The Magic Begins . . .
The magic of home entertainment products is being unlocked
The key that unlocks this magic is a series of special hard disk drives that give television, audio equipment, recorders and other home entertainment devices tremendous flexibility and massive new capacity. For their owners, these home entertainment hard drives lend a whole new world of convenience and programming choices.
First to benefit: television and digital video recorders
For half a century, television viewers have organized many of their at-home activities according to schedules set by broadcasters. Now, the magic provided by home entertainment storage technology allows viewers to see the programs they want when they want to see them. Digital recording technology of the kind employed in Western Digital Corporation`s hard drives is making possible the biggest changes in broadcasting and viewing in the history of television.
No longer must telephone calls or other interruptions interfere with television viewing; the digital video recorder, equipped with a home entertainment hard drive, captures what is being watched and saves it for replay at the viewer`s convenience. The same recorders "learn" the user`s viewing habits and preferences, and can suggest related programming.
Video recordings can be saved and grouped into programs on the digital video recorder, just as files can be moved on a computer hard drive, the home entertainment hard drive`s first cousin. And unlike the tape systems used in video cassette recorders, home entertainment hard drives are non-linear, so the viewer can find programs by means of an on-screen menu, rather than searching miles of tape.
Audio recording: new sources, new methods of programming
Digital technology also lends magic to recorded music by offering new flexibility in the ways recordings are acquired, stored, sorted and arranged into programs.
Great improvements have been made in audio recording and playback technology, from the phonograph record to reel-to-reel tape, and from audio cassettes to compact discs. But the methods used for storing these recordings have changed little. Today, the listener still puts one or a handful of recordings into a machine, plays them and later removes them to play others. If the user is downloading music from the Internet into a personal computer, he or she is limited by the performance offered by the computer hard drive and the associated audio playback equipment.
Audio equipment with a built-in home entertainment hard drive makes it possible to gather recordings from records, tape, compact discs or the Internet into one reliable, digital storage "vault." There, the music can be rearranged by type, by performer or in any way the user wishes, and played through high-quality audio systems. Music from certain eras, groups or composers can be gathered into customized programs for special occasions.
The capacities of Western Digital home entertainment hard drives for this purpose easily accommodate the average user`s collection of compact discs.
Home entertainment hard drives are different
Hard drives used in home entertainment equipment differ in numerous ways from those used in personal computers, even though both require the same high quality and reliability.
Home entertainment applications demand a reliably steady flow of data, which produces pictures and audio reproduction free of gaps, flutter or flickering. The drives must be extremely quiet, with no hum or other noise to interfere with the playback. And, they must provide for multiple streams of data so that the home entertainment device is capable of multitasking such as simultaneous recording and viewing.
Personal computers demand the fastest seek times for instant access to data. And although storage capacity is important to a PC user, the average home and small-office uses of personal computers demand much less capacity than audio/visual uses.
Whereas the capacity of computer hard drives is measured in gigabytes of data, home entertainment hard drive capacity is measured in hours of playback time. A home entertainment hard drive stores about one hour of conventional video or twenty audio CDs per gigabyte of capacity.
Western Digital`s WD Performer™ Family
Western Digital Corporation, which got its start in sophisticated electronics technology, has been building its reputation in hard disk drives since 1990. Western Digital desktop and enterprise hard drives are known and trusted by the world`s leading producers of personal computers. The features, performance, quality and reliability of its hard drives have earned Western Digital`s ranking among the top three producers in the world.
The WD Performer Family of home entertainment hard drives is made for digital video recorders, set-top boxes, home servers, audio/video jukeboxes and television receivers. They provide maximum capacity for audio/video recording. All WD Performer drives incorporate technology to support multiple audio and video data streams uninterruptedly for demanding, around-the-clock home entertainment uses. Multiple data streams provide for simultaneous recording and viewing, pause support and video on demand.
WD Performer home entertainment hard drives incorporate Western Digital`s WhisperDrive™ acoustics technology for quiet operation. They operate with minimum power requirements and generate very little heat, even in a fan-free environment. With their higher capacity per disk, Western Digital drives require fewer recording and playback heads, which means fewer parts and, in turn, less heat and noise.
The WD Performer Family balances speed, acoustics, power and data integrity for today`s mainstream home entertainment applications. These drives employ EIDE interfaces, and all promise the long service life expected by makers of home entertainment systems.
This drive family`s features, performance, quality and reliability combine to create Value!