Blogs Is it time to bin your optical drive?

I have an optical drive in my PC. But it's not plugged in to anything

 

I don't use an optical drive in my PC, I have a USB one just in case.
Also optical drives are so noisy.........

 

Same here.

Also, games are already coming in at 20-25GB , even the patch/dlc for BF3 was bigger than entire AAA games were just a few years back. They're only likely to get larger with next gen console games come across to PC . Another aspect to this is, if games are in the region of 50-100GB, dl'ing won't be an option for many , studios may view this as a bonus, an in-built deterrent on the practical level. On my current connection the idea of dl'ing 100GB is absurd.

 

In my current (work in progress) build I will not include an internal optical drive. However, I did buy an external one to be used on a variety of machines throughout the house for the random occasion I actually need one.

But for some things owning CD's/dvd's is just very convenient. Things like Windows etc can of course be downloaded but you'll be stuck waiting for em if the line or download site isn't fast enough(which can be rather annoying) and when you actually have no other machine available to download it your still screwed.

My last run-in with my optical drive came when I bought an Ultrabook for my girlfriend and got presented with the opportunity to get a cheap Office package (on DVD). I came home, wanted to quickly configure the machine, get Office installed just before dinner only to realize I completely forgot to get the external optical drive. So my options were either to start downloading or get an external optical drive.

I went for the latter as I knew that driving back to the store would still beat my crappy internet connection...

 

I prefer physical media myself so my optical drive isn't going away anytime soon, not to suggest USB sticks couldn't be beneficial, I use them quiet often, they are a complement to physical media not a replacement. And as always, physical media has value, stored data more of a perceived value.

 

My optical drive is in my tuck box...

I will rip off the side panel and hook everything up when I desperately need an ODD, otherwise, its not in my system, and hasn't been for the last 6 months.

 

It's still very useful imho. What about people with no connection to the Internet. What about those who can only get speeds of 2mb/s and wish to install something like BF3 at 14gb iirc.

 

i dont use my drive also so much, but dont hate it or want to get rid of it. the best feeling is finding a wack load of my old dvd's and going through them seeing whats on them. all of a sudden i then find a movie i never wanted to watch again, and watch again or something of that sort.

i still love my drive.

and like i said in Gareth's article on if we need a dvd drive:

"but without a drive, your pc looks like it has no face!"

 

Kudos for introducing the Wintoflash, I've been wondering many times now how can I get a Windows installation on a thumbdrive. Didn't even thought there might be a program for it.

Also, as much as I'd like to see the optical media gone, we really can't afford to do without yet. As it is, content owning companies and corporations are already bending us over however they please, and there's still stuff I want to actually own, not just "license for limited use".

 

Hear, hear. Things are beginning to change ever so slightly though, with sites like Bandcamp handing out nice, friendly FLACs for download. If the same could be applied for video and the concept of streaming tossed out of the window entirely: I want a local high-quality copy of my video files damnit! I mean, serious pirates have a choice of getting their movies in everything from highly-compressed 480p H.264 all the way to straight, untouched, decrypted blu-ray dumps. Why the big guys don't give this sort of service is beyond me....

Technically your CDs and DVDs have the same EULA (for any form of software at any rate).

I routinely see 64GB MicroSDXC cards go for around 50AUD. normal USB flash should be able to get even cheaper in the next few years. Especially for read-only media.

My various harddrives have lasted longer than my CDs. Barring failures of course, but that's why you have backups.

Prices can be slashed: Steam sales are a good example. GreenManGaming is another. As more online companies/stores pop up, price wars will start heating up.

I agree. In the space of a single optical drive, you can easily fit two 2.5" laptop harddrives/SSDs....

I think that we need this sort of push to cause consumer backlash and force ISP cartels (yes, I consider them as such!) to get a move on and upgrade infrastructure.

With UEFI boards and install media, its as simple as just extracting the contents of an archive (7zip/iso/zip/rar/...) to a thumbdrive and rebooting. In fact, you can even do some weird hackery with your intall media involving mixing bootloaders, bootimages and data dumps if you know how to...

