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LaRoza
October 16th, 2008, 11:51 PM
Technology changes. Over time, parts of it become obsolete. Some aspects will be here for a while (keyboards, of some kind, a mouse like object), but others will be replaced with better and newer things.

One thing is the floppy drive. No computer that is sold pre-built comes with one (and it seems many don't room for it). External USB floppy drives seem to be the norm if one uses them on modern computers (or custom built computers).

The next up for elimination are optical drives. True, it won't happen overnight, but I think they are already on their way out.

They are used for three things it seems, music (and that is on its way out), videos (also on its way out) and software (mostly, proprietary).

I only use my disk drives for installing the OS (and making copies of it to distribute) and very occasionally, watching a movie. Even modern computers are starting to lack drives, netbooks and the MacBook Air. The option to buy an external is present with these products, but I think there is a point. There is no need to carry one around.

So, what is your current use of optical drives?

Feel free to post predictions about their fate, long term and short term :-)

jimi_hendrix
October 16th, 2008, 11:54 PM
did you make this thread because of our macbook air discussion

probably fade out...downloads are becoming more and more popular

brunovecchi
October 16th, 2008, 11:54 PM
I use it for backups mainly, what other options are there? Is there a (mainstream) replacement for that already? Unless there is, I guess that optical drives are going to stick around for some time.

I agree with you though, they are not getting the love they used to.

LaRoza
October 16th, 2008, 11:54 PM
did you make this thread because of our macbook air discussion

Because of? No. I made it after it and reflection on the topic, yes :)

LaRoza
October 16th, 2008, 11:55 PM
I use it for backups mainly, what other options are there? Is there a (mainstream) replacement for that already? Unless there is, I guess that optical drives are going to stick around for some time.

I agree with you though, they are not getting the love they used to.

External hard disks, network storage devices, and remote servers.

However, I do think they will be around for a while, but being part of a system, expecially portable ones, is become less needed.

OutOfReach
October 16th, 2008, 11:56 PM
Well, now that I think about it I never use my optical drive :s, I used to when I was with Windows (installing software) but now the only time that I really use them is when installing Ubuntu or burning CDs (mostly OSs). It's very interesting when you think about how less and less we are using these things.

Now I use things like USB flash drives, the internet, external hard drives for storing/getting information.

Frak
October 16th, 2008, 11:59 PM
I see flash plugs becoming the norm. I can't see myself in 5 years carying a CD everywhere. All OS's will probably be USB3.0 auth-drives that download the OS from the internet.

Anyways, I don't use CD/DVD/Flash drives for backup, I use tape drives.

brunovecchi
October 17th, 2008, 12:00 AM
External hard disks, network storage devices, and remote servers.

However, I do think they will be around for a while, but being part of a system, expecially portable ones, is become less needed.

Last two of your alternatives suffer from privacy issues, and most people do not feel comfortable with them.
External hard disks are a good choice, but they are not widely known/available/adopted. Most casual users rely on DVDs to permanently backup their data.

snova
October 17th, 2008, 12:01 AM
I don't currently use my DVD drive for very much. I installed Ubuntu a while back, and prior to getting a decent connection I used it to install packages off the disk repositories, but the only thing I do anymore is to watch DVD's.

I've noticed that a lot of music is now downloadable (never used it myself, how would I start?) but I can't imagine downloading a movie. What makes you think DVD's are going out?

I use an external HD for backups (when I make them- but I seem fated to delete large quantities of pictures whenever I try, as has happened twice).

I've also noticed a trend toward slot-load drives. So much safer.

Edit: Oh, I use it to rip music CDs. They don't come around my house very often, though I wish I had more.

Edit 2: If I had two computers, I would network them and set up rsync (or something else) to back them up to each other on a regular basis. But I don't, sad to say.

aysiu
October 17th, 2008, 12:04 AM
There was an article yesterday related to this:
Sansa SlotMusic Player: Hot Product Or This Year's Betamax? (http://www.crn.com/it-channel/211200729)

I guess Sandisk thinks music will soon be distributed by microSD cards instead of by CD or download...

KiwiNZ
October 17th, 2008, 12:04 AM
They will evolve and eventually be replaced , but not for at least 10 years

Frak
October 17th, 2008, 12:06 AM
I don't currently use my DVD drive for very much. I installed Ubuntu a while back, and prior to getting a decent connection I used it to install packages off the disk repositories, but the only thing I do anymore is to watch DVD's.

I've noticed that a lot of music is now downloadable (never used it myself, how would I start?) but I can't imagine downloading a movie. What makes you think DVD's are going out?

I use an external HD for backups (when I make them- but I seem fated to delete large quantities of pictures whenever I try, as has happened twice).

I've also noticed a trend toward slot-load drives. So much safer.

Edit: Oh, I use it to rip music CDs. They don't come around my house very often, though I wish I had more.
I see myself downloading movies more and more instead of rushing out to the store, dealing with people (what do ya know, I'm not a people person), getting the movie (and possibly not, since it is a physical medium), having to shuffle around money, get out, then go back home.

Or...

I open iTunes/Amazon/bittorrent/etc. choose my movie, wait around 30 minutes 60 for an HD, (cableone is not that fast suprisingly, only 300KB/s down) and watch it.

earthpigg
October 17th, 2008, 12:06 AM
-easier to make a live cd than a live thumb drive.

-CD-R's are dirt cheap; they fill the role of throwaway scratch paper. want my number? ok, barnapkin. want the video from my vacation? here is a cd-r, and you can even put it in the dvd player grandma! (as opposed to 'loaning' a $15 thumb drive...)

-most modern DVD players can play a data cd containing an .avi file without any special effort on my part. currently, dvd players with usb drives are more pricey.

-idiot proof. john doe retardo is more comfy with a CD-R that you hand him, than with a torrent that is emailed to him containing an .iso.


i think a lot of things should come with both, but they currently both have their place. give me a dirt cheap throwaway solution that plugs into a usb drive and i will be right on board.

with current technology on the market, here is my ideal solution:

one computer with an optical drive per household, everything (everything) else USB.

earthpigg
October 17th, 2008, 12:09 AM
question for those of you that 'rarely' or 'never' use your optical drive... what do you do when you want to give some big file/content to your buddies?

i can toss a cd-r their way and not stress, or i can loan a thumb drive and hope i get it back... but maybe i shouldn't be such a scurrvy deckhand and it wouldn't be a problem.

brunovecchi
October 17th, 2008, 12:10 AM
-easier to make a live cd than a live thumb drive.

-CD-R's are dirt cheap; they fill the role of throwaway scratch paper. want my number? ok, barnapkin. want the video from my vacation? here is a cd-r, and you can even put it in the dvd player grandma! (as opposed to 'loaning' a $15 thumb drive...)

-most modern DVD players can play a data cd containing an .avi file without any special effort on my part. currently, dvd players with usb drives are more pricey.

-idiot proof. is john doe retardo more comfy with a CD-R that you hand him, or a torrent that you email him?


i think a lot of things should come with both, but they currently both have their place. give me a dirt cheap throwaway solution that plugs into a usb drive and i will be right on board.

with current technology on the market, here is my ideal solution:

one computer with an optical drive per household, everything (everything) else USB.

I agree.

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 12:11 AM
They will evolve and eventually be replaced , but not for at least 10 years

I think longer, but I do think they will become less essential on smaller computers quite quickly.

earthpigg
October 17th, 2008, 12:14 AM
I think longer, but I do think they will become less essential on smaller computers quite quickly.

yup. one optical drive per house, preferably an external USB one. everything else should have a USB port. car sterio, tv (think, no buying a seperate dvd player), computers, video game consoles...

snova
October 17th, 2008, 12:15 AM
I see myself downloading movies more and more instead of rushing out to the store, dealing with people (what do ya know, I'm not a people person), getting the movie (and possibly not, since it is a physical medium), having to shuffle around money, get out, then go back home.

Or...

I open iTunes/Amazon/bittorrent/etc. choose my movie, wait around 30 minutes 60 for an HD, (cableone is not that fast suprisingly, only 300KB/s down) and watch it.

Maybe you can do that, but I get 125KB/s or so when I'm lucky. It's much worse the rest of the time, to as low as 5KB/s or even 0.

Flash drives are nice. I have one that holds 2 GB, but I only use it to move things between computers in my house. I use it even less now that my laptop has a connection and I don't have to download everything from another computer.

jimi_hendrix
October 17th, 2008, 12:15 AM
i mainly use my cd drive for games that companies want to make sure i have legally, ripping music, and burning iso's...ocationally a movie

Frak
October 17th, 2008, 12:15 AM
-easier to make a live cd than a live thumb drive.

In the future, there may be utilities to do it for you. Today is the CD burner, tomorrow the Thumb Flasher.


-CD-R's are dirt cheap; they fill the role of throwaway scratch paper. want my number? ok, barnapkin. want the video from my vacation? here is a cd-r, and you can even put it in the dvd player grandma! (as opposed to 'loaning' a $15 thumb drive....

You can either buy a bunch of CD-R's and use them one at a time, or buy one Flash drive and use it forever. Also, Flash speeds blow Optical out of the water (unless you are like me and use SCSI Optical drives).


-most modern DVD players can play a data cd containing an .avi file without any special effort on my part. currently, dvd players with usb drives are more pricey.

