MP3 Brings High Capacity Disk Drives Into The Home.

The sudden popular explosion in use of the data intensive MP3 format brings high capacity disk drives into prominence in a new arena. All across the country, college and high school kids, not just the computer students, collect, trade, and play their music via MP3. In the process, they realize a powerful need for data storage and they bring that need and the storage home.

For the first time, high capacity disk storage is commanding the attention of a large segment of the consumer public that hasn't necessarily been computer users. It won't be the last time. Soon enough, parents will catch onto MP3 and that's only the beginning. Audio represents the first wave of popular applications that will define a new domestic standard, the data intensive home. MP3 allows anyone to download music in compressed format from the Internet to their hard drive and then either play the music through their PC or load it into a separate, portable player.

A single song, even in compressed MP3 format, takes up an average of 4MB of space, which means a full CD might occupy 40MB-50MB. Music industry statistics suggest that most listeners of traditionally delivered music maintain collec-tions of around 60 CDs and that avid listeners frequently assemble collections of 200 to 400 and more CDs.

Storage In MP3

Even at first glance, then, storage is an issue in the MP3 phenomenon. At second glance, it becomes more of an issue. Many of the kids taking advantage of MP3 use the format to acquire one song at a time rather than a full CD, but their libraries of single songs can quickly become enormous. A recent lead article in The Wall Street Journal described a high school senior with 1.5GB of MP3 music and that young listener, in turn, admiringly described a friend with a 9GB collection.

For listeners who want, as many do, to convert their CDs into MP3 to play on their PC or a MP3 player, the storage needs only escalate. Before a tool such as Liquid Audio compresses or rips a song into MP3 format, the raw, uncompressed, song takes up to ten times its compressed space, an average of 40MB. No wonder high capacity disk drives have quickly become the accessories that most frequently go out the door with MP3 players.

For some time now, musicians have been recording and mixing their music on the Seagate Cheetah drive, with 10,000rpm speed. This drive can very capably handle the mixing of a raw song that might use hundreds of megabytes of storage. Seagate also developed a 20GB arid 28GB 7,200RPM ATA drive series, suited for home users wanting to take advantage of digital audio and video.

Anticipating the next step in home audio, focus groups right now prepare for the likelihood of dedicated audio PCs replacing the traditional home stereo.

Beyond audio is the resolution of bandwidth issues, which will allow the consumer public to bring video applications such as video on demand directly into the average home. The drive already exists for the Internet/Television application of Web TV and most movie and video editing, including special effects magic in films like "End of Days."

Seagate's contribution in this area is the introduction of SeaStream technology. SeaStream enables disk drives to deliver a compatible data transfer rate required for audio/video programming on television sets, stereo systems, and other home entertainment devices without sacrificing any of the data integrity that is expected from consumer devices that also record Internet content or other computer data.

With SeaStream, a family could potentially record two television programs, watch a movie, listen to a favorite musical, play a car racing game, and browse the web simultaneously, all from the same home entertainment storage device. This is because users of SeaStream-enabled recording devices have the potential ability to record and/or play back several different channels such as television shows, music, and game console programs, simultaneously. Viewers could also immediately jump to any point within a program or between programs without the usual search time delay of tape and cassette-based systems.

SeaStream technology includes a number of important features:

* An open interface specification. SeaStream will feature a set of A/V extensions for disk drives. These extensions have been submitted to the AT Standards Committee.

* SeaStream enables drives to simultaneously support data and A/V operations, meeting the data integrity requirements for computer data and the time-critical performance requirements for A/V content. SeaStream adjusts on-the-fly for both kinds of information streams. This allows SeaStream-enabled recording devices to provide A/V and Internet-based content from the same disk drive.

* SeaStream also addresses other issues that are critical to the growing adoption of disk drives in consumer electronics. Rather than singularly focusing on sustained data transfer rate requirements, SeaStream enables hard drive-based home electronics to tackle such key matters as lowered acoustics and power consumption.

Steve Luczo, Seagate's CEO, notes: "Digital information is now part of the fabric that weaves together almost every aspect of modern life. Seagate's goal is to help people get and use that information the way they want it. Whether it's for education, entertainment, communication or commerce, we understand the power. . . and fun . . . that information can bring to people's lives and Seagate is a company in the unique position to be able to bring the world's information to your fingertips. Having that capability in your home or car or even in the palm of your hand is what our vision is all about."

In other words, disk drives, once considered components hidden from the general consumer, are in the process of coming to the forefront of consumer need and awareness. That process will only accelerate as individuals of every sort want to and can take advantage of a great host of consumer applications migrating to them through the PC. These applications will govern the very infrastructure of daily life, what every man woman and child touches and feels during the activities and events that take place from sunup to sundown to sunup again. Seagate expects be the foundation of this infrastructure.

Rob Pait is the product marketing manager of personal storage at Seagate Technology