Optical disc drive facts for kids
An optical drive is usually a CD drive or DVD drive. Optical means it uses lenses. The drive uses a light called a laser. A laser is the most exact and powerful sort of light but the laser in the drive is very, very small. The CD or DVD disk is similar to a mirror and the laser light reflects off it. The disk has very small (microscopic) codes written on it. The drive has a very small camera lens beside the laser which can read the codes. Another part of the drive is plugged in to the computer by a wire (inside) and the code goes through the wire as a signal to the computer.
List of optical drives
- CD drive
- DVD drive
- Blu-ray Disc drive
- HD-DVD drive
- LaserDisc drive
Images for kids
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A CD-RW/DVD-ROM computer drive
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An external Apple USB SuperDrive
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The CD/DVD drive lens on an Acer laptop
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Lenses from a Blu-ray writer in a Sony Vaio E series laptop
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Pickup head
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Optical pickup unit with two visible potentiometers
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Pickup head, side view
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Optical path
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The optical sensor out of a CD/DVD drive. The two larger rectangles are the photodiodes for pits, the inner one for land. This one also includes amplification and minor processing.
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The Z-CLV recording pattern is easily visible after burning a DVD-R.
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An exploded disc
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Digital audio output, analog audio output, and parallel ATA interface
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Internal mechanism of a DVD-ROM Drive. See text for details.
See also
In Spanish: Unidad de disco óptico para niños