I have my DVD player on a network... well, it's my server with a DVD drive...


-idiot proof. is john doe retardo more comfy with a CD-R that you hand him, or a torrent that you email him?

Internet speeds are going up, prices going down, and more households are getting internet access. Transfer it to him.

KiwiNZ
October 17th, 2008, 12:16 AM
I like the idea of them being an add on for Notebooks, if you don't need to use one you don't need to lug it around

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 12:17 AM
yup. one optical drive per house, preferably an external USB one. everything else should have a USB port. car sterio, tv (think, no buying a seperate dvd player), computers, video game consoles...

USB ports should be on everything, even babies born after 2008, if my plan works.

Frak
October 17th, 2008, 12:19 AM
USB ports should be on everything, even babies born after 2008, if my plan works.
As I can tell from your pic, you have already done your part ;)

snova
October 17th, 2008, 12:20 AM
Flash drives might get cheaper if they didn't all have to include a USB controller. If somebody could find a way to move that to the computer via a special kind of port so that the device itself was nothing more than storage and a few wires. Like SD.

I know new interfaces stink, but how else would you do it? USB requires infrastructure on both ends.

jimi_hendrix
October 17th, 2008, 12:21 AM
i think flash drives might replace CD's...but a new piece of software? plug in the flash drive it came on and install it.

Frak
October 17th, 2008, 12:27 AM
Flash drives might get cheaper if they didn't all have to include a USB controller. If somebody could find a way to move that to the computer via a special kind of port so that the device itself was nothing more than storage and a few wires. Like SD.

I know new interfaces stink, but how else would you do it? USB requires infrastructure on both ends.
Wireless USB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_USB) is in the works; it is based on UWB (created by Freescale, the PPC creators for Apple G4's and G5's). They are working on a way for a WUSB to be implemented into the Motherboard so wireless devices such as flash could mount without any wire hassles. The bandwidth should be the same as Bluetooth 3 since they both use UWB (though, different protocols).

snova
October 17th, 2008, 12:31 AM
I was thinking about that a minute ago. Just take a black stick and put it on a particular spot on the computer, and it wirelessly attaches itself to access it.

But this is potentially even worse- because now you need a controller and a transmitter. Not to mention a battery. I'd like to reduce complexity as much as possible by putting only the minimum on the device, so that they can get as cheap as disks are.

gn2
October 17th, 2008, 12:31 AM
I used to have a Toshiba Portege 3440CT laptop, it was first sold in 2000 and an external cardbus optical drive was an optional extra, so the concept of an ultra portable laptop without an optical drive isn't really a new thing.

I only use optical drives/media extremely rarely, less than once a fortnight.

The optical drive will eventually go the same way as the Floppy, I've thought this for a while now.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=5641166

samjh
October 17th, 2008, 12:36 AM
I mainly use it to burn Linux distro ISOs, and to watch movies or listen to CDs.

For backups, I switched to flash drives a long time ago. Better value for money. :)

Frak
October 17th, 2008, 12:38 AM
I was thinking about that a minute ago. Just take a black stick and put it on a particular spot on the computer, and it wirelessly attaches itself to access it.

But this is potentially even worse- because now you need a controller and a transmitter. Not to mention a battery. I'd like to reduce complexity as much as possible by putting only the minimum on the device, so that they can get as cheap as disks are.
UWB uses an incredibly low amount of power, so the theory is that it can be charged on a computer that does not have WUSB, and it can go for weeks on end without a charge on WUSB, maybe more. It also does not continuously send out a keepalive, it will only respond when it is called upon; the master (the controller) sends out a ping, and the devices pong.

earthpigg
October 17th, 2008, 12:42 AM
You can either buy a bunch of CD-R's and use them one at a time, or buy one Flash drive and use it forever.

i can only have my one flash drive on loan to one person at a time :)



Also, Flash speeds blow Optical out of the water (unless you are like me and use SCSI Optical drives).


no doubt, there is a time and place for both. as i said, once i can get a throw away fire-and-forget flash storage device for $0.25 per 700 megs... i will be all over it.



I have my DVD player on a network... well, it's my server with a DVD drive...


in my ideal situation, that is the only optical drive anyone will have. college dorms can come with one optical drive per floor, for example.



Internet speeds are going up, prices going down, and more households are getting internet access. Transfer it to him.

that doesn't work for grandma :) she has cd-r's containing family pictures and such i made for her all mixed in with her old school photo albums. she puts them in her "dee-vee-dee" player and looks at them like that.

throwaway dime-a-dozen CD-R's are much more backwards compatable (in terms of older people, not older hardware) than pure data solutions.

Sponzenbroekske
October 17th, 2008, 12:52 AM
-easier to make a live cd than a live thumb drive.

-CD-R's are dirt cheap; they fill the role of throwaway scratch paper. want my number? ok, barnapkin. want the video from my vacation? here is a cd-r, and you can even put it in the dvd player grandma! (as opposed to 'loaning' a $15 thumb drive...)


-idiot proof. john doe retardo is more comfy with a CD-R that you hand him, than with a torrent that is emailed to him containing an .iso.



Well you could mail it to grandma or post it on site, thats often even cheaper then a cd.

An about John, he'll probably get used to the idea of a .iso, and actually, the poll is proving that CD are fading and .iso maybe too, unless you run it a virtual drive.

So I to follow the opinion that optical drives are going the same way that a diskette went.

MaxIBoy
October 17th, 2008, 12:53 AM
Optical drives aren't going anywhere. True, DVDs are replacing CDs, and Blu-Ray is replacing DVDs, but optical disks are still important. Furthermore, until Blu-Ray disks cost less then $2 per disk, (currently they cost $20 per disk,) the current batch of technologies are here to stay as well.

Remember, any medium which uses reflectivity, polarity, lensing, or opacity to store information is optical.


Don't forget the 30-gig holographic disks which are very close to going on the market.



I fully believe that magnetic media are on their way out, more so than optical media. Magnetic media will be replaced by optical and solid-state media.

yabbadabbadont
October 17th, 2008, 01:03 AM
I still have (and occasionally use) 5-1/4" floppies. I use 3-1/2" floppies more frequently (custom boot disks for various tasks). I use optical media for archival storage quite often. I even have a Syquest SparQ drive (parallel port version) that I play with now and then. In fact, I had an old data CD go bad on me not too long ago and I was able to recover all the files from one of my old SparQ cartridges. :D

However, as optical standards change over time, I think that the older formats will gradually fade away.

schauerlich
October 17th, 2008, 01:05 AM
I only use them for burning Linux .isos, the occasional music CD to bring out to the car, and every once in a while to import music onto my laptop. Other than that, not really. I prefer my 4GB flash drive.

SunnyRabbiera
October 17th, 2008, 01:17 AM
I personally think CD's, DVD's and other mediums like them will stay around for a long time personally.
People will still want a portable format yes but I think it will be some time before flash drives become a standard.
I actually I hope they dont, you know the big companies will conspire to make a flash drive impossible to play without signing a 300 page EULA and Windows 7 Super supreme expensive edition service pack 3.

SuperSonic4
October 17th, 2008, 01:28 AM
I reckon they will stay around for a while but will evolve in parallel to the DVD route. I can buy blu-ray drives to play blu-ray on my pc. I can even get write support with enough funds. So long as optical media is used anywhere (cd, dvd, blu-ray etc...) optical drives will remain but fade into obscurity much like floppy discs today

Frak
October 17th, 2008, 01:59 AM
A bit off topic, but you know that the Blu-Ray interest group (basically Sony alone) has no mandates to backwards compatibility, but encourages it while the DVD Forum mandates that all new DVD standards force backwards compatibility.

And this is why many techies wanted HD-DVD instead of Blu-Ray. They both have the same rates, only HD-DVD had lower capacity to retain compatibility.

/offtopic

Old_Grey_Wolf
October 17th, 2008, 02:00 AM
I have a lot of VCR tapes that I am transferring to DVD. For example, I have over 25 years of "Doctor Who" tapes that were recorded when they were broadcast over-the-air. These are for my personal use. That is a lot of disk space. Why DVD rather than a Hard Disk storage? Simple, DVDs don't suffer from the loss of data due to Hard Disk crashes.

If you could get memory storage, like thumb drives, for the same cost per GB then I would consider them.

earthpigg
October 17th, 2008, 02:09 AM
I have a lot of VCR tapes that I am transferring to DVD. For example, I have over 25 years of "Doctor Who" tapes that were recorded when they were broadcast over-the-air. These are for my personal use. That is a lot of disk space. Why DVD rather than a Hard Disk storage? Simple, DVDs don't suffer from the loss of data due to Hard Disk crashes.

If you could get memory storage, like thumb drives, for the same cost per GB then I would consider them.

good call. my starcraft cd still works.

Frak
October 17th, 2008, 02:09 AM
I have a lot of VCR tapes that I am transferring to DVD. For example, I have over 25 years of "Doctor Who" tapes that were recorded when they were broadcast over-the-air. These are for my personal use. That is a lot of disk space. Why DVD rather than a Hard Disk storage? Simple, DVDs don't suffer from the loss of data due to Hard Disk crashes.

