Is it time for Optical Media to die?

[gxsaurav]

Since the last few years, I have been buying a new Optical drive almost every year as the tray soon starts to give problem which is the most common problem & the drive isn't being used much either.

I was thinking, do we really need an optical drive now anymore? Other then Installing Windows on a new computer, I seriously see no use of my Optical drive today at the end of the year 2008. The availability of cheap bandwidth & Torrents has changed the way I get my digital media.

I have a 512kbps BSNL Dataone connection which I m soon upgrading to 1mbps cos I can easily pay the cost of it & the bill will just continue to reduce. Sure it feels good to have a physical movie DVD but I can easily get the same movie or documentary or T.V Show from Torrents or legally through online movie rental stores & save the clutter of multiple physical DVDs.

We can already see how successful Steam has been in selling games online, you download the game to your computer, login using your steam account & you can play the game on any computer. No Anti-Piracy measure required & no need to buy a DVD from store either.

iTunes has been extremely successful in selling music & T.V shows, as well as rented movies through there distribution system with or without DRM. There are other Music stores which are now going DRM free way so you can use your digital media content anywhere. No need to buy a Movie DVD or Audio CD when you can get DRM/DRM free DVD rip/480p H.264 movie under 2.5 GB or Lossless FLAC/Mp3 for Audio off the internet which isn't that big in Megabytes considering today's fast Internet Speed.

We can already see how successful Linux Package Managers have been in distributing Software online. Synaptic & Click n Run has been quite successful in just searching for the application & installing it along with all the dependencies automatically.

Microsoft has followed suit & even they are now providing Microsoft Store from where you can buy all Microsoft Products & download them or have them shipped to your doorsteps in Physical form. It won't be long before they start an iPhone App Store like Application Distribution service for Windows Mobile & the next XBOX may come without an Optical Drive at all.

We are aware of the Virtual harddisk (.vhd) & Disk Image (.dmg) format of Windows & Mac OS, which could meen, digitally secure hard disk images, which can be compressed & distributed off the internet & there is no need to extract the content. Just mount & run the software from it. NFS Undercover can very well be distributed as a Digitally secure VHD file which you can download after you purchase the game from some online Game store & simply double click on the VHD to play. It will mount it somewhre cos basically, it is just another folder with files in it.

The only use in my digital life today for an Optical Media is for backup & archival purpose but even then the Media isn't very reliable. I can burn 5 DVD rip movies on a Rs 12 DVD or 12 episodes of some T.V show after I m done watching it, but I m still uncertain whether the Media will work after 2 months or not as it is prone to scratches etc & if it is corrupted, then all the data is destroyed.

External Hard disk are getting cheap these days. I can buy a 160 GB Western Digital External HD for as low as Rs 2,500 & store all the game VHD/ISO, movie shows on it, although DVDs are still cheaper. I can get 160 GB worth space in Optical Media under Rs 500 which in case of external hard disk will cost Rs 2,500.

If it is about installing Windows or an OS on a new PC with no OS on it, then we can still do it using Flash Media. Windows Vista can very well be installed through a 4 GB flash drive, after you extract the Vista DVD ISO to a pen drive, make it bootable & set the BIOS to boot from USB drive. Infect, even Windows Vista can be distributed using Right ones Memory Cards or Pen drives so that you can at least install Windows on a new PC. Also, using EFI/Splashtop you don't even need a Media for installation. Start the EFI, go to your Microsoft Store Shopping cart, download the ISO/VHD to your hard disk as EFI detects the hard disk & install from that VHD after EFI automatically mounts it. Same goes with installing Linux Distribution ISO on a new PC.

Now, I want to ask you all one thing....is it time for Optical Media to die? I mean, seriously, when was the last time you used it & for what.

 

[kalpik]

I use it almost everyday.. To take backups of my *stuff*. Cant live without a DVD Writer. I fill up my hard disk so fast!

 

[RCuber]

I rarely use Optical Media, Other than the OS discs I dont use any other DVD or CD. All my data is in HDD , and I backup using a external HDD.

 

[The_Devil_Himself]

with the connections getting faster each day and cheaper hdd,optical media has lost its charm.I rarely ever use them not except for pr0n,no amount of pron is enough pron.

 

[Faun]

^^take in moderation n00b

 

[gforce23]

I use it to store backups of declassified corporate data. External HDD drives are still quite unreliable (a 400GB one went bust a few months back). Corporate laptops rarely have more than 250GB of HDD space which can get occupied with working data sets pretty quickly.

 

[gxsaurav]

So, Like I said..even you are getting lots of your digital Media content through Internet only & Optical Media is there mostly for Archival purpose.

 

[Kl@w-24]

For archival purposes, nothing beats the cost per MB of optical media. But as a distribution medium, there are much better alternatives right now. However, since online stores are not functional in every part of the world, it'll take a lot of time before we bid farewell to CDs and DVDs. I'm discounting torrents here coz we all know what we(most of us anyway) use them for.

 

[MetalheadGautham]

Lets assume for argument's sake that Optical Media (the only ones I care about are DVDs) are dead. Now lets see the following situations:

1. you don't have 8mbps unlimited internet. you don't want to spend Rs. 8000pm either. How do you plan to send 9GB of data to a friend ?

