1. OPTICAL MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES Arthur Hunt, Period 2, A+, Mr. Rodriguez

2. What is optical media?  Optical media is essentially the incorporation of laser technology and forms of media such as compact discs to store data.

3. History Optical media has been present for decades but only came into popularity around the 1980s. At that time, we had CDs (compact disc). In today’s society, we have made advancements to other forms such as DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs.

4. How it works  There are a couple of types of discs, write once, and rewritable. Typically, data is burned onto a disc which has “bumps” which hold data. The less space between bumps, the more data a disc can hold. The same applies for DVDs as well.

5. Installing optical drives  Optical drives are very versatile and are practically found on every computer. It is essential to installing software from CDs and DVDs. Therefore, usually, it is plug and play where the user plugs in power and the SATA/IDE cable and it shows up as usable under the computer’s hardware. USB cabled devices are currently coming into great importance

6. Troubleshooting  CDs and DVDs are very delicate discs, they can not be scratched, otherwise, the data may not be readable anymore. There are two layers, one for the label, and one which has “bumps” or “pits” to hold the actual information.

7. Types of CDs/CD Drives  All CD drives can read CDs, however, not all CD drives can write onto CDs. CD-RW drives allow data to be written and accessed.

8. Types of DVDs/ DVD Drives  There are several types DVD drives. All of them read data, but not all of them can write data. DVD drives typically can do everything that a CD drive can do and more. Furthermore DVD drives can be DVD-RW.

9. Other  There are many other types of optical drives emerging into today’s society as technology advances. For example, the implementation of Blu- Ray days are being used. Another type of disc and drive debuting is LightScribe. With so many new discs emerging, each just gets better as time progresses

10. Newer DVD technologies  Since today’s society has grown, technology has also grown. Newer forms of DVDs include Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs.