Picture on a CD

[kevinthenerd]

I was looking at a burned CDR a couple of days ago and started thinking... what if that odd-colored area was not random but rather formed a picture the human eye could see? Would it be possible to lay out data in such a way as to make pictures on the surface of a CDR visible to the naked eye? Imagine the detail possible in such images.

Could somebody tell me how to make an iso image filled with ones and an image filled with zeroes so I could start playing with this idea?


Edit:

Basically I'm trying to turn my CDR drive into an extremly high-resolution monochrome printer.

 

[HypNoTic]

maybe you should take a look at the Yamaha F1 writer

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: HypNoTic
maybe you should take a look at the Yamaha F1 writer

Is there an opensource way to do it with my existing burner under Linux/Unix?

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: HypNoTic
maybe you should take a look at the Yamaha F1 writer

Just noticed something. The Yamaha F1 writer varies the intensity of the laser for grayscale. I'd rather use dithering.

 

[AbsolutDealage]

I just gave the ISO thing a shot, but it is not looking promising. Burning about 300 megs (100meg of 0's, 100meg of 1's, then 100 meg of 0's again), I am unable to notice any difference between the sections of 0's and the section of 1's.

I don't really feel like rummaging around to verify, but I believe that the data that is burned is some kind of encoding or transform of the actual data. The data is most likely altered at the hardware level to prevent long runs of 0's or 1's in a row, which is why there is no visible difference. If this is the case (maybe someone can prove me wrong here...), you are most likely out of luck unless you can find some way of bypassing the hardware control and directly turning on/off the laser yourself.

 

[Shalmanese]

I think there is a pit everytime there is a change from 1->0 and 0->1, not for every 1 or zero. At least, that is how HD's are encoded IIRC.

 

[CTho9305]

So someone should burn a CD of 1010101010101010101010101010101 followed by all 0s or 1s?

 

[Peter]

The difficult part is that the writer needs to keep the lasering exactly in sync with the media rotation. Yamaha invested a pile of brain cells into Disc T@2, it's not like you can do it with any random drive. Sadly, the average computer buying sheep don't buy the better solutions, they buy the cheaper one, and thus, Yamaha gave up and doesn't produce CDRW drives anymore.

 

[Shalmanese]

Originally posted by: Peter
The difficult part is that the writer needs to keep the lasering exactly in sync with the media rotation. Yamaha invested a pile of brain cells into Disc T@2, it's not like you can do it with any random drive. Sadly, the average computer buying sheep don't buy the better solutions, they buy the cheaper one, and thus, Yamaha gave up and doesn't produce CDRW drives anymore.

Yamaha Engineers: "Well, its taken 3 years, 800 million dollars and the suicide of 3 of our team members but we finally managed to make a CDRW accurate enough to put a picture on a CD"

Yamaha Manager: "What?!? I told you to burn these pictures from my digital camera onto a CD!"

Yamaha Engineers: "... oops"

 

[Peter]

ROTFL

Anyhow, those Yamaha burners are bloody excellent in all other aspects too.

Copy-protected music CDs? My ass. Old scratched CDs? No problem. Cheap crap CDR media? Whatever. Yamaha can do.

It's a real shame that the tidal wave of cheap but mediocre burners rolled over them. You'll never know the difference if you never owned one.

 

[Epimetreus]

Where would it be best to find one of these CDRWs then, Peter?
If the quality is that great I would be very interested to get ahold of one.

 

[Peter]

Too late. People have been beating each other up for the last few CRW-F1 that were still on the shelves when Yamaha announced they're backing out. There's the occasional external SCSI unit still available, and equally rare ebay offers of the internal IDE version for outrageous prices.

 

[zephyrprime]

I don't really feel like rummaging around to verify, but I believe that the data that is burned is some kind of encoding or transform of the actual data

You're right.

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: CTho9305
So someone should burn a CD of 1010101010101010101010101010101 followed by all 0s or 1s?

Did anyone try that yet? Or... can somebody tell me how to make an iso that looks like that?

 

[Peter]

It's not like a 0 in the ISO data will make the laser burn and a 1 will make it not-burn. There is an encoding process inbetween, encoding the payload data to a code that suits the need of serial data with embedded synchronizing. Redundancy is added to allow for error detection and correction, blah blah blah.

No, for raw access to the laser off/on switch you'll need a drive firmware that supports that. And to actually get something optically recognizable onto the media, you need that entire drive to be a lot more accurate in everything than the average $50 CDRW drive will ever be.

 

[AbsolutDealage]

Originally posted by: Peter
Too late. People have been beating each other up for the last few CRW-F1 that were still on the shelves when Yamaha announced they're backing out. There's the occasional external SCSI unit still available, and equally rare ebay offers of the internal IDE version for outrageous prices.

I wouldn't quite say outrageous prices, the typical new internal IDE CRW-F1 is going on pricewatch for ~$125. Now, this is probably more than twice what you would pay for a lite-on burner, but it's in the neighborhood of a Plextor. You can still find them online if you look around.

 

[idgaf13]

I have a Yamaha CRW-F1 ,installed it and burned about 4 or 5 CDs.
Then removed it from the PC put it back in the box and there it sits.

I know it is not correct forum but if interested in buying it let me know.

I am graphically challenged.

contact by PM

 

[thraxes]

Yeah but considering my brother bought his F1 burner for about 70$, 125$ is a little steep.

idgaf13, why are you selling it? Just because you can't make use of the disc T@2 doesn't mean you have to dump an extremely good drive

 

[idgaf13]

do not feel like painting the drive to match rest of components.

 

[Peter]

I wouldn't quite say outrageous prices, the typical new internal IDE CRW-F1 is going on pricewatch for ~$125. Now, this is probably more than twice what you would pay for a lite-on burner, but it's in the neighborhood of a Plextor. You can still find them online if you look around.

Well shortly before Yamaha announced the end of their CDRW adventures, the internal CRW-F1 went for 79 euros here. Two days later they were 129, a week later they were gone. The external SCSI units (180 or so euros) are gone now too.

 

[yak8998]

When trying to burn the raw data (1s and 0s on the CD itself), you have to remember that it rotates around and slowly reads to the outside, not in lines or something. That adds another factor of difficulty.

I want one of those yamahas...(no i refuse to pay)

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: idgaf13
do not feel like painting the drive to match rest of components.

Why bother? A system that looks great is more likely to get stolen. You should see my piece of work. I think a bum would have doubts about sleeping next to it.

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: yak8998
When trying to burn the raw data (1s and 0s on the CD itself), you have to remember that it rotates around and slowly reads to the outside, not in lines or something. That adds another factor of difficulty.

I want one of those yamahas...(no i refuse to pay)

Sounds like a simple calculus problem that can be implicitly differentiated.

 

[Brie]

I believe that all CD disks use EFM or Eight to fourteen Modulation. Im not sure the formula they use to convert but if you have a simple 8-bit number to be written:

00110010 => 10010010001000

This 8-bit data is converted to a predetermined 14 bit equivilent due to the way that CD's are read. In addition you have to remember that CD's have parity as well add C1 and C2 error correction codes so im sure that burning images to the CD is very difficult to do...