Blu-ray or DVD: which has the faster read speed?

Cliches? I don't know about slow and steady, but whatever version gains the widest acceptance, is the the one that wins.

That means game systems, computers, and stand alone systems.

When I buy a blank DVD do I consider speed? No, I consider price. Now capacity is important, but again, depending on price.

"Slow and steady wins the race?"

And when, exactly, will this race begin? If it ever starts, DVD will have had an 8+ year advantage.

Not so much "slow" as suffering from Down Syndrome and leprocy.

All of Sony's machines so far PS1, PS2, PSP, have been extremely slow overall in the loading department. This obviously hasn't hurt sales. Unfortunately, it appears we'll be spending a lot more of lives waiting again when their new machine rolls around.

"..., and more likely gamers will get a 1x or 2x drive"

Actually, if it was 1X, it wouldn't be able to read movies, so it will be at least 2X, which compares to a 12X DVD drive.

Then again, what's the point in using this comparison for games? Blu-ray discs will take long to be used, and even so, there will be no cross-platform game you'll be able to compare since it is doubtful that a developer will want to add extra content to the PS3 version and make it slower and more expensive, or equal in price, not necessarily too slow to affect gameplay but crippling the 360 version by adding more stuff to the PS3 one.

Who knows, the PS3 DVD reader might as well be faster than a 12X.

um. yeah. the math looks good. a 4x blu-ray should be faster than a 12x dvd drive.

the part everyone is forgetting is that generation by generation of 360s, ps3s and revolutions the hardware could get upgraded too.

instead of:
12x dvd -> 12x dvd -> 12x dvd
2x blu -> 4x blu -> 8x blu

it'll be:
12x dvd -> 24x dvd -> 48x dvd
2x blu -> 4x blu -> 8x blu

if you want to measure faster coming out of the gate, do that. but, if you want to compare future blu-ray speeds in consoles, you need to compare it with future dvd speeds in consoles.

because, that's why we're comparing these right? read speed to reduce loading times?

m3mnoch.

Woo! Load times await. As much as HD graphics are going to need these new discs I'm glad Nintendo are sticking with 9gb DVDs at SD graphics. I say this a lot, but I grew up on the Commodore Amiga. there is no way in hell I'm going back to anything slower than GC loading.

Which would you rather have?

Short Load Times

or

High-Definition games

Why is Joystiq giving time to a Gamespot blogger? Is that Blogger a writer for Gamespot? NO.

That blog about the transfer speed is full of holes and conjecture.

Without testing actual Blu-Ray hardware, all skektek is doing is regurgitating theoretical data.

Without real world hardware to test, having all that speed is meaningless since a Blu-Ray or DVD drive could transfer so much data a second, does that mean the system would be able to handle all of that data pumped out by the drives?

well considering sony is making bluray...

Load times don't bother me much, but right now I've got both fast times and HD graphics DOA4 on my 360 loads up in under 5 seconds...usually more like 2 seconds tops. PDZ and the EA sports games had somewhat longer load times, but nothing longer then we've had to endure before. As long as I'm not sitting in front of my TV for longer than 30 seconds waiting for the game to load I'm content with that.

Disc load times are a stupid thing to compare anyways...there's alot more to the loading of the game then just the speed of the drive. The CPU plays a big factor, as does the memory bandwidth. The PS3 will most likely have the advantage in the CPU department, but the 360 has the superior bandwidth...so who knows. The only way we'll be able to tell is when those cross platform games come out. And if waiting another 2-3 seconds to get into your game is THAT big of a deal...you have to be the most impatient fucker on earth...go get a catridge system like N64 or genesis and shut up.

bd:

Wait a minute... Sony supporters screamed the 360 wasn't a "next-gen" gaming device due to its lack of a "next-gen" optical drive, now you say that games probably won't come out on blu-ray... Hmmmmm. I guess everyone is confused about the PS3, and that's understandable considering Sony has thrown out a ton of hype and next to zero facts about their next console. As of right now, I think Sony looks to be in a little bit of trouble, but I'll remain optimistic until we actually know something about the dang thing.

