Nintendo optical disc

Nintendo optical discs

Nintendo GameCube Game Disc and Wii Optical Disc
Media type	Read-only optical disc
Encoding	Digital
Capacity	GCN 80 mm: 1.4 GB Wii 120 mm: 4.7 GB (8.54 GB dual layer) Wii U 120 mm
Read mechanism	Laser
Developed by	Nintendo & Panasonic
Usage	80 mm: Nintendo GameCube game media 120 mm: Wii game media 120 mm: Wii U game media

Optical discs

Optical disc Optical disc drive Optical disc authoring Authoring software Recording technologies Recording modes Packet writing
Optical media types
Blu-ray Disc (BD): BD-R, BD-RE DVD: DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL, DVD-R DS, DVD+R DS, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-D, DVD-A, HVD, EcoDisc Compact Disc (CD): Red Book, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, 5.1 Music Disc, SACD, Photo CD, CD Video (CDV), Video CD (VCD), SVCD, CD+G, CD-Text, CD-ROM XA, CD-i Universal Media Disc (UMD) Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD) Forward Versatile Disc (FVD) Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD) HD DVD: HD DVD-R, HD DVD-RW, HD DVD-RAM High definition Versatile Multilayer Disc (HD VMD) VCDHD GD-ROM MiniDisc (MD) (Hi-MD) Laserdisc (LD) (LD-ROM) Video Single Disc (VSD) Ultra Density Optical (UDO) Stacked Volumetric Optical Disk (SVOD) Five dimensional disc (5D DVD) Nintendo optical disc (NOD)
Standards
SFF ATAPI/MMC Mount Rainier (packet writing) Mount Fuji (layer jump recording) Rainbow Books File systems ISO 9660 Joliet Romeo Rock Ridge / SUSP El Torito Apple ISO 9660 Extensions Universal Disk Format (UDF) ISO 13490
See also
History of optical storage media High definition optical disc format war

Nintendo optical discs are the optical disc format used to distribute video games released by Nintendo. This includes the Nintendo GameCube Game Disc and Wii Optical Disc. The physical size of a Nintendo GameCube Game Disc is that of a miniDVD, and the Wii Optical Disc is the size of a DVD. It was announced that Wii Optical Discs can be used in the Wii U, while the GameCube disc can be used in the Wii for backward compatibility. A burst cutting area is located at the inner ring of the disc surface.

Format

A section of the BCA of a Nintendo Optical Disc with two of the six additional cuts visible.

The Nintendo GameCube Game Disc (DOL-006) is the medium for the Nintendo GameCube, created by Matsushita (Panasonic), and later extended for use on the Wii through backward compatibility. The GameCube Game Disc is a 1.4 GB, 8 cm miniDVD based technology which reads at a constant angular velocity (CAV). It was chosen by Nintendo to prevent copyright infringement of its games, to reduce cost by avoiding licensing fees to the DVD Forum and to reduce loading times. This also limits the consoles from being used as general DVD players.

The GameCube Game Disc was often criticized by game developers for its relatively small storage: some games with large amounts of data had to be placed across two discs. Multi-platform games that fit on PlayStation 2 and Xbox DVD discs occasionally had to have certain features removed to fit on GameCube Game Discs. Full-motion video scenes and audio had to use more compression to fit on a single disc, reducing their quality. Prior to the Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo consoles traditionally used cartridge-based media.

For the Wii, Nintendo extended the technology to use a full size 12 cm, 4.7/8.54 GB DVD-based disc (RVL-006), enabling it to have the benefits of the Nintendo GameCube Game Disc, while having the standard capacity of a double-layer DVD-ROM. Although the Wii can use double-layer discs, all titles were single-layer prior to the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. With the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Nintendo has admitted that some Wii systems may have trouble reading dual-layer discs due to a dirty laser lens. Nintendo repaired systems with dual-layer problems, and later released a disc cleaning kit for users to purchase.

The Wii U is backward compatible with Wii Optical Discs, though not GameCube discs. Reportedly to control costs, the Wii U will also use a unique disc format developed and supplied by Panasonic. With capacities of 25 GB (single layer), 50 GB (double layer) and 75 GB (triple layer). The technology is said to be similar to that of a CH DVD disk, but with the power to handle more layers. The special disk type is unusable on other devices. This information is unconfirmed by Nintendo.

Burst cutting area

Main article: Burst cutting area

Each Nintendo optical disc contains a burst cutting area (BCA) mark, a type of barcode that is written to the disc with a YAG laser. The data stored in this BCA mark includes an encrypted table related to the hardware-based copy-protection mechanics, in addition to 64 bytes of un-encrypted user-accessible data.

A BCA mark is visible to the naked eye. It should not be confused with the IFPI mark that is on all optical discs. BCA is described in Annex K of the physical specification, and can be seen between radius 22.3±0.4 mm and 23.5±0.5 mm. There are also six additional evenly spaced small cuts just outside the BCA radius, which are related to the copyprotection used. These small cuts can clearly be seen if the disk is held in front of a strong light source.

External links

• Description of authentication method