Author Topic: Optical drives becoming obsolete? (Read 4521 times)

GoGeTa006 · « **on:** June 23, 2012, 11:34:34 AM »

I was watching the keynote WWDC 2012 (Apple event), now DONT START HATING ON APPLE.

But the new MacBook Pro, with new retina display. . .TBH it looks pretty amazing, but what caught my attention was what he said:

Quote from: not a real quote but something like this:

If we want to truly be innovative, we have to discard the past and look at the future

now, if you remember Apple dropped support for the floppy 3 1/2 disk drives and Zip drives like 5 years earlier than Microsoft, cause apple knew it was a decaying technology. . .

Now they dropped the optical drives out of their top-notch laptop. . .

but I was thinking, blu-rays are relatively new so they would be the "new technology". . .but Apple is heading in a new direction where optical drives arent "crucial" anymore. . .

what do you think?

DONT HATE ON APPLE

LOVE & TOLERANCE!

vuzedome · « **Reply #1 on:** June 23, 2012, 11:45:39 AM »

Optical discs will still be here for a very long time, as long as the music industry is still selling CDs, it's still in.
When they go, only then will DVDs go as well.
BD on the other hand, is niche.

But I don't see how CDs will disappear any time soon, it's like playing records, or reading physical books, people still enjoy doing it at home where they have the time and space to do all the hassle.
Hey, I bet plenty of you still play tabletop board games instead of over the internet on your PC against friends.

(click to show/hide)

Saras · « **Reply #2 on:** June 23, 2012, 12:01:47 PM »

Obsolete? No. Not usefull enough to justify the space in a notebook? Yes.

Manufacturers have a dilema to face, for 14-15 inch laptops. You either get one HDD/SSD and an ODD or two HDD's-HDD/SSD.

The latter option is gradually becoming quite a bit more favourable due to the existence of cheap USB3.0 16gb+ thumb drives. As optical discs can't really compete as a personal storage solution in either space, speed or convenience. The only thing it has for itself is cheap distribution of x and sadly, that's not enough.

Think about it, what would you yourself prefer today? An extra 120gig SSD, a 1TB HDD or an ODD? I know what I wouldn't pick. As the only time a disc was in this laptop was when I installed windows.

FlyinPenguin · « **Reply #3 on:** June 23, 2012, 12:05:51 PM »

I agree with Vuzedome. Discs will be around for a long time. There are still people who prefer to have a physical copy (like me). Not to mention all the people who still only have cd players in their cars or older cd players in their home and don't have a way to use digital content without spending money and/or learning a new technology. The music, gaming, movie, software, etc industries would be turning their backs on far too large of a group of consumers who still use discs. They aren't gonna pass up on all that money anytime soon.

I really don't see why this is big news that Apple has dropped the optical drive on one of their laptops. It's not like they have dropped support from the OS. You can still plug in an external drive. Not to mention that laptops have been sold for years without optical drives. My last four laptops haven't had optical drives. I'm an ultrabook guy though so I view optical drives as unneeded extra weight and specifically avoid them.

Personally still buy discs but then I convert most of software/game discs into ISO format and rip all my movies/music to my server.

I just hate the notion of "Apple just did something so it is going to become the standard of the future".

rostheferret · « **Reply #4 on:** June 23, 2012, 01:19:27 PM »

When was the last time you saw a notebook with a disc drive? :/ There's an increasingly smaller need for disc drives on small portable computers; computers designed for light use rather than anything more extensive, and increasingly as a secondary computer to a main. It has nothing to do with whether disc drives are becoming obsolete and everything to do with 'do you need one in a laptop.' Who carries around dozens of DVDs anymore? Yet who doesn't own a DVD player? It also has to do with apple's marketing strategy; iTunes is already out, how long before a film version is created? Download your films for a price straight to your HDD! Sell a product without a disc drive and the morons - err... people - who buy it will find downloading to their HDD is far more convenient. Double win for apple.

nstgc · « **Reply #5 on:** June 23, 2012, 01:55:01 PM »

I think Apple was trying to justify the absence of an optical disk drive on their new lighter than air bling (thats not Apple hate is it?). Also Apple dropped support for floppy too soon. When they dropped floppy, I was still flashing bios with floppies. They still had a place. For the purpose of software distribution I do think ODD is dead, however for the purposes of videos, I don't think so for three reasons. Firstly the MPAA shit heads can't see how amazing new technology is, and will be clinging to physical media for their distribution until all nations have been reduced to dust. Second, it is nice to have physical copies -- it gives the illusion of ownership. Lastly, people like spinning media (I think this is one reason why CD's ousted cassettes). This is largely nostalgia. I know I like having physical copies of books even though I also know that its easier to retrieve and store a digital copy. I do think that Blu-ray will be the last optical disk format in consumer use however.

vuzedome · « **Reply #6 on:** June 23, 2012, 02:44:46 PM »

Apple isn't really a trend setter or setting a new standard, only a certain silly Korean company feels the urge to emulate and out do their every move.

kitamesume · « **Reply #7 on:** June 23, 2012, 07:42:27 PM »

theres also a certain something called "external dvd-reader" that justifies what they did, lol.

GoGeTa006 · « **Reply #8 on:** June 23, 2012, 09:36:48 PM »

They didnt drop support to it i know that. . .but theyre heading into this direction as far as i can see. . .

And tbh even tho cds still sell, im sure the day where read-only flash drives will replace cd's. . .like buying the new whatever movie, instead of a blu ray, u get it in a more storeable thumb drive 64 gigs or so. . .prices are droping fast for storage. . .and usb 3 (i think even 2) is faster than bd readers. . .