Kamalot: I'll take both, thanks. DOA4 on the 360 has less than a 4 second load time at worst, and a nonexistant load time at best.

TOO EXPENSIVE for PS3? Haha, good one.

They'll probably use an 8x blu-ray drive if they make one in time. Money is no object.

Sony's strategy is to give gamers a choice:

PS3?, or food for the next year?

I wish I was kidding.

(actually I'm kidding... about the kidding part)

Ross Miller keeps a love doll made out of strands of Ken Kutaragi's hair under his pillow while he cries himself to sleep every night.

I heard that somewhere.

This site will do anything to make SONY look good. There goes unbiased journalism.

There's a difference between

"now you say that games probably won't come out on blu-ray... "

and

"Then again, what's the point in using this comparison for games? Blu-ray discs will take long to be used"

I said they will take long to be used, not that they probably won't be used. There's still a chance that they won't (but just for the record, I'm not going to say "probably"). Long meaning it could be when PS3 comes out, or in the end of its lifespan.

And whether you want to consider it next-gen or not it all depends on how you define next-gen, but it is without a question that it doesn't have a next-gen drive. Now it's just about waiting and seeing (till the end of the generation) if it was the right decision or not, regardless of the available tools that exist as of now.

Would I rather have fast load times or high def graphics?

I'd have fast load times. hence what I said. I had a Commodore Amiga through my childhood. I'm poisoned against loading. the GC just barely makes it especially with Windwaker and Prime. Never a screen that says "loading" with a crummy gradient bar filling up.

I could care less about HD games. even with a HDTV I'm completely not arsed. they're going to bump up developer cost and time for a game thats less fun to play than a NES game. No thanks.

Breakthrough 1.5 Petabyte Spintronics 3.5 Disk Drive

The technology concept is to use Polarized UV photons having resonant frequencies of the ferroelectric molecule along with Nano/Microwave Electric Fields to control electron movement, electron spin, electron electric field polarity, and electron electro magnetic fields for optical display imagery and data storage applications.

The UV laser diodes and electric field transducers of the Integrated Read/Write Head can be used in any combination to control the molecules. A Floating Gate Mosfet is used to read the electro static field data.

Electrons have electro magnetic properties whose electron movement is called electric current that can be measured by the abundance of or lack of electrons in the ferroelectric nucleus called voltage or static charge.

Ferroelectric spintronics is the new method of using electric fields and photons to alter properties of ferroelectrics molecules for data manipulation by changing the internal geometry of ferroelectric atoms.

For example, when charge carriers like electrons are accelerated (as opposed to moving at constant velocity), a fluctuating magnetic field is produced.

This generates a fluctuating electric field, known as a space charge field, which in turn produces another varying magnetic field.

Generating a perfect spin current by an electric field and UV photons in a high-k dipole dielectric material like a ferroelectrics molecule could then be made reversible, have non-dissipative of power, and not suffer from leakage current lost over time.

Thomas believes that intraband / outerband resonant absorption by circularly polarized UV photons leads to spin polarization of electrons. Then it is possible to say an "Atomic Quantum Switch" carries electro-static field, electro-magnetic field, and spin orientation that can be made to represent non-volatile 0’s and 1’s.

Double sided disk having 1.5 Petabytes of storage can be produced by separating the ferroelectric molecular coating layer by a plastic, metal, glass, or ceramic substrate.

Everyone is arguing about load times, but really, the purpose of having Blu-Ray is for the ability to watch High Definition Blu-Ray movies. Sony has its own movie studios and has hitched on many other movie studios that are probably anxious to get their movies on to this format, just as Sony had lured them with the “UMD” for the PSP.