If you could get memory storage, like thumb drives, for the same cost per GB then I would consider them.
I still say use a tape archive. With good compression (.tar/.tar.gz/.tar.bz2) you can store terabytes of data on them.

earthpigg
October 17th, 2008, 02:11 AM
he cant loan his tape archive to his buddies with any hope of them playing it on their dvd player :)

linux_lover69
October 17th, 2008, 02:13 AM
The only time I use it is to install my operating system. Which isn't very much. And also tape archives take forever to use.

Frak
October 17th, 2008, 02:14 AM
he cant loan his tape archive to his buddies with any hope of them playing it on their dvd player :)
Not too amazing on speed either, but I have a personal tape I use for my personal network that still isn't full after around 30 backups. (4.6TB of data)
Oh, and it took 3 days to format. Lose speed for capacity.

Sinkingships7
October 17th, 2008, 02:16 AM
They are used for three things it seems, music (and that is on its way out), videos (also on its way out) and software (mostly, proprietary).


I would like to know what you mean by music being on its way out. I'm assuming you mean that CD's won't be made anymore, which is something I don't really believe to be true.

Old_Grey_Wolf
October 17th, 2008, 02:25 AM
he cant loan his tape archive to his buddies with any hope of them playing it on their dvd player :)

If this reply is suggesting that I transfer my Personal Use tapes to DVD in order to share them then I must correct you. The DVDs and the tapes are for my personal use only. I am not a Pirate.

If your intentions were otherwise then ignor this post.

SuperSonic4
October 17th, 2008, 02:25 AM
We can only hope not. For if the iTunes store gains a near monopoly those of us who want music will have to buy in physical form. The iTunes store is already pushing me this way. *stops here before a DRM rant*

wersdaluv
October 17th, 2008, 02:27 AM
I use my optical drive to burn CD's so that I can play my songs in the car and to burn Linux ISOs.

dagoth_pie
October 17th, 2008, 02:30 AM
I rip music off my cds, and use it for burning iso etc, although I think I use my floppy disc drive more regularly...

earthpigg
October 17th, 2008, 02:33 AM
If this reply is suggesting that I transfer my Personal Use tapes to DVD in order to share them then I must correct you. The DVDs and the tapes are for my personal use only. I am not a Pirate.

If your intentions were otherwise then ignor this post.

...you are allowed to loan your DVDs or other media to your buddy. that is not pirating.

he isn't allowed to copy them, and you aren't allowed to loan it to him knowing that is his intent.

but you can still loan tapes, clothes, dvds, your car, paperback books, and CDs to your friends...

sharing is caring :)

gn2
October 17th, 2008, 10:17 AM
Why DVD rather than a Hard Disk storage? Simple, DVDs don't suffer from the loss of data due to Hard Disk crashes.

Which can be avoided by having two copies of everything on two separated hard drives.

Two copies on two optical discs will both suffer degradation over time.

billgoldberg
October 17th, 2008, 10:56 AM
Technology changes. Over time, parts of it become obsolete. Some aspects will be here for a while (keyboards, of some kind, a mouse like object), but others will be replaced with better and newer things.

One thing is the floppy drive. No computer that is sold pre-built comes with one (and it seems many don't room for it). External USB floppy drives seem to be the norm if one uses them on modern computers (or custom built computers).

The next up for elimination are optical drives. True, it won't happen overnight, but I think they are already on their way out.

They are used for three things it seems, music (and that is on its way out), videos (also on its way out) and software (mostly, proprietary).

I only use my disk drives for installing the OS (and making copies of it to distribute) and very occasionally, watching a movie. Even modern computers are starting to lack drives, netbooks and the MacBook Air. The option to buy an external is present with these products, but I think there is a point. There is no need to carry one around.

So, what is your current use of optical drives?

Feel free to post predictions about their fate, long term and short term :-)

I only use it to burn iso and boot from them and to burn audio cd's for a friend that doesn't have a computer.

--

I don't see any future for optical media besides movies/games and that can change rapidly.

Face it, cd's became popular because the music was released on it and because it was easy to tranfer data in the time of the 3gb hdd and pre-flash drives era.

Today media is transfered using flash drives, the internet, ... and music is played from digital machines with harddrives or from flash drives and bought or downloaded free of charge from the internet.

Even in car radios, people are using flash drives to play music.

Cd's are dead, dvd and blurays will follow soon enough.

billgoldberg
October 17th, 2008, 11:03 AM
If this reply is suggesting that I transfer my Personal Use tapes to DVD in order to share them then I must correct you. The DVDs and the tapes are for my personal use only. I am not a Pirate.

If your intentions were otherwise then ignor this post.

Loaning dvd's too friends is a normal usage of the media.

hessiess
October 17th, 2008, 11:10 AM
so long as ms windows lacks a package manager for installing programs, CD's will exist. they are an easy way for companys to distribute propiaterry programs. i know everybody here is into open source, but the majority of the world dosent even know it exists. the world isnt going to change overnight;)

pearsonally i only use them for installing OS's, backups are done by syncing my HDD's with unison. as I have switched to arch, a rolling distro, i dont expect to need to install anouther OS for some time.

the only outher thing i use optical media for is buying music. as its the only way to obtain music in a relativity uncompressed from. MP3 sounds ****, FLAC and ogg is rare on-line.

Paqman
October 17th, 2008, 11:27 AM
On my desktop the optical drive gets used fairly regularly. Between various LiveCD tools, installing, ripping music and playing games it keeps the dust off it.

On the laptop it mostly gets used for watching DVDs and installing. The lack of an optical drive in netbooks is what's put me off getting one.

smoker
October 17th, 2008, 11:33 AM
the sooner they go the way of the floppy the better, there are better more efficient, and more environmentally friendly ways to deal with data.

i suppose though we'll have to wait until whatever standards authority dictates what is more preferable across the wide range of uses a replacement would be used for. whatever was decided would soon become as economical as cds are at present.

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 12:07 PM
And this is why many techies wanted HD-DVD instead of Blu-Ray. They both have the same rates, only HD-DVD had lower capacity to retain compatibility.

/offtopic

Besides the DRM issues with both, Blu-Ray uses Java, HD-DVD had Microsoft's CLI as part of the standard. Blu-Ray got my support by default.



I would like to know what you mean by music being on its way out. I'm assuming you mean that CD's won't be made anymore, which is something I don't really believe to be true.

Look at the numbers.

Lord DarkPat
October 17th, 2008, 12:08 PM
LaRoza, your new netbook is taking over you

Sinkingships7
October 17th, 2008, 01:07 PM
Look at the numbers.


I kinda see where you're coming from, but I believe that everyone will always want some kind of physical medium to store their music.

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 01:51 PM
I kinda see where you're coming from, but I believe that everyone will always want some kind of physical medium to store their music.

Yes, but not neccessarily CD's.

t0p
October 17th, 2008, 02:20 PM
After reading this thread and thinking about it for a bit, I have surprised myself by realizing that I don't use my machine's cd/dvd drive much at all any more. I use cds for back-ups, and I use it when I install a new version of ubuntu. I sometime watch movie dvds on it. And I use live cds from time to time. But that's about it.

I own a few audio cds, but the vast majority of my music is in mp3 format downloaded from the internet. I watch some movies and tv shows streamed over the internet. My software is all Free, downloaded for the internet.

The only times I buy new discs is for back-ups (cdrws) and when I buy a movie dvd. For short-term storage purposes, like when I want to take some files to a friend's house and his computer is off-line, I use usb sticks or maybe a sd card (my eeepc and my camera take sd cards, and I also have a multi-card reader (sd/compactflash/whatever) that connects to my computer via usb.

My desktop machine also has a floppy drive, though I have never used the thing!

Sealbhach
October 17th, 2008, 02:24 PM
I hardly ever use it except to rip music and install an OS.

It's now possible to boot an OS from a USB drive, so that leaves only the music collection...


.

handy
October 17th, 2008, 02:30 PM
I have hundreds of movies on DVD's & no other way to view them than via computer, so I will be using suitable optical drives for a long time. I'm not about to load all the DVD's onto a NAS drive & if I did I still need the original disks as backup DVD's. I trust my data to optical media far more than to a HDD.

I don't have a fast enough internet connection to contemplate downloading my movies, though that will change in the coming years, (one way or another) though I will not be subscribing to a pay/view scheme.

I backup to optical media, which I also trust more than the various types of non-volatile memory sticks, chips, cards & what have you that are available.

I am happy with optical media as it is, I am not interested in Blue-Ray or whatever other DRM laden format's of optical storage become available, I am satisfied with the CD/DVD technology that I have at the moment.

I will have to keep watch on the market & purchase a DVD burner for continued future use, before there are only Blue-Ray type models available, though I should have a couple of years before Blue-Ray free DVD burners become extinct. Though the computer hardware market can change very fast.

TBOL3
October 17th, 2008, 03:29 PM
I think it's a toss up between optical drives, and hard drives. At the moment, optical drives are loosing, because SSDs are tiny. But if we can make bigger SSDs, then harddrives are the first to go. Also, optical drives still have some time, do to blueray. But, if they fail to keep improving, then they will be on their way out as well.

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 03:46 PM
I think it is also a conceptual thing.

Spinning disks with marks in them read by something skinny is an ancient schema. It is like the internal combustion engine, magnetic tapes, etc. It will have its place, but they shouldn't be so widespread.

