Tiny Hard Disks and (S)VCD

So Toshiba unveiled a ‘coin-sized’ hard drive. Neat. But there are a couple of things worth pointing out.

The news articles report that it’s .85 inches in diameter — about the size of a nickel. Actually, it’s the platter that’s so small. The platter is the largest component of the drive, but it’s not the only one. It will still need a housing and thus be significantly larger. Still, it’s a neat accomplishment.

The disks are going to hold 2 to 3 GB of data. According to company spokeswoman Midori Suzuki, that’s enough for about 30 hours of music but not enough for movie-length video.

That’s not true. Methinks Toshiba is concerned about the movie industry — the idea that people could carry a full length movie in that small a space may not sit well. So the company says it’s too small. If you’re talking about DVD quality, that’s true. But people have known for years that Video CD (VCD) and Super Video CD (SVCD) offer VHS-quality video in a much smaller size.

Think of them as the MP3 of video. You can store about two hours of near-VHS-quality video on a single CD using VCD (and it’s playable on most DVD players). For true VHS quality, SVCD will store between about 45 and 60 minutes on a standard CD, including two stereo audio tracks and four selectable subtitles. (Wow.)

A standard CD holds about 700MB. That means Toshiba’s 2GB drive is more than twice the size — so yeah, it can hold a full-length VHS-quality movie no sweat.

For whatever reason, VCD and SVCD haven’t caught on in the States, although they’re huge in Asia (and you can buy videos in those formats). Then again, MP3 took a while to catch on, too.