[Hidden-tech] durable DVD writer
Elijah Gwynn
eli at egwynn.com
Tue May 7 18:07:50 UTC 2019
Unfortunately write protection for flash drives is neither standardized
nor foolproof. In other words, for any given drive, the process of
enabling write protection may be difficult, and may not *actually*
prevent a motivated bad actor from modifying the drive's contents.
Cryptographic signing is one way to certify authenticity, but then it'd
be up to the recipient to properly validate any signature you applied.
Eli
On 7 May 2019, at 13:57, Chris Hoogendyk wrote:
> Totally not off topic. Cost is an issue. Quality is also an issue. I
> don't want to simply choose the cheapest solution, but I do need to
> look at cost to some degree.
>
> Robert Heller also mentioned USB Memory sticks that are the size and
> shape of a credit card. That would allow for some artwork, titling,
> and sentence or two about the contents. If there were a case for that
> to snap into that would be on the order of 5x7 to take front and back
> cover design, then it might work, depending on cost. I'd attach an
> example, but that won't fly in hidden-tech world. If you are on
> Facebook, my posts are public. There are a bunch of posts in April on
> my China trip, and one of them is about the DVD production and
> includes pictures of them.
>
> An added question that comes up then is write protection. You don't
> really want a published piece of work to be easily and multiply
> modified (or infected) by everyone who happens to mount it on their
> computer.
>
>
> On 5/7/19 9:17 AM, Elijah Gwynn wrote:
>>
>> *Plain* thumb drives, even with imprinting, in the 50-100 quantiy
>> range are
>> about as cheap as DVDs.
>>
>> Hopefully not too off topic, and not sure what you mean by "about as
>> cheap", but I'd love to know where you're sourcing your thumb drives.
>> On Amazon I see blank 4.7GB DVDs for around $0.25 / disk ~= $0.053 /
>> GB. Best I can find on Amazon / AliExpress is 50 8GB drives for $125
>> ~= $2.50 / drive or ~= $0.31 / GB. USB sticks look like they're about
>> 6x as expensive on a COGS basis unless I'm missing something.
>>
>> FWIW I'd def go with the USB sticks though, if you can afford it.
>> Just about everything about the process will be simpler and faster.
>>
>> Eli
>>
>> On 7 May 2019, at 8:22, Robert Heller via Hidden-discuss wrote:
>>
>> At Tue, 7 May 2019 07:27:41 -0400 Chris Hoogendyk
>> <hoogendyk at bio.umass.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Both of those options are much more expensive. That's alright
>> if I'm just thinking of my
>> own backups
>> and archives, and I do both of those among other options as
>> well. However, if I'm talking
>> about
>> producing 50 to 100 or so and distributing them to libraries
>> and to extended family members
>> (descendants of D.C.Graham –
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Crockett_Graham), then it
>> shoots
>> way way out of my price range.
>>
>> *Plain* thumb drives, even with imprinting, in the 50-100 quantiy
>> range are
>> about as cheap as DVDs.
>>
>> On 5/6/19 7:29 PM, Robert Heller wrote:
>>
>> At Mon, 6 May 2019 16:28:01 -0400 Tom Adams ~ Reelife
>> Productions & Folktography
>> <tomadams at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Chris,
>>
>> "relatively universally accessible"- is the big
>> question... I would suggest
>> thinking of portable hard drive like you would a dvd
>> ... and put the video
>> files on the hard drive... you could label them and
>> store it on a shelf.
>> and then access and connect to whatever playback
>> device that would allow
>> for viewing, laptop/projector/tv/laptop screen...
>>
>> "Rotating rust" drives (traditional magnetic drives)
>> don't always store well
>> (the spindle lube hardens). OTOH, SSDs store well. As do
>> SD cards and USB
>> thumb drives. No moving parts. Highly shock resistant.
>>
>> *Regards,*
>>
>> *Tom Adams, Director/Owner*
>> *Reelife Documentary Productions
>> <http://www.ReelifeProductions.com> •
>> **Folktography
>> by Tom* <http://folktography.zenfolio.com>
>> *• Cool Media Production...Not Boring or Dumb *
>> • Media that Educates, Entertains &
>> Enlightens... since 1996
>> *(413) 575-9707*
>> * • Williamsburg, MA*
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 4:18 PM Chris Hoogendyk
>> <hoogendyk at bio.umass.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>> I'm open to suggestions.
>>
>> I want something that I can put an informative
>> label on the media and have
>> it in a book like case
>> that I can design a cover for. It should both be
>> able to sit on a book
>> shelf in a library and be
>> uploaded to their digital archives. It should
>> also be relatively
>> "universally" accessible.
>>
>>
>> On 5/6/19 3:38 PM, Tom Adams ~ Reelife
>> Productions & Folktography wrote:
>>
>> Chris, I are you committed to using DVDs? If
>> not, I would highly
>>
>> recommend NOT using them. They
>>
>> are a faulty medium and not good for
>> archiving either. Be glad to
>>
>> discuss further...