CD's work, but they are not the best for everything they are currently used for. The first would be portable personal data. Flash drives rule in this area. CD's supplanted floppies, flash supplanted CD's. Next, may be media. This will need flash storage to be less costly, which may take a while.

Canis familiaris
October 17th, 2008, 03:53 PM
I don't think Optical Drives would ever be phased out. Optical Disks particularly DVDs are too cheap and ideal for backups

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 03:54 PM
I don't think Optical Drives would ever be phased out. Optical Disks particularly DVDs are too cheap and ideal for backups

No, I don't think they will be phased out entirely. I think they will be regulated to where they are best suited, like the magnetic tape storage that has gone before it.

Canis familiaris
October 17th, 2008, 03:59 PM
No, I don't think they will be phased out entirely. I think they will be regulated to where they are best suited, like the magnetic tape storage that has gone before it.
But Magnetic Storage have been literally phased out of normal consumers. I doubt Optical drives would go that way.
Yes I agree they are best suited for casual backups but seriously Optical drives (read CD/DVDs) are just so cheap that you can casually distribute free/freeware software with to friends but I really doubt SSDs would be so much as economical as Optical Disks for casual and mass distribution.

pp.
October 17th, 2008, 04:26 PM
I buy works of art (music and movies) on optical media. My oldest CDs are about as old as they can possibly be and can still be read by modern devices. But then, those are pressed and not burned, which accounts for their durability.

I have been known to buy software on optical media, such as SuSe 6.x through 9.x.

I use optical media for moving digital data of any description to people with uncertain skills or equipment or both.

I also use such media to make backups of my backup systems.

Lastly, I use them for installing operating systems.

I can well do without an optical drive in my mobile devices but insist in having at least two working drives in the household.

Back when I used Windows at home I also had to use the optical drive for installing the device drivers that came with new devices.

Gvsurunner22
October 17th, 2008, 04:31 PM
People called my crazy when i purchased the IBM X41 tablet(no optical drive) back in 2004. Optical media cant get out fast enough. Good luck to Blu Ray because their media is going to get replaced by streaming/VOD services.

kthxbye

billgoldberg
October 17th, 2008, 04:40 PM
I kinda see where you're coming from, but I believe that everyone will always want some kind of physical medium to store their music.

I don't own a single cd.

All my music is downloaded.

I have a backup on an external hdd.

If I want to listen to music on my radio, I use a flash drive.

No need of cd's.

paul101
October 17th, 2008, 05:40 PM
i use SD cards or usb pens for music


why?... most modern cd radios of "hi-fi"'s come with usb ports or sd card slots. even some cars have them. it is allot easier to download off of i-tunes and stick it on to a usb drive or sd card

discs get scatched too easily, and by todays standards are fairly bulky

if i do use disks. i use the half-size dvd disks (theyre smaller)

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 05:42 PM
i use the half-size dvd disks (theyre smaller)

No kidding?!

A half sized disks is smaller? Say it ain't so...

paul101
October 17th, 2008, 05:51 PM
No kidding?!

A half sized disks is smaller? Say it ain't so...


it was for the slow minded or "special" ;)

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 06:05 PM
it was for the slow minded or "special" ;)

Well, it could also be confused for "half capacity".

Sinkingships7
October 17th, 2008, 06:06 PM
In regards to the downloading of digital music and storing it on a flash device or hard drive...

I just don't think that can happen when speaking in terms of the world standard. When an artist puts out a CD, the content is at what we call a 'lossless' form. This means almost nothing for the majority of people, but audiophiles thrive on this kind of quality. In its lossless format, audio tracks (for the average 4 minute song) is anywhere between 20MB to 30MB. When you download music from an online retailer like Amazon or iTunes, you're downloading a compressed version of the song, with the size usually hovering around the 4-6MB range.

For the people who enjoy lossless audio, it's much more practical to buy a CD, instead of downloading 300MB or so of music per album. So what happens to them? I realize that this point may be null because of the audiophile to non-audiophile ratio, but certainly it's somewhat of an issue?

Also, storing media on a hard drive is a lot less safe than storing it on an optical CD. Magnetism just isn't as stable (not yet, at least).

mips
October 17th, 2008, 06:33 PM
I think optical drives will be around for a long time, Blu-ray will be the next one.

Not everybody lives in a country with high speed internet access, the majority of people still have slow internet access. This makes downloading large amounts of data from the net virtually impossible. In this case it is easier to share stuff via cd/dvd. In my case it is actually cheaper to go and buy a DVD from a brick & mortar store as the cost of downloading it will exceed the store price (Can you imagine bluray media?). I recently purchased CS:S from Steam store online but I did not download the content as it would have taken 18hrs and the cost in bandwidth would have exceeded the purchase price by far. So I just copied a friends DVD and it was quicker & cheaper.

I do not want to pay for compressed/lossy media either. I expect the full quality when I purchase a product.

I don't watch movies on my pc LCD as I prefer to watch them on TV. Same goes for my music, I did not invest all the cash in a good sound system just to play mp3's on it. Yes I do listen to mp3 stuff at times on my PC but I prefer my HT system. I know FLAC is an option but the files are still relatively large.

The future in my eye for optical media is bright ;)

mips
October 17th, 2008, 06:38 PM
For the people who enjoy lossless audio, it's much more practical to buy a CD, instead of downloading 300MB or so of music per album. So what happens to them? I realize that this point may be null because of the audiophile to non-audiophile ratio, but certainly it's somewhat of an issue?


+1

Trust me, we will be around for a long time. The transport/amp/speaker business is a big one and has grown over many years.

Forcing lossy media on people is kinda stupid and I don't see it working. If it is the case we could all just get along with cheap crappy equipment. We might as well get rid of dvd/bluray/HD etc and be satisfied with avi/mp3 quality stuff.

mips
October 17th, 2008, 06:49 PM
Which can be avoided by having two copies of everything on two separated hard drives.


Not always, if they are in the same machine or the same power feed you could loose both with lightning or the like.

cookieofdoom
October 17th, 2008, 06:55 PM
I use optical to install operating systems, rip music, and occasionally to distribute files. Usually I'm on the receiving end of any data being distributed by means of optical media.

EDIT: I also occasionally watch DVD's on optical media, but I've only done that on the computer once in the last year or so.

pp.
October 17th, 2008, 07:36 PM
I do not want to pay for compressed/lossy media either. I expect the full quality when I purchase a product.

I think this argument rather funny, given that in the CD format some heavy losses already have occurred. In other words, the audio quality on a CD is not by far as good as people will have it. A more modern medium would bring the chance to improve the quality of the distributed audio by a very comfortable margin.

Not that this will happen very soon. A CD is a very cheap thing to produce if it can be pressed, much cheaper than - say - a flash which must be serially written to.

mips
October 17th, 2008, 07:43 PM
I think this argument rather funny, given that in the CD format some heavy losses already have occurred. In other words, the audio quality on a CD is not by far as good as people will have it. A more modern medium would bring the chance to improve the quality of the distributed audio by a very comfortable margin.

](*,)

There is no 'more modern media' that I can choose from, so for now CD, SACD & DVD-Audio would be the highest standard and the latter two being hard to come by.

If there was someting better then I would use it so I don't really see how this argument is funny in any way.

gn2
October 17th, 2008, 07:50 PM
I think this argument rather funny, given that in the CD format some heavy losses already have occurred.

And played on the vast majority of hardware, the vast majority of people simply will not be able to tell the difference.

Same goes for CD versus a decent .mp3 file.
Played on most audio equipment, most people can't tell any difference.

mips
October 17th, 2008, 07:52 PM
Same goes for CD versus a decent .mp3 file.


Most people don't know how to do a decent mp3 rip if you ask me.

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 07:55 PM
I think this argument rather funny, given that in the CD format some heavy losses already have occurred. In other words, the audio quality on a CD is not by far as good as people will have it.

I think the bottleneck, so to speak, would be in the speakers, not the recording.

I have heard CD's on rather expensive sound systems, and they were much better than my headphones or the speakers I have available. Considering that system cost over $1000, I don't think the quality of the medium is the issue for most people.

mips
October 17th, 2008, 08:03 PM
I have heard CD's on rather expensive sound systems, and they were much better than my headphones or the speakers I have available. Considering that system cost over $1000, I don't think the quality of the medium is the issue for most people.

My system is not the best out there as I have heard better. In the world of audio $1000 is peanuts for most audiophiles out there but it is a better start than some cheap hi-fi boom boxes from a general store.

I suppose it is one of those things if you have not heard, tasted etc. better then you would not know there is anything better or care for that matter.

My friends used to play their music through really crappy pc speakers that sounded really bad but it was good to them. One day they asked me if they could hook their cheapo home theatre 5.1 system up to the PC as they were no longer using it. I said sure and hooked everything up for them in 5.1 surround. They were blown away and very happy. To me it was MUCH better but still not great. Now at least they notice the difference between crap .mp3's and not so crap ones :)

pp.
October 17th, 2008, 08:17 PM
](*,)

There is no 'more modern media' that I can choose from

Nearly any truly digital medium might do, provided it used a higher quality encoding than that used on CDs. So: yes, there are media which have the capability to exceed the quality of a CD. No, there aren't any commercially available ones I am aware of which actually do this.

