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Time to erase

PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 7:08 pm
by Viewmaster
Just recorded onto a used CD-RW using Nero.
It took about one minute to erase the old recordings.

Back in the reel to reel days one could bulk erase a whole tape in seconds
or no need to do that even as one could erase old recordings on old tape as one recorded new material.
No one minute hanging around then.

And why does it take ages to format a new DVD in my Sony DVD recorder?
And many seconds to load any DVD to play it?
.........and a few seconds now to change digital TV channels, when old analogue was instant.
That's progress.

PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 7:15 pm
by gary
Oh now just wait a minute!....

...oops...

PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 7:22 pm
by DrZarkov
If you just want to erase the data, put the CDs/DVDs for a few seconds in your microwave oven.

Of course they are no longer rewritable after that procedure...

PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 9:31 pm
by Metallica Man X
CDs/DVDs are obsolete anyway...Flash drives are where it's at! Takes only a few moments to clean one of those off 8)

PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 1:40 am
by Klaas Robers
Because Albert,

Digital TV is encoded in a way that separate pictures are bidirectional interpolated between pictures that have been already and pictures that should come still. Of course this is not possible, so what you see is delayed by about a second from what happens now. When you switch over this delay must be waited before the show can start. And that is besides the fact that you have to wait about half a second before the first complete picture is assembled. So one and a half second. That is what we have to pay for the data compression, where about 6 to 10 TV-programs can be squeezed into one analogue TV channel, and with a better picture and sound quality.

Rewritable CDs and DVDs can only write information in a structure of emply blocks. The disc are sold without these blocks, so when you load a new disc and you want to write onto it, you have first to format it. Then all empty blocks are written. This is not needed for a write once disc.

When you load a written disc in the player, that player first has to read the "table of contents" of the disc. These discs can contain all kind of different information. That takes time, as this table of contents may be scattered over the disc and each part should be found prior to starting the program. Then some preliminary programming of the player might be read and done, so it takes quite some time before it starts.

You know?
When I was young and you switched on the radio, it took about half a minute to heat up the filaments of the thermionic valves (radio tubes). Only after that waiting time the music started.
Then came transistors, click... music.
But then we moved to computers and now you would be very happy if it started doing things for you half a minute after you switched it on.......