ncmark wrote:

For a long time I used the Maxell high grade DVD disks. You could get packs of five of them at Wal-Mart for around $6.50 if I recall. They were simply THE best... better than T/Y. They were worth their weight in gold.

They might actually have been rebranded T/Y discs. There are a lot of those, apparently. Finding out who was re-branding their discs used to be quite the thorny issue when it came to finding good spindles (you can check the manufacturer of a disc with ATIP), but it's been years since I last read about that and I have no idea what the current situation is.

Goodbye JVC and TY, you will not be missed.

Last time I paid top dollar for quality media was $1 a disc for Mitsui Gold back in 1999 or so.

I've found that the burn quality of the Phillips-branded CMC MAG is quite good.

Also, M-Disc isn't going anywhere, so optical media is still alive and well, at least for archival purposes.

And why would JVC and TY get out of BD production? There isn't anything out there as practical as BD for storing 50 GB of data inexpensively. The price of a 50GB dual-layer BD-R disc is only a few dollars, while the price of a 64GB SD card is at least tens of dollars. The thread is mistitled, because the real reason they're ceasing production is only because they couldn't make it profitable for themselves.

mockingbird wrote:

Also, M-Disc isn't going anywhere, so optical media is still alive and well, at least for archival purposes.

Holy crap those prices though

I always like to have a copy of something on an optical disk. I use CD-Rs for music, DVD's for data/video, however no BD yet. I will have to buy one sooner or later, as even dual layer DVDs are pretty limited storage capacity in modern terms. I prefer my games on physical formats, mainly because I have sucky internet access at home, also because I just think hard copy is tangible. Heck, I wouldn't worry about it. They still sell audio tapes at the local walmart!

smeezekitty wrote:

mockingbird wrote:

Also, M-Disc isn't going anywhere, so optical media is still alive and well, at least for archival purposes.

Holy crap those prices though

Just think, though, you'll be able to pass on your vintage game collection to your great grandkids 30x removed. Your games will likely survive longer than your branch of the family tree.

Just how difficult is it to press a real aluminum disc, anyway? I suppose if the technology hasn't become cheap enough for consumers by now, it probably will be forever out of reach.

I don't even have an optical drive installed in my main PC right now, though truth be told, I kind of want one for ripping CDs. Do any companies make reliable optical drives nowadays, or are they all prone to burning coasters? 😜

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I don't even have an optical drive installed in my main PC right now, though truth be told, I kind of want one for ripping CDs. Do any companies make reliable optical drives nowadays, or are they all prone to burning coasters? 😜

I generally use run of the mill LG branded drives but I also have a Pioneer and a couple of Toshiba/Samsungs. To say the truth, I'm very rarely burning any CD/DVD (for OS installation, data recovery and such) for the last five or so years, but I'm sure I never had any reliability issues with any of them. Actually reliability of blank media is much of a problem. I have some cheap CD blanks deteriorated in a couple of years before my eyes while siting in their boxes.

I just think that external hard drives and thumb drives have their uses but they are NOT archival.

Actually last year I decided to start burning CD-Rs again. Set up a specific computer just for that, filled a 208-disc binder. I had just got tot thinking.... I *know* CD-Rs are archival. I have some I recorded 12 years ago that are as good as the day they were recorded. Am I going to be able to say the same thing about DVDs? Hard to say... I have had some DVDs go bad and become unreadable. The construction of the media is very different. I believe there are actually more ways for a DVD to fail. I think it is easier for moisture to destroy the disk, The glue can fail and they can become delaminated. Yes the top of CDRs can flake off.... but I have only had that happen with cheap media.

ncmark wrote:

I have had some DVDs go bad and become unreadable. The construction of the media is very different. I believe there are actually more ways for a DVD to fail. I think it is easier for moisture to destroy the disk, The glue can fail and they can become delaminated.

Do you have a particular basis for your statement that their construction is inherently different that they would be any more susceptible to moisture and delamination than a CD-R? Those sound like factors that would vary from one manufacturer to another.

