DVD/CD track spacing and storage capacity

AI Thread Summary
The experiment determined the track spacing of CDs and DVDs, finding 1.57µm for CDs and 0.72µm for DVDs, which are close to the actual values. The calculated storage capacity was 654 MB for CDs and 2786 MB for DVDs, significantly lower than the expected 4700 MB for DVDs. The discrepancy may arise from using different DVD formats, as not all DVDs have the same storage capacity. The discussion also highlights that track spacing is consistent across DVD types, despite variations in storage. Overall, the findings suggest a need for further investigation into the storage capacity calculations.
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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