DVD/CD track spacing and storage capacity

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SUMMARY

The discussion focuses on the track spacing and storage capacity of CDs and DVDs, with specific measurements provided by the user NeoXx. The calculated track spacing for a CD is 1.57 µm, closely aligning with the actual value of 1.6 µm, while the DVD's track spacing is measured at 0.72 µm, near the true value of 0.74 µm. The storage capacity results show 654 MB for CDs and 2786 MB for DVDs, which is significantly lower than the expected 4700 MB. The discrepancy in DVD storage capacity may be attributed to the type of DVD used, such as DVD-RAM, which can store only 2.5 GB.

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NeoXx
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Hello,

I finished an experiment of finding out the track spacing of a CD and a DVD.
My laser wavelength was 654nm which I used to calculate track spacing of the optical discs.

I got a track spacing of a CD 1.57um which is close to a real value of 1.6um,
and the track spacing of a DVD 0.72um which is close to a real value of 0.74um.

Then I calculated the storage capacity of both and got 654 Megabytes for a CD which is pretty good but only 2786 MB for a DVD, which is pretty far from its true value of 4700 MB.

What did I do wrong?

Oh here's the worksheet I used to calculate the storage capacity:
http://www.teachengineering.org/collection/uoh_/activities/uoh_diffraction/uoh_diffraction_activity1_worksheet_mhf_tedl.pdf

Regards,

NeoXx
 
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NeoXx said:
Then I calculated the storage capacity of both and got 654 Megabytes for a CD which is pretty good but only 2786 MB for a DVD, which is pretty far from its true value of 4700 MB.
Please show your work.
 
This is my second experiment where I got similar data as one mentioned in my first post.
 

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Not all DVD's store 4.7 G bytes. Some DVD-RAM store 2.5 G bytes. May be that's what you used?
 
dauto said:
Not all DVD's store 4.7 G bytes. Some DVD-RAM store 2.5 G bytes. May be that's what you used?

But as far as I know all DVD types have the same track spacing?

As well, I measured the track spacing similar to a normal DVD, and still got 2.8GB...
 

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