DVD+R discs are inherently less susceptible to errors than DVD-R discs, according to Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD%2BR

Well it is a fact they they are constructed differently. A CD is a solid piece op plastic. A DVD is two pieces of plastic glued together with the dye in the middle.
I have heard stories of disks becoming delaminated but never personally witnessed it
i HAVE had some DVD disks go bad and become unreadable withing a year (won't mention the brand name but have since sworn them off). Just did not trust that brand after that.

ncmark wrote:

A CD is a solid piece op plastic. A DVD is two pieces of plastic glued together with the dye in the middle.

Okay, a DVD-R may well be two pieces of plastic, but a CD is most definitely not a solid piece of plastic, and neither is a CD-R.

The polycarbonate disc is coated on the pregroove side with a very thin layer of organic dye. Then, on top of the dye is coated a thin, reflecting layer of silver, a silver alloy, or gold. Finally, a protective coating of a photo-polymerizable lacquer is applied on top of the metal reflector and cured with UV-light.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R

ncmark wrote:

I suspect because most people simply don't know the difference. They want to pay $10 for a spindle of 50 (never mind the fact that half of them will be unreadable a year later).

You know, I've always been buying the cheapest disks available, the ones where you pay $10 for a spindle of 50, and not one of them just spontaneously became unreadable. Not a year later, not 5 years later, and for the few that I've had for so long - not even 10 years later. That's when it comes to CD-R/DVD-R.

I've had disks become scratched up from use and become unreadable (mostly burnt music CDs used in the car, but some real pressed CDs too), and I've had CD-RW/DVD-RW media develop "bad sectors" after some 10+ cycles of rewriting, but that's about it.

So I do think that the correlation between optical media brand and longevity of the media is often exaggerated.

I'm not that upset about the loss of quality discs being produced. Mostly I have iso's saved in a few places and burn where and when I need, or even better mount it as a virtual drive.
They are very useful for troubleshooting. I spend a lot of time on site and have a CD wallet with OS's tool's etc as its still the easiest media to boot from.
Servers haven't had drives in them by default for a log time though and whats annoying is certain updates insist on USB sticks below 8GB which aren't always readably available these days either 🙁

Playing game CD audio of a virtual drive would be a dream come true. But doubt anyone will really bother with mp3's taking over and ripping CD's being so easy even my parents can do it there is a very little demand for it.

Would designing and building a USB based CD/DVD drive emulator be very difficult? I'm picturing something like a GOTEK, but also with an audio port at the back. In the front a USB header, LCD display and controls to select an image.

dr_st wrote:

ncmark wrote:

I suspect because most people simply don't know the difference. They want to pay $10 for a spindle of 50 (never mind the fact that half of them will be unreadable a year later).

You know, I've always been buying the cheapest disks available, the ones where you pay $10 for a spindle of 50, and not one of them just spontaneously became unreadable. Not a year later, not 5 years later, and for the few that I've had for so long - not even 10 years later. That's when it comes to CD-R/DVD-R.

Same. The only CDs i've had fail spontaneuously are CD-RWs which have been said to be more durable
hell even my cheap computerstore-brand CD-R discs from the 90s can still be read in 2015

philscomputerlab wrote:

Would designing and building a USB based CD/DVD drive emulator be very difficult? I'm picturing something like a GOTEK, but also with an audio port at the back. In the front a USB header, LCD display and controls to select an image.

My friend has an external harddrive enclosure, with CD emulation mode for ISO files. I don't know the model number offhand, but these do exist already.

Though I think an IDE-based CD emulator with audio output would be more useful, so you can play dos games with CD audio without having to deal with the actual discs (noise/wear/hassle).

Would make a cool kickstarter project IMO.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Would make a cool kickstarter project IMO.

Or one could explore this for a starter. Don't think it's Win9X compatible though.
https://tinyapps.org/blog/misc/201005080700_b … o_from_usb.html

Btw..
Startech makes some sort of USB hard drive with ISO emulation of some sort.
Read it really quickly.