DataPlay

DataPlay Inc.
Company type	Incorporation
Founded	1998
Founder	Steve Volk
Headquarters	Longmont, Colorado, USA
Key people	Bill Almon, Jr., CEO and President; Jeff Roberts, CFO
Products	DataPlay Engine; DataPlay 500MB Optical Media
Number of employees	~30 (2006)
Website	www.DataPlay.com (defunct)

DataPlay is an optical disc system developed by DataPlay Inc. and released to the consumer market in 2002. Using tiny (32mm diameter) disks enclosed in a protective cartridge storing 250MB per side, DataPlay was intended primarily for portable music playback. However, it could also store other types of data using pre-recorded disks and user-recorded disks (and disks that combined pre-recorded information with a writable area).^[2] It would also allow for multisession recording.^[1] DataPlay Inc. was founded in 1998 by Steve Volk. The company's namesake optical disc won the CES Best of Show award 2001.^[3]

DataPlay also included an elaborate digital rights management system designed to allow consumers to "unlock" extra pre-recorded content on the disk at any time, through the internet, following the initial purchase. It was based on the Secure Digital Music Initiative's DRM system.^[2] DataPlay's DRM system was one of the reasons behind its attractiveness to the music industry.^[4] It also included a proprietary file system, DataPlay File System (DFS) which natively supported DRM. By default, it would allow up to 3 copies to other DataPlay discs, without allowing any copies to CDs.^[5]

History

DataPlay Inc. was founded by Steve Volk in 1998.^[6] Volk had founded DataPlay in the aftermath of his second company Intégral Peripherals going bankrupt in 1998. Intégral was the first to manufacture 1.8-inch hard drives—at the time the smallest form factor for hard drives—for laptops and other mobile computing devices, starting in 1992. Volk intended for Intégral to supplant the industry-standard 2.5-inch hard drive form factor introduced by PrairieTek—the first company that Volk had co-founded. After the failure of Intégral, Volk decided to focus on the optical media sector.^[7]

The recorded music industry was initially generally supportive of DataPlay, and a small number of pre-recorded DataPlay disks were released, including the Britney Spears album Britney. Graphics on press releases show that Sting and Garth Brooks were also set to have DataPlay releases.^[8] In 2021 the first DIY DataPlay album was released by the experimental rave producer Backmasker.^[9]^[10] However, as a pre-recorded format, DataPlay was a failure. The company closed due to a lack of funding.^[11]^[12] In 2003 a company called DPHI bought DataPlay's intellectual property and reintroduced it at CES 2004. The company swapped DataPlay's DFS file system for the FAT file system. Again, they were marketed as a cheaper alternative to memory cards, with a device being designed that would allow users to transfer data from an SD card to a cheaper DataPlay disc. Each disc would hold 500 megabytes of data and be sold at just US$4.50. DPHI also prototyped 750 megabyte DataPlay discs and announced plans for 2 and 7 gigabyte discs, the latter of which would use a blue-violet semiconductor laser, just like Blu-ray.^[13]

Very few products were seen on the market that could write data to these discs. Most notable was the Topy Mini Writer, which retailed for $130 (USD) and housed an optical pickup unit (image No.4) with a USB interface board, allowing the use of DataPlay discs much like other end-user writable optical media (e.g., CD-Rs). Other products were the iriver IDP-100^[14] and the MTV Video Device "MTV FLIP", which both housed the prototype-based model (image No.2).^{[citation needed]}

DataPlay discs were first proposed as a low-cost alternative to memory cards, which used to cost US$3 per megabyte. Blank DataPlay discs, by comparison, would hold 500 megabytes of data at US$10 per disc. They are also expected to have a 100-year lifespan.^[2]^[15]^[1] The discs would be made out of polycarbonate, just like CDs, but would be just 0.6mm thick, just like one half of a DVD (DVDs are made up of two halves that are bonded using glue; usually only one (side) contains data).^[5] Rewritable DataPlay discs would be similar to CDs, using a phase change alloy protected by a silicon oxide layer.^[5] Mastered (replicated) DataPlay discs would combine both pits and lands to store mastered data and grooves containing a wobble frequency to store rewritable data. Like on CDs, the wobble frequency would store time data to position the laser on the disc precisely.^[5]^[16]

It has two rewritable areas: one for user data and the other for encrypted data. The latter of which would hold the decryption keys necessary to unlock the extra content.^[5] They also have a burst cutting area to uniquely identify each disc.^[5] DataPlays can transfer data at 1 megabyte per second.^[3]^[17]

Other trademark names:^{[citation needed]}

DaTARIUS
DPHI
DataPlay

Gallery

DataPlay optical drive engine development photo of a development platform for testing and demo
DataPlay optical drive engine internals viewed from above a unit produced without any top cover; above the circular piece is the laser pickup. The laser pickup is built on a piece of silicon.^[18]
DataPlay optical drive engine with its case (a never-used piece from a private collection)
DataPlay optical drive engine top (same as No.3)
DataPlay optical drive engine bottom (same as No.3) The large coin-like object is a motor for spinning the disc, and the metal piece at its left is a magnet; the laser pickup of the drive is mounted on an arm that is moved using a mechanism, the latter two of which are reminiscent of that of modern hard disks.