Low level FW flashing to directly write a raw bitstream
Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2024 6:22 pm
Hi,
I’m fairly familiar with FW and low level programming, and have extensive hardware hacking experience, but I have zero experience with BD drives. I’m interested in having direct control over the BD writing laser to create lithography masks on a blu ray disc, or rather, a medium with the shape/size of one. I understand that, when writing, the laser follows a wobble on the disc for tracking - which for now, I could live with by using regular blank Blu-ray Discs for prototyping.
Short story long, I’d like to have a “Lightscribe” capability to burn 1’s and 0’s on the disc to create an image. The wavelength of the laser, could, in theory, make for some very high resolution details on a photomask. To be clear, I’m looking to do this on the writable side of the disc, not the label side, unlike Lightscribe.
Naturally, I would like to try modifying what exists rather than building it from scratch.
For the actual bits that get burned to the disc, is that handled by the software on the computer, or does the BD drive add the coding (Manchester encoding?) to ensure there are no 0’s written in succession after a certain point?
Starting with FW/SW mods would be great. On the other end of the spectrum, there would be bypassing all the controllers and controlling the focusing/tracking mechanisms from scratch. To burn onto a medium without tracking wobbles, I’d likely have to mechanically tie the spindle motor to the linear laser motor so they always advance in sync… which would… certainly be a challenge, but, in theory, doable.
This is all just a proof of concept, and I’d like to try it on regular Blu-ray Discs first with the built in tracking and focusing advantages to see if this is even possible (eg, laser power, alignment, laser wavelength, etc.)
Is there a drive, FW, and/or SW, you might be able to recommend where I can burn a premade bitstream onto a disc without having the bitstream modified for error checking?
Thanks!
I’m fairly familiar with FW and low level programming, and have extensive hardware hacking experience, but I have zero experience with BD drives. I’m interested in having direct control over the BD writing laser to create lithography masks on a blu ray disc, or rather, a medium with the shape/size of one. I understand that, when writing, the laser follows a wobble on the disc for tracking - which for now, I could live with by using regular blank Blu-ray Discs for prototyping.
Short story long, I’d like to have a “Lightscribe” capability to burn 1’s and 0’s on the disc to create an image. The wavelength of the laser, could, in theory, make for some very high resolution details on a photomask. To be clear, I’m looking to do this on the writable side of the disc, not the label side, unlike Lightscribe.
Naturally, I would like to try modifying what exists rather than building it from scratch.
For the actual bits that get burned to the disc, is that handled by the software on the computer, or does the BD drive add the coding (Manchester encoding?) to ensure there are no 0’s written in succession after a certain point?
Starting with FW/SW mods would be great. On the other end of the spectrum, there would be bypassing all the controllers and controlling the focusing/tracking mechanisms from scratch. To burn onto a medium without tracking wobbles, I’d likely have to mechanically tie the spindle motor to the linear laser motor so they always advance in sync… which would… certainly be a challenge, but, in theory, doable.
This is all just a proof of concept, and I’d like to try it on regular Blu-ray Discs first with the built in tracking and focusing advantages to see if this is even possible (eg, laser power, alignment, laser wavelength, etc.)
Is there a drive, FW, and/or SW, you might be able to recommend where I can burn a premade bitstream onto a disc without having the bitstream modified for error checking?
Thanks!