2. Assume you DO have such a connection. But your friend does not and same situation as above prevails.

HOW do you manage the situation ?

 

[gxsaurav]

1. you don't have 8mbps unlimited internet. you don't want to spend Rs. 8000pm either. How do you plan to send 9GB of data to a friend ?

2. Assume you DO have such a connection. But your friend does not and same situation as above prevails.

You can use USB drives for this. However, I have already said that other then archival purpose, I hardly find a need for a Optical Media Now.

It seems there are only 2 uses of Optical media for most of the people out there now. First is for archival purpose cos despite of being unreliable, Optical Media is still the cheapest. Second is sending data at far locations, for which although Internet is better, but DVDs are still cheap. You can courier someone a whole Season 4 of House in 1 DVD in just Rs 50

 

[m-jeri]

What OP is trying to say is pointless.. in a way..

Optical media will die.

Not today. Not tmrw. But in say 10 years.
DVD will be replaced by blu-ray in say 2 to 3 years max. after that development of bluray will continue. Its been reported that 400GB Blu-ray disc is already developed. so a rigorous development of data storage in that area is going one. by the time blu-ray is exhausted. we will see the death of optical media. maybe. coz the next step as by all tech companies is Holographic media. so in a way Optical technology MAY die.

I say MAY coz see floppy. sometimes we do look for our old floppy drive. though i use no FDD or FD for last 2 years. my machine have no FD. but some still use it. the death of optical media will also be like that.slow.

One thing to note is that end of Optical technology will be by blu-ray hopefully. upto now its like that. unless they come with another tech. coz holographic is not feasible.

@GX..

You are not facing a media burst. or ur usage is very low.
1.5 year ago i breached the TB mark. Now in next 4 or 6 months i will break 4 or 5 TB mark hopefully. why coz i stopped using DVD-R's. coz i try not to use cheap qlty rips. in 700 MB. even a nice HD rip runs to 10 GB easy.

I am waiting for Blu-ray mark to hit. already in croma i came across 8990 for LG Bluray wrter cum HD ROM. BD discs from japan through my colleaguies will cost 100 per disc. for most brands. so soon i will go to blu-ray.

so that the cost of HDD will be nullified for me. ANd yes Optical media will be mostly for archival purposes. and i have discs that burned 8 or 10 years ago. on my old yamaha 10x CD writers. Discs TDK..Sony..and some local. They have not given me any issues so far(Touch wood).. But if they do..i am sure i can find it online.

Having a 1 MBps connection is nothing. it will only make u use more discs...Optical..HDD or anything.

I have friends already on multiple 1 MBps and 2 MBps UL connection. They started treating HDD themselves as Optical media.

and sending data to far off location if its above even a GB even u need ATLEAST a 2MBps pipe. min. THis case is in india though.

 

[Ethan_Hunt]

The only use in my digital life today for an Optical Media is for backup & archival purpose but even then the Media isn't very reliable. I can burn 5 DVD rip movies on a Rs 12 DVD or 12 episodes of some T.V show after I m done watching it, but I m still uncertain whether the Media will work after 2 months or not as it is prone to scratches etc & if it is corrupted, then all the data is destroyed.

Let's say that DVD does die for some god forsaken reason. What will the damage be? 4GB? That's it? I can download that amount over night with my 2Mbps connection.

Let's assume I gain a 1TB HDD & crossing my fingers & hoping this drive never goes kaput (which in all probability it will). I store all my DVD's & misc HDD's back on it. Tra-la-la! I go happy for a year switching my data back & forth from it. Then one day it doesn't want to be recognised. OMG! That's almost 700-800GB or whatever amount of data lost in one single go.

Is this a bigger damage or would 3-4 DVD's going kaput?

Realistically speaking it's the volume of data on which we depend determines the medium of back up. Sure optical media are a pain to manage but heck they don't die that often. I have some of my burnt DVD's working in pristine condition for over 2 years. So I don't see it dying, EVER.

 

[axxo]

I see no use of optical storage these days except for OS instalation. Even I dont take regular backup, as once u have some backups you see new versions of the same soft. online that renders the old media useless. However I write those rips onto dvds for watching them on big screen.

 

[gxsaurav]

Some quite valid points. Seems like Optical Media still has some years to live. For me, the only use of Optical Media today is burning the movies, games or T.V shows I download for archival purpose

 

[m-jeri]

^^^

For everyone that holds true. Thats what its made for. what more do u want?

 

[desiibond]

I do accept that. Now the media has become so cheap that few scratches are making the content unplayable. I covert all my dvd's to ISO's and put them on my HDD. For this purpose, I bought a 250Gig HDD about 2 months ago and since then, I didn't burn a single movie that I downloaded to DVD.

It's not exactly the death but it will slow down.

 

[Faun]

I will prefer a redundant HDD backup instead of countless DVDs to search'em

 

[Raccoon]

I have been making do with a CD writer since the last 4.5 years and only recently bought a DVD writer. As of now, there is no substitute for the cheap storage that optical media gives.

No doubt quality of media in India is low, but as of now, none of the data that I have stored on CD/DVD has just vanished. Just make sure you buy the best media that is available. For DVDs I think Sony (DVD+R) and Moser Baer (havent been able to find "+" media yet) seem fairly reliable.