Besides, there appears to be a more recent CD encoding which promises a higher audio quality.


I think the bottleneck, so to speak, would be in the speakers, not the recording.

I have heard CD's on rather expensive sound systems, and they were much better than my headphones or the speakers I have available. Considering that system cost over $1000, I don't think the quality of the medium is the issue for most people.

In theory, the electro/acoustical conversion ought to be the main culprit. However, the recording on many commercial CDs is already plagued by defects and artifacts which can be heard.

There are systems which cost less than USD 1000 with which you can hear differences in the quality of recordings. And it may come as a surprise to many that a good set of moderately priced headphones can give a better listening experience than many expensive speakers driven by expensive amplifiers.

However, given the kind of music many members of this forum listen to, the point is really moot.

Paqman
October 17th, 2008, 08:32 PM
For music I definitely prefer to buy CDs. Albums are basically the same price whether you download or buy the disk, and you get a top-quality lossless backup for your trouble. If I want a low-quality digital copy I can rip it into the compressed format of my choice. You just don't have as much freedom with downloaded tunes, and you have to back them up yourself (call me lazy).

Downloads are useful for grabbing single tracks, but for albums I reckon you're way better off buying the CD.

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 08:37 PM
However, given the kind of music many members of this forum listen to, the point is really moot.

I think every genre has "many" listeners on this forum, so I can't tell what kind of music you are thinking of.

SuperSonic4
October 17th, 2008, 08:42 PM
i use SD cards or usb pens for music


why?... most modern cd radios of "hi-fi"'s come with usb ports or sd card slots. even some cars have them. it is allot easier to download off of i-tunes and stick it on to a usb drive or sd card

discs get scatched too easily, and by todays standards are fairly bulky

if i do use disks. i use the half-size dvd disks (theyre smaller)

iTunes DRM is not Linux friendly, it would be a catastrophe if iTunes was allowed to monopolise the digital download more than it already does. Much as I would love it to amazon.co.uk doesn't offer downloads and I'm not special enough to get the American stuff.

I keep an expansive collection of CD music because it is more portable than my pc and the technology is widespread enough to know that it will work.

earthpigg
October 17th, 2008, 08:55 PM
super duper audiophiles will continue to use vinyl (cuz they never switched to CD in the first place)... i ~guess~ we could call that 'optical' media...

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 09:00 PM
iTunes DRM is not Linux friendly, it would be a catastrophe if iTunes was allowed to monopolise the digital download more than it already does. Much as I would love it to amazon.co.uk doesn't offer downloads and I'm not special enough to get the American stuff.


I think DRM is doomed to fail in the long term.

Oh, in the USA (at least) Amazon offers DRM free downloads and even supports Ubuntu.

kevdog
October 17th, 2008, 09:05 PM
Just because something isnt used a lot does not mean it is not useful. Maybe I'm in the minority, however whenever I build computers from scratch (about 1 every 2-3 years), I always purchase a floppy drive (or currently Fujitsu combo drive that has a floppy drive with multicard reader).

Although Grub is extremely useful for rescuing a computer (need an optical drive for this if you can't boot USB), so is a Win98 boot disk. Just because some tricks are old, doesn't mean they fade away because they are invalid.

SuperSonic4
October 17th, 2008, 09:07 PM
I think DRM is doomed to fail in the long term.

Oh, in the USA (at least) Amazon offers DRM free downloads and even supports Ubuntu.

I checked Amazon UK and they don't :( so for now its 7digital or physical media (or just stream them). Let's hope DRM fails :]

CrazyArcher
October 17th, 2008, 09:09 PM
I don't think that optical drives are going anywhere in the near future. DVD-R's are my main means of backup and long-term storage. I think that in a few years Blu-Ray media and burners will fall in price to the level of DVD and become affordable, and that would be nice too. An average 72-sleeve folder would contain around 3 terabytes of data - well, that's nice.

rune0077
October 17th, 2008, 09:11 PM
Besides the DRM issues with both, Blu-Ray uses Java, HD-DVD had Microsoft's CLI as part of the standard. Blu-Ray got my support by default.


The porn-industry is going blue-ray as well, which means HD-DVD will go the way of the betamax. And let's face it, as long as the porn industry keeps making movies on blue-ray, there will be optical drives around, no doubt about it. They have always been the deciding factor in what mediums are usedŽin peoples homes. Once porn starts shipping on flash drives, we may see an end to the optical drive, but until then, it's here to stay.

rune0077
October 17th, 2008, 09:14 PM
iTunes DRM is not Linux friendly, it would be a catastrophe if iTunes was allowed to monopolise the digital download more than it already does. Much as I would love it to amazon.co.uk doesn't offer downloads and I'm not special enough to get the American stuff.

I keep an expansive collection of CD music because it is more portable than my pc and the technology is widespread enough to know that it will work.

iTunes sells non-DRM music, and has been doing so for quite a while, it just costs extra. You can buy anything from iTunes as DRM or as non-DRM. Amazon's non-DRM is still cheaper, though.

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 09:18 PM
I checked Amazon UK and they don't :( so for now its 7digital or physical media (or just stream them). Let's hope DRM fails :]

That is because the UK is too small to matter. (Joking, sort of)


The porn-industry is going blue-ray as well, which means HD-DVD will go the way of the betamax.
Interesting, but that isn't the reason. The reason why HD-DVD is dead is because Toshiba stopped manufacturing players and supporting the format. HD-DVD is already dead, no matter what format anyone uses.



And let's face it, as long as the porn industry keeps making movies on blue-ray, there will be optical drives around, no doubt about it.
Obsessed with porn? It has nothing to do with it ;)



They have always been the deciding factor in what mediums are usedŽin peoples homes. Once porn starts shipping on flash drives, we may see an end to the optical drive, but until then, it's here to stay.
You shouldn't be an economist.

aaaantoine
October 17th, 2008, 09:20 PM
I like the idea of them being an add on for Notebooks, if you don't need to use one you don't need to lug it around

Agreed.

Otherwise it's still important enough to me that I should have a DVD burner in my possession somewhere.

In my laptop, I use the optical drive to...

1. Perform a clean install. (although, I'm going to upgrade to 8.10 instead of doing a clean install).
2. Burn ISOs.
3. Burn video DVDs of home movies and such.
4. Rip music from audio CDs.
5. Watch movies (don't have enough storage to rip them).
6. Install and play older proprietary games.

mips
October 17th, 2008, 09:27 PM
Just because something isnt used a lot does not mean it is not useful. Maybe I'm in the minority, however whenever I build computers from scratch (about 1 every 2-3 years), I always purchase a floppy drive (or currently Fujitsu combo drive that has a floppy drive with multicard reader).

Although Grub is extremely useful for rescuing a computer (need an optical drive for this if you can't boot USB), so is a Win98 boot disk. Just because some tricks are old, doesn't mean they fade away because they are invalid.

+1

Same here.

rune0077
October 17th, 2008, 09:32 PM
Interesting, but that isn't the reason. The reason why HD-DVD is dead is because Toshiba stopped manufacturing players and supporting the format. HD-DVD is already dead, no matter what format anyone uses.


It actually has a lot to do with it. It's almost a natural law in the entertainment industry, that if you will see what formats and media becomes popular for the next ten years, you look first and foremost to the porn industry. Television and the rest of Hollywood has always done that (again, look at the VHS vs Betamax).

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 09:35 PM
It actually has a lot to do with it. It's almost a natural law in the entertainment industry, that if you will see what formats and media becomes popular for the next ten years, you look first and foremost to the porn industry. Television and the rest of Hollywood has always done that (again, look at the VHS vs Betamax).

The turning point was Warner Bros. stopping support for HD-DVD. Does WB sell porn?

Netflix, Best Buy's, and Wal-Mart also supported Blu-Ray over HD-DVD, neither of those sell porn. Wal-Mart is also the #1 retailer of DVD's in the USA. BlockBuster stopped support for HD-DVD before all of them, when it found most rentals were Blu-Ray.

It was this that killed HD-DVD, not the porn industry.

Paqman
October 17th, 2008, 09:47 PM
It was this that killed HD-DVD, not the porn industry.

I agree, but the porn industry does have a very large influence on media formats. A lot of the innovation in content on DVDs (multiple camera angles, etc) was driven by the filthmongers.

To say that they've also been instrumental in building the internet as we know it also goes without saying.

Frak
October 17th, 2008, 09:50 PM
The turning point was Warner Bros. stopping support for HD-DVD. Does WB sell porn?

Netflix, Best Buy's, and Wal-Mart also supported Blu-Ray over HD-DVD, neither of those sell porn. Wal-Mart is also the #1 retailer of DVD's in the USA. BlockBuster stopped support for HD-DVD before all of them, when it found most rentals were Blu-Ray.

It was this that killed HD-DVD, not the porn industry.
I think it was because HD-DVD sounds bleh, while Blu-Ray sounds bad*ss

Sinkingships7
October 17th, 2008, 10:08 PM
When did this thread become about porn? O_o

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 10:14 PM
When did this thread become about porn? O_o

Danes...

earthpigg
October 17th, 2008, 10:17 PM
When did this thread become about porn? O_o

you are reading this thread on the internet.

by default, it was about porn.

or havent you been paying attention? :)

pp.
October 17th, 2008, 10:18 PM
When did this thread become about porn? O_o

The optical drive of humans is second only to their sex drive?

