Hey all, Ernie here with another piece from David Buck, who has been on an audio-collector kick of late. Last time, he brought us his musings on

Compact Disc Duality

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2024-07-11 05:30:03

Hey all, Ernie here with another piece from David Buck, who has been on an audio-collector kick of late. Last time, he brought us his musings on crate digging in the streaming era. Today, he’s back with a dialogue on the DualDisc. Today in Tedium: Audio and video formats come and go. Some formats experience an unexpected renaissance while others totally crash and burn. This is a story about the latter. Ok; that last statement was a bit melodramatic, but today’s topic is concerned with one of those less-than-stellar formats that despite initially strong sales was doomed to failure. I was never much of a fan of the CD/DVD combo disc, but I find it a fascinating optical artifact of the early 2000s. So grab your 2004 remaster of Back in Black, dust off your old DVD player, and pray neither side of the disc is scratched because today’s Tedium is all about a misbegotten, mostly forgotten format called DualDisc. — David @ Tedium Today’s Tedium is sponosored by Numlock News. More on them in a second.

1.5 mm The thickness of a typical DualDisc. By fusing two different layers—one 0.6mm DVD layer and one 0.9mm CD layer—the DualDisc ends up being 0.3mm thicker than a standard compact disc. Because of this, DualDiscs may become stuck in a standard CD player if users aren’t careful (though I’ve never personally experienced this, it’s been known to happen). The DualDisc also can’t hold as much data as a standard CD either, clocking out at approximately 60 minutes compared to the standard 73 minutes of a regular CD. The thickness of the disc also disqualified the DualDisc from being considered a “redbook CD”—that is, a CD that complies with the official specifications for the Compact Disc as outlined in the titular red book.