What may also happen is that Sony could also push marketing for their movies on the PS3, and we could see TV commercials for home movies saying “Now available on DVD, PSP and PS3”, like how they say “Now available on DVD and PSP” right now. They wouldn’t want to say “UMD” or “Blu-Ray”. They’ll want to push their hardware product into the mainstream by mentioning the system’s name. Then again, this might not happen because other companies will be making Blu-Ray players and they may want to focus on the High Definition advantage of having Blu-Ray, opposed to just another media format as DVD or UMD as well.

So, load times aside, the Blu-Ray’s main purpose is to watch High Definition movies. When are we going to see some High Definition stuff for DVD? I heard that the porn industry had already begun developing it for the Xbox 360.

"while standard DVD disc drives vary the read speed based on how far the information is from the center of the disc"

That's funny, because CD and DVD drives have variable speed motors so that they can consistantly read data at the same rate from any point on the disc.

"Remember, though: slow and steady wins the race."

bi·as n.

1. A preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment.
2. An unfair act or policy stemming from prejudice.

Enough Said.

wait. Skektek? the same skektek who today said the PS3 will be twice as powerful, and the same skektek that came up with all these numbers, and a theory that the PS3 has a 700% advantage over the 360?

NO THIS GUY HAS NO CREDIBILITY. i am sorry joystiq but why you post this in beyond me.

I totally agree with you Arch. Anyone whos been following the bluray vs the hd dvd knows there are a tons of varibles, pros and cons on each side. And for someone to oversimplfy it down one specific thing seems to me like someone is trying to persuade the uninformed reader's opion.

Go read this instead of actual test of Blu-Ray hardware.

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fnewsticker%2Fmeldung%2F69396&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

Regarding the "700% advantage" allegation:
I attempted to determine the performance differential between unified and specialized shaders using the respective figures given to us by Microsoft, Sony, ATI and Nvidia at E3'05 as well as the pipe count of the 7800 GTX.

It is all official specs and rudimentary math. You can read my entry here:
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/profile/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=23849348&user=skektek

Oh, and the result was 212% not 700% ;)

Just a second. Why would a 4x Blu-Ray drive be so expensive?

It's not because of the data rate, that's about the same as a cheap 12x DVD drive, right? The article just said so.

It's not because of the motor or the motor controller. CAV (constant angular velocity -- blu-ray and hard drives) is WAY easier to deal with than CLV (constant linear velocity -- CDs and DVDs). Also, the secret to Blu-Ray is supposed to be that the bits are closer together than on a DVD. So for a given data rate, a Blu-Ray disc actually spins slower than a DVD.

4x shouldn't be a problem

"instead of:
12x dvd -> 12x dvd -> 12x dvd
2x blu -> 4x blu -> 8x blu

it'll be:
12x dvd -> 24x dvd -> 48x dvd
2x blu -> 4x blu -> 8x blu"

I read somewhere that DVD is pretty much at it's maximum speed right now. Any faster and data integrity is compromised, not to mention heat problems, and flying discs, etc. It's the same reason that CD's are still at 48/52x. The reason that the transfer rates are higher is because the density of the disc is higher, enabling the drive to read more data per second at the same RPM.

For people saying that games won't be on Blu-ray - a fair number of devs now have chimed in to say they're looking forward to the capacity it offers. Mark Rein of Epic has said their next-gen games will easily be 20GB+. David Braben (guy behind Elite) has said one of PS3's most interesting advantages in Blu-ray, in terms of how it can be used to improve streaming for larger worlds.

It'll probably start out initially that most games are on DVD - in the same way many initial PS2 games came on CD - but I think that'll probably change as time wears on.

"instead of:
12x dvd -> 12x dvd -> 12x dvd
2x blu -> 4x blu -> 8x blu

it'll be:
12x dvd -> 24x dvd -> 48x dvd
2x blu -> 4x blu -> 8x blu"

One other thing: Devs will always have to code for 12x/2x in that scenario because it is the lowest denominator. If that happens, load times will decrease with later models, but later games cannot be programmed to stream data faster than 2x/12x. Otherwise newer games will not play on older systems, which cannot happen in consoles period.