CE AVPremiumPack™
The ability to provide seamless playback streaming is important in a personal video recorder, of which a hard disk drive (HDD) is a crucial requirement. To ensure quality playback of its PVRs, Samsung's products are equipped with StreamMate™ technology.
Playback in PVRs depends on the HDD. However, such a system is prone to unexpected data read errors, which occur when HDD reads data several times. At this juncture, PC and CE drives will change their respective behaviors. The PC drive continuously retries in reading data and displays error messages on the screen. However, the CE drive-equipped StreamMate™ technology stops retrying if it thinks retrial won't work, and continues reading the rest of the data (timeout or limited-frequency method). The CE drive is smart enough not to stop for a single broken pixel out of the 2 million pixels on the screen, if such a glitch is not fatal. The user would not notice the tiny error. Samsung's StreamMate™ technology is sophisticated enough to ignore small glitches to ensure the efficiency of the big stream.
Noise is among the biggest problems with HDDs in audio/video applications. No one wants to hear the clicking sounds of the HDD while listening to music. Also, it is irritating to hear the HDD buzzing to record a late-night TV program while one tries to sleep. Thus, HDD makers try to reduce noise even by 1 dB. Samsung answers this with its SilentSeek™ technology.
Noise created by HDDs is categorized into idle noise and seek noise. Idle noise is the noise created while the HDD operates but does not seek data. It is caused by the motor's bearings and the friction between the hard disk and air, and this has now improved greatly by replacing solid bearings with fluid dynamic bearings. Seek noise is more problematic, and is created as the head (specifically the actuator) moves between data tracks to read and write data. The head moves fast to quickly write and read data, and in the process, it rapidly accelerates and decelerates the actuator, creating a great deal of noise (a fitting analogy is when you suddenly break and stop a car). Samsung technology has controlled the actuator more softly to improve on the noise problem. The following Figure shows the difference between conventional technology and Samsung's SilentSeek™.
Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM) is the industry's noise standard technology. Included in the ATA regulations, AAM seeks to reduce noise.
The AAM can be turned on/off according to customer demands.
Digital content is easily stored and distributed. Thus, content producers and distributors are concerned about possible damages caused by illegal content distribution. Content producers are not going to sell their content to PVR manufacturers whose HDDs are not protected from illegal duplication. This prompted Samsung to develop the LockOnDrive™ technology.
The HDD equipped with this technology is sophisticated enough to recognize its owner. Likewise, it works only in the PVR in which it was initially installed. If someone steals the HDD and installs it to his friend's PVR to watch a movie, the HDD would not work. The movie contained in the HDD would not be read because a key has been implanted in the PVR and the HDD to mutually authorize each other. To be more specific, the principle is as follows.
- Creating a key : A key is created in the process of producing PVRs or within PVRs, and is provided to HDDs installed in them. The process is similar to making ordinary keys. As people carry their keys in their pockets, HDDs as well are made to carry internal keys.
- Authorization : The host throws an encrypted question to the HDD, which interprets it through the information contained in its key, and makes a response. At the same time, the HDD throws an encrypted question to the host, which also gives an answer to it. It is no different from the process of inserting a key into the lock and turning it.
After this reciprocal authorization, they proceed to the next step. For reference, this technology's design may vary according to customer demands, and in actuality, its encryption methods provided to each maker's products differ somewhat.