A 2Mbit connection should allow around 600GiB of transfer per month. With an 8Mbit connection, that's 2.4TiB of data. On my current 15Mbit connection, that's 4.5TiB of data. I don't dl anywhere near that in a month...

 

It;s already been said, but the optical drive brings higher quality everything. Even if you only use it to make a high quality rip. I have not been impressed with what Netflix has called "HD" by any means. Downloadable games that aren't on sale are usually a rip off compared to the boxed counter parts. I definitely use my optical drive less, but its not going anywhere at the moment.

 

Hah, I just noticed I have the Diablo 3 Collector's edition (it's hiding behind one of my monitors). You can pry my artbook out of my cold, dead hands.

EDIT: I didn't even bother removing the disc from it's case though: I'd preloaded the game already and just inserted my key.

 

I'll speak for them as I am one. the optical drive stays.

 

Totally agree on making FLAC versions readily available and even higher bit depth/ sampling versions too if people want them . Sometimes it's as though the industry just prefers to whine about piracy than offer a Steam equivalent . I mean, why should the consumer be forced to suffer a downgrade from CD quality?

Agree on Blu -ray too, it should be possible to buy DL versions with much higher bitrate. 4k will be a nightmare if it's only available via streaming (no physical), it'll probably look no better than good upscaled 1080p blu -ray does now by the time they've compressed the hell out of it.

As for storage, no one is wedded to disc , it'd be good to change to something that requires no [fault prone] moving parts, obviously. But it's the same debate over HDD vs SSD isn't it , it's getting closer but it's still not practical to go solely SSD.

Tbh, if anything it's likely optical drives could make a come back in the short term , when next gen hits. As games are likely to be up to 50GB and all on blu -ray. Sony will fit a quad layer (BDXL) capable drive for 4k and MS is likely to have a blu-ray drive as standard , possibly that will be BDXL too?

 

No, I'm sorry but until I can get every single piece of music in a lossless format my optical drive is staying put. Fair enough it may not stay in my PC but we're not ready to ditch them just yet.

 

External BluRay/RW...

I've not had an internal ODD for several years now, but use an external one shared between all my machines, as an ODD is still needed due to alot of HQ/HD-content not being available as download like many others pointed out allready.

Maybe sometime down the road we'll see movies and music being released on flash-sticks or SD-cards, but until then the CD/DVD/BluRay is here to stay.

 

bought a usb one for all my builds, shared between 3 pcs currently and only gets used to watch movies and install old software/games

 

Not necessarily, you can buy a music cd, a dvd or game in a optical disc, and sell it, used wherever you like, if you download it,
you are subject to steam weird rules to sell a game, like only being able to sell the game to your friends, only a few games are supported, you cant re-sell used games, so technically you dont own these games, you just paying to the right of using them.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6748-ETSG-5417

If you buy digital music or ebooks the same crap applies.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/105437-riaa-claims-you-do-not-own-your-itunes-music-purchases

You cannot re-sell none of these.

Then its the quality factor in music and videos, i used netflix for a couple of months, and the selection was just rubbish, i used lovefilm streaming service while the selection was better, their quality is just appalling in most movies, so i gave up, and i just purchase dvd/blu-rays when i want a movie or i just rent it online.

While i cant deny that if the likes of itunes, steam, allowed to re-sell these, and they provided the same benefits as the optical ones would be excellent. at this moment it just doesn't happen.

 

Fortunately, I can't hear the difference between an mp3 and a cd*, and my don't notice the difference between Blu-ray and a DVD rip, so quality isn't an issue for me.
Although I do still buy CDs sometimes, which then get ripped, and occasionally needing drivers for obscure devices my ODD almost never gets used.
Mind you, I'm still using the same DVDR/CDRW combo drive from a build about 5 years ago, when that packs in I doubt I'll replace it.


There's an official Microsoft USB tool for Windows Vista and up:
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

*(probably due to too much listening to live music, stood next to the speakers)

 

This.