LaRoza
October 17th, 2008, 10:25 PM
The optical drive of humans is second only to their sex drive?

No pun about hard drives?

toupeiro
October 17th, 2008, 10:30 PM
mmm Verdict is out right now for me.

Streaming Television and movies are improving by leaps and bounds, however it will take a long time IMO to offset the mainstream set-top DVD/Blu-Ray box infrastructure that exists for videos today.

For computers, I would probably feel more confident in casting a vote towards Optical drives being on their way out, but I still think its a ways away. Solid-state Flash storage such as USB keychains are becoming incredibly dense. The largest one I have is 8GB. More than large enough to suppliment a single layer DVD sized image for data. Almost any somewhat modern BIOS can boot to a USB device. Even the Mobo of my system that I am currently on which is coming up to 3 years old can do so. At VMWorld 2008, for example, many companies were handing out USB-keys rather than CD's or flyers with their product information. I thought this was a progressive change.

That being said, Optical media continues to get denser and denser, and it has a fantastic shelf life if handled properly. As capacity capabilities increase, I could see Optical media offseting tape media as a form of WORM media. WORM media is slowly fading in todays backup worlds with VTL/Spinning disk, but depending on data classification, there will always be a requirement to have a WORM offline copy. I HATE, HATE, HATE tape media. Its so horribly unreliable. I'd love to see optical media replace this. It would still need quite a bit of development to do so, however. Current LTO-4 media can do 500GB uncompressed / 1TB compressed per tape.

As long as optical media can continue to develop as it has, and remain inexpensive, I still see its place in computing, but I do believe many of its current day uses will have much better alternatives in the next 3-5 years.

beno1990
October 17th, 2008, 10:46 PM
I still use optical drives frequently; though nearly always DVD now. I only use CDs for music anymore. I even backup my server data to DVDs.

smoker
October 17th, 2008, 11:53 PM
...At VMWorld 2008, for example, many companies were handing out USB-keys rather than CD's or flyers with their product information. I thought this was a progressive change...

the past few events i've attended usb sticks have been handed out like sweets, at least you can delete the advertising crap on them when you get home and reuse or hand them on, whereas the cds would end up as coasters :)

earthpigg
October 17th, 2008, 11:54 PM
the past few events i've attended usb sticks have been handed out like sweets, at least you can delete the advertising crap on them when you get home and reuse or hand them on, whereas the cds would end up as coasters :)

how big are they? 128 meg...? 1 gig+?

toupeiro
October 18th, 2008, 12:07 AM
I didn't get a single one under 1GB. The one I got from Intel was 2GB.

earthpigg
October 18th, 2008, 12:17 AM
I didn't get a single one under 1GB. The one I got from Intel was 2GB.

holy crap, i need to go to some of these things.

smoker
October 18th, 2008, 12:19 AM
how big are they? 128 meg...? 1 gig+?

a couple of 256's and one 1GB! (guess what i kept for myself?):)

LaRoza
October 18th, 2008, 12:30 AM
I have two 4 GB, two 1 GB, and a bunch of little ones.

smoker
October 18th, 2008, 12:35 AM
I have two 4 GB, two 1 GB, and a bunch of little ones.

don't keep them in a dark drawer, they breed like rabbits:lolflag:

Izek
October 18th, 2008, 12:37 AM
What's an optical drive? (I'm serious.)

dioltas
October 18th, 2008, 12:39 AM
Mainly for burning mixed cd's, and OS stuff...

handy
October 18th, 2008, 12:47 AM
I have found flash media to be unreliable compared to optical media. Though flash media does also have some benefits over optical media, they handle two separate storage dimensions with a common overlap.

The following site is a great place to keep up with DVD hardware, software & politics, worldwide:

http://www.doom9.org/

Paqman
October 18th, 2008, 03:47 AM
What's an optical drive? (I'm serious.)

CD/DVD/Blu-ray/etc. Anything that reads and writes with a laser.

Izek
October 18th, 2008, 03:59 AM
Ah, I see, I'm sorry for being ignorant.

handy
October 18th, 2008, 12:57 PM
Ah, I see, I'm sorry for being ignorant.

I wouldn't worry about it, its only the tech' heads that hang out in Linux/BSD forums that call CD/DVD drives, optical drives... Normal people just use the common name. ;-)

LaRoza
October 18th, 2008, 05:22 PM
I wouldn't worry about it, its only the tech' heads that hang out in Linux/BSD forums that call CD/DVD drives, optical drives... Normal people just use the common name. ;-)

I am not normal.

kevdog
October 18th, 2008, 05:48 PM
This thread is starting to bug me. Way too much hijacking going on!

handy
October 18th, 2008, 11:40 PM
I am not normal.

You may be a pedant.


This thread is starting to bug me. Way too much hijacking going on!

That's easily fixed. :-)

Frak
October 19th, 2008, 02:37 AM
You may be a pedant.



That's easily fixed. :-)
crowbar?

yabbadabbadont
October 19th, 2008, 02:39 AM
crowbar?

Since this is a Linux forum, wouldn't it be a LART? (I guess a crowbar could be used as a LART though. :D)

handy
October 19th, 2008, 05:16 AM
Since this is a Linux forum, wouldn't it be a LART? (I guess a crowbar could be used as a LART though. :D)

Thank you for expanding my vocabulary yabbadabbadont. :lolflag:

LART (http://catb.org/jargon/html/L/LART.html)

Shippou
October 19th, 2008, 05:38 AM
Hello...

I do think that optical drives still have a long way to go, just like tape backups which are still existing today.

The advent of Blu-Ray disks and HVD (Holographic Versatile Disk) in the near future will somewhat extend its life. What we need to watch out for is the ultimate demise of the floppy disks and the expansion of USB thumb drive capacities. And the impending threat of HDs by SDs.

EdThaSlayer
October 19th, 2008, 05:42 AM
It's just so much easier to download an application or game compared to having 1)to go to the store to 2)buy a boxed case and 3)having to travel back home to 4)open the box, 5) insert it into the dvd case, 6)wait for it to install and then after a year or 2 7)see that DVD all scratchy and unusable. :)

For games however, I prefer the box as you get a nice booklet along with it. :)

handy
October 19th, 2008, 05:54 AM
It's just so much easier to download an application or game compared to having 1)to go to the store to 2)buy a boxed case and 3)having to travel back home to 4)open the box, 5) insert it into the dvd case, 6)wait for it to install and then after a year or 2 7)see that DVD all scratchy and unusable. :)

For games however, I prefer the box as you get a nice booklet along with it. :)

Optical media only gets scratched if you don't look after it. Mine don't even have fingerprints on them.

doorknob60
October 19th, 2008, 06:06 AM
I still use it for ripping CDs (getting less common), Installing and Burning distros, Super GRUB Disk and Gparted etc, Windows Games, and giving stuff to my friends. The thing is, even if optical media is dying on PCs, it will certainly last a while in Consoles. Or at least it better be, my 100GB/month limit would last not very long if I had to download games for my PS3 off the internet (aren't Blurays like 50 GB?). Optical media will last ten years minimum I'm guessing, it just works. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

master5o1
October 19th, 2008, 06:59 AM
SD cards or USB sticks (or similar) can easily replace any other storage media. I don't see a need for CD/DVD except for continuation of support for:

*home* movies played on a regular DVD player.
music compilations played on a CD player (ie, stereo mix cd).

And of course the installation media is always CD/DVD

SomeGuyDude
October 19th, 2008, 07:08 AM
Until they stop making movies on DVD, I will always need an optical drives.

In the case of something like the MacBook Air or a Netbook, this is especially the case because, if I'm using it for travel, I will definitely want to watch movies while flying or during downtime. Buying an external drive simply to rip movies just ain't fun.

LaRoza
October 19th, 2008, 07:31 AM
Buying an external drive simply to rip movies just ain't fun.

But think about it, it makes sense to have a rather large, rarely used, and prone to break piece of hardware in one location and use it when needed, instead of lugging it around.

SomeGuyDude
October 19th, 2008, 07:46 AM
But think about it, it makes sense to have a rather large, rarely used, and prone to break piece of hardware in one location and use it when needed, instead of lugging it around.

Yes and no. One is that I have a LOT of movies, for example many many seasons of many many TV shows. Unless I feel like buying a couple terabytes in external space it just ain't going to happen. As it stands I have about 30-40 movies backed up on an external and three on my notebook, but it would be absolutely impossible to have them all backed up on any drives.

Sure, I could have it all backed up, and then before I leave the house on my trip pick which movies I want to watch and then load them onto my machine, but isn't it easier to just toss a wallet in my bag? I can look through my big 128 disc wallet, pick out some favorites, put 'em in the 12 or 24 wallet and be on my way. Transferring a baker's dozen DVD-quality AVI's from an external to my notebook? YIKES.

I almost never use my optical drive, but that really is one thing I don't wanna give up.

LaRoza
October 19th, 2008, 07:49 AM
Yes and no. One is that I have a LOT of movies, for example many many seasons of many many TV shows. Unless I feel like buying a couple terabytes in external space it just ain't going to happen. As it stands I have about 30-40 movies backed up on an external and three on my notebook, but it would be absolutely impossible to have them all backed up on any drives.

