
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