The total data on a CD-ROM including the error correcting redundancy exceeds 800 MB, or 6.4 Gb.
If you could imagine getting 1 bit from the optical disc per pixel (which is way too optimistic physically), you would need a 6 gigapixel camera focused super-precisely at the disc surface.
Looking at the problem from a different angle, Wikipedia says the features that store the data on the disc surface are about 800 nm (or about a micrometer) long. So to photograph them, you'd want to have pixels ideally smaller than a micrometer on each side. It's easy to check that an ordinary camera isn't achieving that kind of resolution without adding on external magnifying equipment.
The total data on a CD-ROM including the error correcting redundancy exceeds 800 MB, or 6.4 Gb.
If you could imagine getting 1 bit from the optical disc per pixel (which is way too optimistic physically), you would need a 6 gigapixel camera focused super-precisely at the disc surface.
Looking at the problem from a different angle, Wikipedia says the features that store the data on the disc surface are about 800 nm (or about a micrometer) long. So to photograph them, you'd want to have pixels ideally smaller than a micrometer on each side. It's easy to check that an ordinary camera isn't achieving that kind of resolution without adding on external magnifying equipment.