[NEWZ]: Seagate Releases 400 GB "DB35" DVR Hard Dr

[Corvair]

SEAGATE SHIPS 400GB DB35 SERIES HARD DRIVE TO ENABLE HIGH-DEFINITION DVR RECORDING

Seagate DynaPlay technology with up to 10 simultaneous TV streams, largest available DVR capacity give consumers greater control of TV-watching experience

LAS VEGAS—05 January 2005— ...is shipping its new 400GB hard drive for DVR (digital video recorder) and home entertainment systems. The Seagate DB35 Series hard drive is the first drive designed for DVRs to offer up to 44 hours of HDTV recording, 400 hours of standard TV recording, and up to 10 simultaneous standard TV streams with Seagate DynaPlay technology. The new Seagate DB35 Series hard drive offers the industry's largest available capacity for digital video entertainment, enabling new television services such as video on demand, high-definition DVRs, and home media centers...

The rest at:

http://www.seagate.com/cda/newsinfo/newsroom/releases/article/0,1121,2572,00.html

 

[Mercutio]

Umm... how does "DynaPlay" work?

Especially on a slow-seeking 7200rpm drive.
I mean, if I tried to play 10 simultaneous moderate-bitrate MPEG2s back simultaneously on, say, a 7K250, I'd kill the damn thing.

Did Seagate come up with some fantastic new R/W algorithm or put some truly staggering amount of cache on this new drive, or is the definition of "10 simultaneous standard TV streams" marketing for "We put a bunch of 100k/s video files on consecutive cylinders of the same track"?

 

[MaxBurn]

Umm... how does "DynaPlay" work?
"We put a bunch of 100k/s video files on consecutive cylinders of the same track"?

Heh, DING DING DING we have a winner! I did zero investigation, just call it a hunch.

 

[Pradeep]

The standard Maxtor 160GB SATA drive in my SA8300HD STB is quite capable of recording two HD streams, whilst playing back a previously recorded third HD stream. The drive can make a fair racket when doing three streams.

I have yet to see a STB that can record from more than two tuners simultaneously. Not that I wouldn't mind, but costs seem to dictate it.

I could understand recording several channels at once by splicing them on the same track, but how the fark would that help you upon playback, given that you wouldn't necessarily be playing back in the same sequence that you recorded.