I almost never use my optical drive, but that really is one thing I don't wanna give up.

My DVD player and TV doesn't work well with internet access. I find it impossible to get my DVD player and TV to do anything but play media. It is absolutely useless for IRC and word processing.

A little perspective?

lswest
October 19th, 2008, 08:09 AM
I use my DVD drive in my PC for burning copies of Linux for either myself or friends, watching movies, and installing some games (UT2004 and stuff) when I feel like it.

My laptop's drive sees less usage, as I don't enjoy watching movies on a small screen :P that, and my laptop gets very, very hot while watching movies. I do, however, use the lightscribe CD burner when making copies of Linux distros for myself when I feel like making them "look nice" :P

SomeGuyDude
October 19th, 2008, 08:15 AM
My DVD player and TV doesn't work well with internet access. I find it impossible to get my DVD player and TV to do anything but play media. It is absolutely useless for IRC and word processing.

A little perspective?

No? I'm not sure what your point is, I very often play DVDs in my notebook, particularly while traveling. What does the above have to do with that?

handy
October 19th, 2008, 08:27 AM
The only substitute I see for my 3 to 4 hundred DVD movie disks is putting them on Blue-Ray disks!

Why would I want to do that?

For me there is no substitute to CD/DVD.

A problem that will eventuate sometime in the future is an increase in the price of all things plastic, (amongst other things) due to the inflated price of oil.

Naturally not many people like to think about that stuff.

smoker
October 19th, 2008, 11:44 AM
i used to have hundreds of LP's, then after that, CD's. now, thankfully, all that music is on the hard drive (with two backups, different locations). it's so much easier now, for me, anyway. the only cd's i have are diagnostic stuff, and some linux distros; so much space saved!


A problem that will eventuate sometime in the future is an increase in the price of all things plastic, (amongst other things) due to the inflated price of oil.there's no need for a cd/dvd drive to be fitted on every computer. one drive with an adapter, or an external drive, will do every machine. cd/dvd drives by their bulk and mechanical nature are wasteful of resources.

Christmas
October 19th, 2008, 12:30 PM
If you asked me the same question 3 months ago, I would have answered that I use it occasionally for ripping music or watching DVDs, and more often for data backup (which I do actually on a weekly basis).

But recently my HDD got many bad sectors and I wasn't able to use it anymore (although installing Debian succeeded once in about 10 tries, it was practically unusable - very slow, always giving errors, booting in 10 minutes etc). So I found a solution which worked OK: I used Kubuntu 8.04 Live CD. My PC has 1 GB DDRAM2, so I was able to watch DVDs on my other DVD+RW, listen to music from my Ogg Vorbis collection on DVDs, and also work. I can say I used it very often in that period (around 2 weeks or so).

Now I bought a new HDD (Seagate 250 GB, SATA, 16 MB cache) which works flawlessly with Debian Lenny installed + KDE 3.5.9.

But I can say the Kubuntu 8.04 Live CD (LTS release - KDE 3.5.9) was one of my worst experiences with any of the Ubuntu distributions. Here's why:

- SMPlayer couldn't play any sound after starting it for the first time (I had to delete the .smplayer/config.files in order to start it with sound, but then jumping to the next file in the DVD would stop sound again)
- Kaffeine had infinite loops for installing codecs, so the only player I could use was VLC, which has an interface which looks to me very unappealing and unprofessional

Another problem I found was that after the RAM fills in, the computer freezes. I think the Live CD should be made in a manner that warns you when you're running low on memory, especially that it's also an Install CD.

Anyway, I got a little offtopic. So currently, the answer is that I use it mostly for backups.

LaRoza
October 20th, 2008, 09:50 PM
No? I'm not sure what your point is, I very often play DVDs in my notebook, particularly while traveling. What does the above have to do with that?

My point was that netbooks universally (that I see) do not have optical drives, so it isn't "missing", it is just not part of it. For a more full set of hardware, a notebook of a larger size would be the right tool.

Frak
October 20th, 2008, 10:07 PM
My point was that netbooks universally (that I see) do not have optical drives, so it isn't "missing", it is just not part of it. For a more full set of hardware, a notebook of a larger size would be the right tool.
Netbook (no optical drive and possibly no hard disk) -> Notebook (around 1 drive and 1 hard disk) -> Laptop (1 or two Optical drives and 1 to 2 or more hard disks) -> Desktop -> Tower -> Server

LaRoza
October 20th, 2008, 10:18 PM
Netbook (no optical drive and possibly no hard disk) -> Notebook (around 1 drive and 1 hard disk) -> Laptop (1 or two Optical drives and 1 to 2 or more hard disks) -> Desktop -> Tower -> Server

You are very broad with the "desktop" and "tower". There are variable sizes. Mac Mini, half sized towards, full towers, etc.

Frak
October 20th, 2008, 10:24 PM
You are very broad with the "desktop" and "tower". There are variable sizes. Mac Mini, half sized towards, full towers, etc.
Desktop is usually implied as just a low, underpowered tower. It doesn't necessarily have to do with size, like the books.

kevdog
October 21st, 2008, 06:05 AM
Netbook -- no good for me -- in fact couldn't even install Ubuntu if I ordered it via CD. That could be very problematic. How much space and weight does a CD/DVD drive take anyway? Less than 1lb would be my guess. Netbook equivalent to glorified IPhone. At least with an Iphone I can make calls with it and browse the internet (and even have access to a command prompt if need be).


cd/dvd drives by their bulk and mechanical nature are wasteful of resources You would have to better define resources. Its a waste of my time (a valuable resource) to carry around external devices with me.

LaRoza
October 21st, 2008, 08:19 PM
Netbook -- no good for me -- in fact couldn't even install Ubuntu if I ordered it via CD. That could be very problematic. How much space and weight does a CD/DVD drive take anyway? Less than 1lb would be my guess. Netbook equivalent to glorified IPhone. At least with an Iphone I can make calls with it and browse the internet (and even have access to a command prompt if need be).

How much weight and space? Enough not to fit in a netbook. My netbook weighs less than 3 lbs, 1 lb is a lot.

I think a netbook is less expensive than an iPhone. My Dell 910 has a fully functioning Ubuntu, which codecs and Flash. Having carried around a 15.1" laptop around, and comparing it to my Dell 910, the Dell 910 is better. (Hardware wise, the 15.1 is better, and I wouldn't want to use my Dell 910 for programming)



You would have to better define resources. Its a waste of my time (a valuable resource) to carry around external devices with me.
Like I said, it would depend on the use. If one is carrying an optical drive around, they are probably also carrying disks. I don't carry disks around and do not need an inbuilt drive. (Although I have external floppy and optical drives at home)

SomeGuyDude
October 21st, 2008, 08:34 PM
My point was that netbooks universally (that I see) do not have optical drives, so it isn't "missing", it is just not part of it. For a more full set of hardware, a notebook of a larger size would be the right tool.

Agreed. And I'm saying that a netbook is of little use to me with no optical drive.

I looked up the Mini 9. It has a 16 gig hard drive. This thing might work when you need to lug it around to business presentations and store work documents on it, but for a traveler who wants to watch movies and listen to music, 16GB is going to require traveling with external storage unless they really, really like one movie.

But I think you hit on something else: you have a 15.1" notebook and a 910, right? Well not everyone can afford to have a "main computer" and a netbook. If I was in a sitaution like that, I'd have a powerhouse like a Dell XPS for most use and then a netbook for taking to class and doing other small tasks, but I don't.

Sure, if we're talking a secondary computer then it's fine, sort of in the same way that a spare tire doesn't have to be the same size or strength as a normal one because it isn't intended to be what you drive on all day every day. You can't look at this in the sense of "I have another computer for that" because not a lot of people are in that situation.

earthpigg
October 21st, 2008, 08:45 PM
[QUOTE=SomeGuyDude;6007577]
I looked up the Mini 9. It has a 16 gig hard drive. This thing might work when you need to lug it around to business presentations and store work documents on it, but for a traveler who wants to watch movies and listen to music, 16GB is going to require traveling with external storage unless they really, really like one movie.
QUOTE]

if you are using gigantic 4 gig dvd rips, yes. 500-700 megs per movie is fine given that small screen size.

LaRoza
October 21st, 2008, 09:22 PM
A
I looked up the Mini 9. It has a 16 gig hard drive. This thing might work when you need to lug it around to business presentations and store work documents on it, but for a traveler who wants to watch movies and listen to music, 16GB is going to require traveling with external storage unless they really, really like one movie.

No, it has a 4 GB SSD. It isn't a main computer, no. If someone wants a primary computer, something other than netbook like devices is needed. (Actually... with an external optical drive, an external hard disk, a monitor and a keyboard, you could use it as a main computer, it has a VGA port.)



But I think you hit on something else: you have a 15.1" notebook and a 910, right? Well not everyone can afford to have a "main computer" and a netbook. If I was in a sitaution like that, I'd have a powerhouse like a Dell XPS for most use and then a netbook for taking to class and doing other small tasks, but I don't.

That is true, however, I don't use the Thinkpad much at all (and am getting rid of it). I found a true use for the Dell 910. I have a desktop computer as my main computer.



