Optical Storage Media

Abstract

It was noted in the previous Chapters that multimedia data are voluminous. A high-density floppy disk (with 1.4 Mbytes storage) can store only a few images, while a short video can easily require a storage space up to tens of Mbytes. Large capacity storage space is thus required for recording and distribution of multimedia data. There is a variety of high capacity storage media available today. They are primarily based on magnetic (e.g., hard disk, zip drive) and optical (e.g., CD, laser disc, DVD) or a combination of both of these technologies (e.g., magneto-optical disks). The optical storage has become the most popular media for multimedia applications in the last two decades. In fact, in the early 1990s, computer retailers used to flaunt a PC with a CD drive as a multimedia PC. However, as CD drives are available in almost all PCs today, the term “multimedia PC” has lost its status.