>>
>> *Regards,*
>> *
>> *
>> *Tom Adams, Director/Owner*
>> *Reelife Documentary Productions
>> <http://www.ReelifeProductions.com> •
>>
>> **Folktography by Tom*
>>
>> <http://folktography.zenfolio.com>
>> /• Cool Media Production...Not Boring
>> or Dumb /
>> • Media that Educates, Entertains &
>> Enlightens... since 1996
>> /(413) 575-9707//
>> • Williamsburg, MA
>> /
>>
>>
>> On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 3:24 PM Chris
>> Hoogendyk via Hidden-discuss
>> <hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
>> <mailto:
>>
>> hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net>> wrote:
>>
>> Does anyone have knowledge or experience
>> about DVD drives with
>>
>> respect to writing lots of DVDs
>>
>> without burning out?
>>
>> I've been producing DVDs of historical
>> primary source material (see,
>>
>> e.g.,
>> https://www.worldcat.org/title/moreygraham-historical-letters/oclc/904725729)
>> on my
>>
>> grandfather (see
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Crockett_Graham).
>> In March, I
>>
>> was about to head out to
>>
>> China for
>> a three week trip, and I was pulling an all
>> nighter producing DVDs
>>
>> of my latest project with
>>
>> 23 of
>> his diaries. At 6am on the morning that I was
>> leaving, my DVD drive
>>
>> took the usual length of
>>
>> time to
>> burn a DVD (seems like forever), then it
>> started the verification
>>
>> scan, took a long time and
>>
>> summarily spit out the DVD, saying it was
>> unable to verify it. I
>>
>> went through 4 DVDs with the
>>
>> same
>> result. This was from a stack of 100 good
>> quality Sony DVDs that I
>>
>> had been pulling from for
>>
>> quite a
>> while with no problems.
>>
>> At the point that the drive failed, I had
>> been burning DVDs non-stop
>>
>> for well over 12 hours. All
>>
>> told on this round going back a couple of
>> days, I had burned
>>
>> something like 50-60 DVDs.
>>
>> Previously,
>> I had used the drive to burn other DVDs.
>>
>> This is not the first time I have had this
>> experience. Maybe the
>>
>> third. (i.e. bought a new
>>
>> drive and
>> then had it burn out.)
>>
>> I'm using an iMac which I think is about
>> 2014, running MacOS Mojave,
>>
>> with an Apple USB Superdrive.
>>
>> Googling reviews of drives is pretty useless.
>> They basically tell
>>
>> you they bought the drive, it
>>
>> hooked up without any trouble, it worked
>> great, and it is built
>>
>> solidly; or something like that.
>>
>> They don't give long term wear and
>> reliability. They don't say
>>
>> anything about non-stop burning
>>
>> sessions; just normal easy use with a brand
>> new device. I asked this
>>
>> question of a "genius" at
>>
>> the
>> Apple Store this weekend, and he didn't
>> really have an answer. He
>>
>> suggested that perhaps I should
>>
>> buy a less expensive drive, because the
>> internals would be the same.
>>
>> He said Sony made some
>>
>> pretty
>> good drives, they just didn't have the
>> aluminum case, etc. that the
>>
>> Apple drive has, but would be
>>
>> half or less the cost. It would be great to
>> have a Consumer Reports
>>
>> "mean time to failure under
>>
>> continuous burning" and whether there are any
>> drives with different,
>>
>> more durable, internals.
>>
>> --
>> ---------------
>>
>> Chris Hoogendyk
>>
>> -
>> O__ ---- Systems Administrator
>> c/ /'_ --- Biology & Geosciences Departments
>> (*) \(*) -- 315 Morrill Science Center
>> ~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts,
>> Amherst
>>
>> <hoogendyk at bio.umass.edu
>> <mailto:hoogendyk at bio.umass.edu>>
>>
>> ---------------
>>
>> Erdös 4
>>
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>> --
>> ---------------
>>
>> Chris Hoogendyk
>>
>> -
>> O__ ---- Systems Administrator
>> c/ /'_ --- Biology & Geosciences Departments
>> (*) \(*) -- 315 Morrill Science Center
>> ~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst
>>
>> <hoogendyk at bio.umass.edu>
>>
>> ---------------
>>
>> Erdös 4
>>
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>>
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>> --
>> Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933
>> Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
>> http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
>> heller at deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Hidden-discuss mailing list - home page:
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> --
> ---------------
>
> Chris Hoogendyk
>
> -
> O__ ---- Systems Administrator
> c/ /'_ --- Biology & Geosciences Departments
> (*) \(*) -- 315 Morrill Science Center
> ~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst
>
> <hoogendyk at bio.umass.edu>
>
> ---------------
>
> Erdös 4
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