Quote from: vuzedome on June 23, 2012, 02:44:46 PM

Apple isn't really a trend setter or setting a new standard, only a certain silly Korean company feels the urge to emulate and out do their every move.

Tbh this past years apple has been a trend setter. . .
Hell, ever since the ipod they've been changing industries. .
I know they didnt invent the first touch screen or the first smartphone. . .but they surely put them on the spotlight and now they are almost "basic" needs in developed countries. . .
The ipad also put tablets on the spotlight, they were rare before the ipad and now tablets are poping everywhere. . .

Tri_Edge · « **Reply #9 on:** June 23, 2012, 10:14:37 PM »

Even if other computer makers do the same, support for external ODDs will still be offered.

But, do you want to be carrying around an external ODD or have it build in?

lapa321 · « **Reply #10 on:** June 24, 2012, 02:31:25 AM »

I'm a heavy DVD user (I have over 6 Terabytes of data backed up to DVD's, and yes, that's a lot), these days tho, i rarely use the DVD drive. I just bought a couple of 2TB harddrive and started saving 50Gig ISOs into them. Other than anime archiving, i've probably only used the DVD drive a handful of times in the last couple of years.

megido-rev.M · « **Reply #11 on:** June 24, 2012, 02:41:41 AM »

Optical discs won't die anytime soon, so long as read-only physical media remains useful (i.e. more economical than actual hard drives).

halfelite · « **Reply #12 on:** June 24, 2012, 03:34:21 AM »

As have been said nothing new, netbooks,slim laptops have been coming out for years without optical drives. Apple never does anything new they just claim everything as the "NEW" way and everyone eats its up. Optical discs still have a long way to go, While a lot more stuff is "Available online" Legally, there is some things that are still not. Even more so in terms of business software. For most home consumers optical discs can go.

kitamesume · « **Reply #13 on:** June 24, 2012, 04:03:12 AM »

Quote from: Tri_Edge on June 23, 2012, 10:14:37 PM

Even if other computer makers do the same, support for external ODDs will still be offered.

But, do you want to be carrying around an external ODD or have it build in?

you won't be using the ODD regularly imho, maybe once or twice a day and you don't use it outside of your house most of the time. so which means an external ODD being left at the house would be the most practical thing to do, it saves space on the laptop and decreases weight, or it frees up space for something else.

Mcgreag · « **Reply #14 on:** June 24, 2012, 07:38:08 AM »

Only reason I have an optical drive on my desktop is because I had one sitting around when building it, but should I ever run out of sata ports it will be the first to go. And in the next desktop I build (current one should last a couple of years at least) I will most likely skip it completely. I'll just make one last flac rip of my CD collection before throwing it out and I won't have any reason to use it anymore. Most of the older games I have on CD I have already bought on Steam anyway and it's been years since I bought a new one on disc.

For laptops I am about to get a new one (my current one is from 2007 and does have an optical drive) and I have several demands on features and performance but an optical drive is not one of them. And considering the other features I want from it I very much doubt it will have an optical drive as well.

kamuixtv99 · « **Reply #15 on:** June 24, 2012, 08:23:42 AM »

Nice to see Steve Job's spirit alive and kicking. Steve hates Blu-ray *google it*. Apple wants you to use Itunes they thought people these days deletes digital media (video/audio) after you're done with it. With the recent hit in Thailand I noticed most drives are inferior that's why I always use optical media.

revo · « **Reply #16 on:** June 24, 2012, 08:35:37 AM »

Quote from: GoGeTa006 on June 23, 2012, 11:34:34 AM

I was watching the keynote WWDC 2012 (Apple event), now DONT START HATING ON APPLE.

But the new MacBook Pro, with new retina display. . .TBH it looks pretty amazing, but what caught my attention was what he said:

Quote from: not a real quote but something like this:
If we want to truly be innovative, we have to discard the past and look at the future

now, if you remember Apple dropped support for the floppy 3 1/2 disk drives and Zip drives like 5 years earlier than Microsoft, cause apple knew it was a decaying technology. . .

Now they dropped the optical drives out of their top-notch laptop. . .

but I was thinking, blu-rays are relatively new so they would be the "new technology". . .but Apple is heading in a new direction where optical drives arent "crucial" anymore. . .

what do you think?

DONT HATE ON APPLE

LOVE & TOLERANCE!

Why wouldn't I hate apple ? The deserve it

Anyway
If I buy a movie I wan't it to be bluray (no exceptions)
I don't care for netflix or any other crap
But still you can't properly play bluray movies on OSX

Freedom Kira · « **Reply #17 on:** June 24, 2012, 08:54:55 AM »

Quote from: Saras on June 23, 2012, 12:01:47 PM

Obsolete? No. Not usefull enough to justify the space in a notebook? Yes.

Manufacturers have a dilema to face, for 14-15 inch laptops. You either get one HDD/SSD and an ODD or two HDD's-HDD/SSD.

The latter option is gradually becoming quite a bit more favourable due to the existence of cheap USB3.0 16gb+ thumb drives. As optical discs can't really compete as a personal storage solution in either space, speed or convenience. The only thing it has for itself is cheap distribution of x and sadly, that's not enough.

Think about it, what would you yourself prefer today? An extra 120gig SSD, a 1TB HDD or an ODD? I know what I wouldn't pick. As the only time a disc was in this laptop was when I installed windows.

This. And for those who still use optical drives, there are always external drives to plug into USB. They just don't get used frequently enough to justify the space that would be far better used by a second storage drive.

revo · « **Reply #18 on:** June 24, 2012, 09:03:20 AM »

USB bluray drives are too slow and too expensive

vuzedome · « **Reply #19 on:** June 24, 2012, 09:46:57 AM »

It's not really sensible to be running a BD external drive over USB.