AfterDawn: News

Software announced for damage resistant optical media

TrueDisc, announced yesterday that they were releasing their TrueDisc mastering software which creates archival quality CD-Rs and DVD-Rs. TrueDisc claims that files burnt with their software and discs can sustain disc damage as high as 90% and still retain the original file.

"TrueDisc burns standard files to CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R, and DVD+R Double Layer in a special damage-resistant format. These files, called "master copies", can be read back off the disc by the TrueDisc software. If disc damage prevents some of the file from being read, TrueDisc automatically uses patent-pending algorithms to reconstruct the missing data. This allows TrueDisc to restore the original file even when the disc is damaged due to age or abuse," claimed the announcement.



The TrueDisc format supports burning for up to 600MB of data on to CD-R and up to 4.2 GB of data onto a DVD-R.

TrueDisc is available now and requires Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later. It is priced at $89 USD but there is currently a discounted price of $52 USD.

Source:
MacObserver

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 8 Mar 2007 17:33

• Previous article

• Ricoh offers 16x double layer DVD media

• Next article

• Association sends out E3 invites

• 6 comments

• OzMick

  Prove it... I'd like to see how their 'patent-pending algorithms' would work on something like packed binary/executable data or lossless audio compressed files...

  8.3.2007 20:02 #1

• Nowon

  Ditto! I hope their claim is not too good to be true... ;)

  8.3.2007 22:06 #2

• DVDdoug

  Sure, it's possible to create a fault tolerant, redundant file storage format. But, here's the problem: Quote:...can be read back off the disc by the TrueDisc software. Ten or fifteen years from now, you pull the disc out of the archive. When you finally find the TrueDisc software you discover that it only runs on WinXP or Vista. All of your systems have been upgraded to newer version of Windows and you can't run the software... You re-install XP, but you can't activate it, because it's no longer supported by Microsoft.
  
  Or, you find out that the TrueDisc software can't talk to your new Blu-ray, X-Ray, CD drive's driver, because it only works with the new version of Windows.
  
  Or, maybe you re-install the TrueDisc software, but it won't run 'till you register or activate it... But TrueDisc has gone out of business...

  9.3.2007 10:11 #3

• Dunker

  There is little that's unique or special about their software: You can do the same thing with PAR2 parity files e.g. Quickpar. All this "Truedisc" software does is use some variation of Reed-Solomon error-recovery coding. The only thing Truedisc seems to do is offer an on-the-fly implementation of PAR2 as opposed to requiring the user to take the extra step of manually creating PARs and then burning them in a subfolder of their Video-DVDs or CDs. Although Truedisc is potentially more convenient, the lack of direct support, the licensing costs, upgradability, lack of OS support, etc. still says Quickpar is a better and more viable method for now and the future.
  
  http://www.quickpar.org.uk/
  http://www.par2.net/par2spec.php

  9.3.2007 14:51 #4

• borhan9

  I would love to see this. It would be really good for PC users.

  11.3.2007 11:04 #5

• ivymike

  Here's a response from a company member: "We expect to ship a Windows version of TrueDisc within 3-6 months.
  TrueDisc's themselves can be used natively on Linux without
  additional software beginning with TrueDisc 1.1"

  17.3.2007 15:09 #6