Sure, if we're talking a secondary computer then it's fine, sort of in the same way that a spare tire doesn't have to be the same size or strength as a normal one because it isn't intended to be what you drive on all day every day. You can't look at this in the sense of "I have another computer for that" because not a lot of people are in that situation.
I agree (although, I do know of one person who uses an EeePC for his main computer). The Dell 910 (and friends) are not meant to be used that way, hence the low price.

Compucore
October 21st, 2008, 09:22 PM
Optical drives like cd-roms, dvd burners, and cd-rom burners will probably not go out of style anytime soone. As for floppy. I still have them in my current set of computers. I use them once in a while when or if I am installing an OS that requires a boot floppy instead of botting from cd-roms (like windows 2000 pro, Ugh windows 98SE. (Don't flog me on that it is just an example.) I just like having a floppy there just for the sake of having it there. Even though I do not use it everyday. I should have kept that ild high density floppt a long time ago. But threw it out due to that I couldn't install it on any of my current systems. I guess it is just Nastalgia for seing it there.

Compucore

LaRoza
October 21st, 2008, 09:25 PM
Optical drives like cd-roms, dvd burners, and cd-rom burners will probably not go out of style anytime soone.
I think they will be seen as less of an essential part of a computer and more of an add on. Look at the poll ;)



As for floppy. I still have them in my current set of computers. I use them once in a while when or if I am installing an OS that requires a boot floppy instead of botting from cd-roms (like windows 2000 pro, Ugh windows 98SE. (Don't flog me on that it is just an example.)
That is out of style isn't it? It is a genuine use for them, but it is hardly a reason to have them part of computers.

I don't think optical drives will be obsolete, as in, HD-DVD, but I do think they will be like floppy drives. Less of a part of a computer and more of an accessory.

smoker
October 21st, 2008, 09:46 PM
this is an interesting article, though it starts off about macs, it moves on to other perspectives that have a bearing on the debate!
http://blogs.macobserver.com/userfriendly/2008/04/02/the-demise-of-the-optical-drive/

:-)

seanc7
October 21st, 2008, 09:48 PM
I can see, over time, that desktops will probably have the smaller sized (laptop-style) optical drives.

The way flash memory development is going I see those becoming more common and eventually becoming a method distributing movies/music instead of optical discs.

handy
October 21st, 2008, 11:40 PM
Apart from the huge range of internet connection speeds & costs in our world, (for those that even have internet available) is the problem with data being held on internet servers owned by the others, being under the control of the others, who for any reason from a whim to greed, for whatever political motivation inspires them, can remove all, part of, or just chop something up into 10 minute video sections to enhance our viewing pleasure.

I choose to have control of my own data, & optical storage does a miraculously wonderful job for me.

The unthinking masses will continue to be influenced by the ever present media in their lives, the young people grow up having been indoctrinated by the ever present consumer propaganda with dreams of getting a job good enough to afford ownership of all the gizmo's & services on offer, thinking then I'll be happy. Also, being unhappy when for whatever reason they can't afford these goods & services. This consumer paradigm is insane; when so many people's happiness is based on the goods & services that they do or don't own, how did we let our selves fall for that?

Keep control of your own data, keep control of your own life.

billgoldberg
October 21st, 2008, 11:44 PM
I agree (although, I do know of one person who uses an EeePC for his main computer). The Dell 910 (and friends) are not meant to be used that way, hence the low price.

I don't know the exact price of the Dell, but the Acer Aspire One is sold for around €400 here.

A local store chain (carrefour) is offering 15.4 inch laptop for €380.

Those come with 160gb drives, 1 gig ram, dvd writer, ...
So I wouldn't call those netbooks cheap.

LaRoza
October 21st, 2008, 11:47 PM
I don't know the exact price of the Dell, but the Acer Aspire One is sold for around €400 here.

A local store chain (carrefour) is offering 15.4 inch laptop for €380.

Those come with 160gb drives, 1 gig ram, dvd writer, ...
So I wouldn't call those netbooks cheap.

Wow. Prices are different here. The Dell 910 costs $350, the Acer costs less than $400 (329, 349).

I guess it depends on where you live.

smoker
October 22nd, 2008, 12:11 AM
Wow. Prices are different here. The Dell 910 costs $350...
I guess it depends on where you live.

ubuntu dell mini in the uk is £269 = $448 (today's rate!) :(

LaRoza
October 22nd, 2008, 12:16 AM
ubuntu dell mini in the uk is £269 = $448 (today's rate!) :(

Well, it is an American company. Surely their are home grown OEM's?

earthpigg
October 22nd, 2008, 12:21 AM
ubuntu dell mini in the uk is £269 = $448 (today's rate!) :(

yeah, but when you get hit by a car outside the store your medical care will be free :)

smoker
October 22nd, 2008, 12:26 AM
Well, it is an American company. Surely their are home grown OEM's?

i thought these were manufactured in the far east? or am i wrong (not unusual!):)

smoker
October 22nd, 2008, 12:27 AM
yeah, but when you get hit by a car outside the store your medical care will be free :)

you get more lawyers chasing the ambulance in the US:lolflag:

gordonh
October 22nd, 2008, 12:38 AM
Well, it is an American company. Surely their are home grown OEM's?

I thought Michael Dell was Irish?

earthpigg
October 22nd, 2008, 12:40 AM
I thought Michael Dell was Irish?

nah, Dell (company and the dude) is a Texan.

yee haw.

LaRoza
October 22nd, 2008, 01:06 AM
yeah, but when you get hit by a car outside the store your medical care will be free :)

In the USA, it would be free. They can't leave people to die.


i thought these were manufactured in the far east? or am i wrong (not unusual!):)

Manufactured, possibly. However, it is an American company selling them and commissioning their creation and designing them.

SomeGuyDude
October 22nd, 2008, 01:43 AM
No, it has a 4 GB SSD. It isn't a main computer, no. If someone wants a primary computer, something other than netbook like devices is needed. (Actually... with an external optical drive, an external hard disk, a monitor and a keyboard, you could use it as a main computer, it has a VGA port.)


That is true, however, I don't use the Thinkpad much at all (and am getting rid of it). I found a true use for the Dell 910. I have a desktop computer as my main computer.

This is what I'm getting at (and yes, you can get one with a 16GB SSD, I checked right before I posted).

When you're talking about the utility of an optical drive, you can't use the example of a $300-400 "extra computer". I have a single machine: an HP 15.4" notebook. Sure it's true that if you just use ONE of your computers for menial tasks then THAT one doesn't need feature X, because you have another with it.

It'd be like saying I don't think trucks need a hitch on them because I just drive my sedan to work and the mall. Could you get by without the optical drive on your desktop? How about without the external one?

I don't mean to sound like I'm going off on you or anything, I just find debates like this fun to participate in and I hope I'm not coming across like an ***. :popcorn:

LaRoza
October 22nd, 2008, 03:01 AM
This is what I'm getting at (and yes, you can get one with a 16GB SSD, I checked right before I posted).

Yeah, I know, but the 4 GB version really doesn't have any room for extra storage (less than a GiB). I think its low capacity drives home its function.



When you're talking about the utility of an optical drive, you can't use the example of a $300-400 "extra computer". I have a single machine: an HP 15.4" notebook. Sure it's true that if you just use ONE of your computers for menial tasks then THAT one doesn't need feature X, because you have another with it.

X is a bit extreme.

I have two DVD +-RW (and lightscribe) on my main computer (my desktop, the one I always use). I also have a portable DVD +-RW, but I haven't really used it yet (I got it back in Feisty days, when my brand new laptop's DVD player didn't work with Linux, works fine since Gutsy).

The Dell 910 (and all netbooks) isn't meant for being used as a main computer by itself. To really get use of it as a main computer, you'd need to have an another monitor and hopefully a keyboard (it has 3 USB and a VGA). It isn't far of a stretch to use an external DVD player.



It'd be like saying I don't think trucks need a hitch on them because I just drive my sedan to work and the mall. Could you get by without the optical drive on your desktop? How about without the external one?

I don't have a car. I never use the external, and I have two optical drives on my desktop. I have, so far, only used them one at a time. My iBook and Thinkpad have a CD and DVD burner. I have never used more than one at a time. All have USB. My point is that optical drives could very well be regulated to external drives, like most floppies. It is a useful device, and will be for some time, but there is hardly a need for it to be integrated into the computer itself. I could use my external for all my needs and all I'd have to do is plug in the USB cable to use it in another computer.



I don't mean to sound like I'm going off on you or anything, I just find debates like this fun to participate in and I hope I'm not coming across like an ***. :popcorn:
Its alright. There are many different uses of computers. As the poll shows, optical drives are almost universally useful, but are used for a rather limited amount of activities.

wolfen69
October 22nd, 2008, 04:39 AM
Two copies on two optical discs will both suffer degradation over time.

most studies i've seen are in the 50-100 year range, if they are handled correctly. in other words, i'll be dead by then.

LaRoza
October 22nd, 2008, 04:51 AM
most studies i've seen are in the 50-100 year range, if they are handled correctly. in other words, i'll be dead by then.

Even longer, if not left in detrimental conditions.

acrichardt
October 24th, 2008, 03:48 PM
about all i use mine for is music,mvies, and backing up data. and external for at home would be fine, i could live without it directly on my laptop. I still can't download music, i love having the disc i bought as a master copy, rip and add to my mp3 player.:guitar: