CD/DVD Media - Is It Going Obsolete Soon?

[Zoot7]

Eventually all media will be distributed over the internet.

+1

As much as the hateful entertainment industry fights against it.

[earthpigg]

i don't buy boxes with software in them.

i have a netbook, no optical drive.

i have a desktop, no optical drive.

i have a second desktop, no optical drive.

i have one external usb optical drive in my entire household, "just in case".

i considered releasing Masonux as only an .img file, and no .iso.

[SuperSonic4]

To anyone who thinks the internet is the future where will the bandwidth come from? Not to mention broadband will become even more of a utility.

Plus when I have a physical copy of a disc in my hand I know that it is mine and that it will always be mine.
For streaming music online then my paid for music is at the whim of a sysadmin/the internet


The amount of bandwidth needed will be phenomenal and we're already using fibre optics to send signals and nothing travels faster than light

[earthpigg]

i promise you, sir, that the tubes are not going to get clogged.

[toupeiro]

To anyone who thinks the internet is the future where will the bandwidth come from? Not to mention broadband will become even more of a utility.

Plus when I have a physical copy of a disc in my hand I know that it is mine and that it will always be mine.
For streaming music online then my paid for music is at the whim of a sysadmin/the internet


The amount of bandwidth needed will be phenomenal and we're already using fibre optics to send signals and nothing travels faster than light

WAN utilisation will get better, protocols will get better.

When you have a physical copy of a disc in your hand you have something that will always be prone to physical damage due to handling, thats read only with a small exception of media types (that almost nobody invests in), thats a security risk, and that will always be limited in comparison to flash and magnetized spinning disk.

The truth is, the amount of bandwidth already capable of being provided to the average household is RARELY ever utilized above 10%/month. I have almost 20Mbit/sec coming inbound to my home and based on my own trending I utilize that bandwidth less than 18% of its available time per month and I use it very heavily. Realistically, streaming/on-demand content will be the way most carriers, and even the music industry, will go. It greatly reduces the cost of production and distribution compared to the traditional way its done today. Thats not to say CD/DVD/Blu-Ray will completely disappear, I dont think that will happen, but I don't think they will be mainstream very much longer at all. Other places with aging infrastructure will be forced to upgrade to handle the load, but that is the nature of technology.

I've intentionally held off on investing in Blue-Ray because I do not honestly believe it will see the lifespan DVD had. We are way too close to having commodity on-demand content that its ridiculous to invest in it IMO. look at what netflix and amazon can do today with on-demand titles. Look at services like Dish and Direct-TV which offer on-demand in 1080P. Granted, not through the spectrum of their lineup, but its available right this second, today. The time is short until that spectrum will cover all the types of content you could want, and the need for physical digital media only becomes for archival purposes, as it should be. As far as I am concerned, its highly debatable today to even say CD/DVD is the optimum form factor for small/medium range archival needs.


No offence really, but you should read about how Fiber optic communications work before making statements like that. Light is not the bottleneck, nor is the medium. It's the end to end points which take the light signals and transmit/decode it into something useful, and they get better (and more expensive) every year. They also change interface types every year it seems too. When it comes to fiber, "the speed of light" == "the speed of light through a glass fiber, which is truthfully not too much different from what you can get off a Cat5e/Cat6 wiring. The big difference between the two form factors is the amount of bandwidth they can handle. How much bandwidth a piece of fiber can handle has to do with a few key factors:
- your end to end transceivers
- single,multi-mode fiber (multiple paths along the fiber or a single path along the fiber)

These pieces will also set your distance limitations. There are other elements that have a play in this, but these are the main ones. Sorry for the digression, but I wanted to hopefully clear up any ideas you may have had about fiber infrastructure. There is plenty of untapped bandwidth that medium can deliver.

[LinuxFox]

I think CD/DVD media will always be around. Some people, like myself, prefer a physical copy over a digital copy. Though I started buying some music I like as digital downloads occasionally, thanks to some stores being DRM-free. Besides that, I stick with physical copies.

[lisati]

I still have a pile of old VHS tapes, many of which I should digitise as they're the only copy of some stuff I've recorded myself. I generally use DVDs these days, but a couple of local shops still sell blank VHS tapes.

[Zoot7]

The amount of bandwidth needed will be phenomenal and we're already using fibre optics to send signals and nothing travels faster than light

To my knowledge there's a new modulation scheme in the works that will be able to multiply the datarate by quite a bit when it comes to Optic fibres.

[TuckLive]

I feel that cd/dvd media will go out of style, but not obsolete. If it wasn't for movies I believe they would because all software, pictures, etc. is moving towards all downloadable and if you want a physical copy just put it on a flash drive.

[Arup]

I for one would rather see Canonical switch to bootable LIVE USB for distribution. That way they would save on packaging and it lasts much longer. Over a period of using PCs I am yet to come across a CDROM or DVDROM that has lasted me more than a year, only exception was a TEAC 8x burner which lasted for five years with over 2000+ writes.