Despite the claim, optical drives are still manufactured, as is blank media.

This includes ordinary compact disc, but also DVD-R, and even writable blue-ray.

To wit:

Writable Blue-ray drive:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/External-Blu-Ray-D … tBoCE88QAvD_BwE

and writable blue-ray discs
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Verbatim-43811-25G … nhoCNnsQAvD_BwE

the same is true for DVD-R, and CD-R.

There might be difficulties with *PLAYERS*, which *FOOLISHLY* only respect officially pressed media. (Nevermind that people still ROUTINELY get wedding footage and photos on these media, and want to play them from time to time.)

If you intend to make and use such drives and media, make sure that your player is not created by moronic lawyers that live in a fantasy bubble universe where only they exist, and where they get money for no reason. Select a player from a more sensible manufacturer.

Additionally, if you are making duplicates of commercial media for archival purposes, make sure the legalese in your part of the world allows that. Sadly, here in the US, we have some rather silly legislation. Your mileage may vary.

Zones are annoying, but here's an odd one that shows engineers can be as moronic as lawyers:

I had a Japanese DVD in my iMac, which under normal conditions played in Japanese as you'd expect. But, if I attached my Windows 10 USB boot disk to the iMac then the Japanese DVD would play in English!

I never did figure out what was going on there.

Edit: Asked AI for an explanation and it says, "The most plausible explanation is that mounting the ISO introduced an additional virtual optical drive or volume, confusing Leopard's DVD subsystem. A device-identification or media-initialisation bug may have caused DVD Player to select the English audio track instead of Japanese. The crucial clue is that the ISO had to be mounted. Merely having the USB stick connected wasn't sufficient."

As for the question-- There may be compelling reasons to *MISUSE* some older formats.

VHS for instance, while notorious for its stretching and rainbow funshows--- Is actually *BANGER* for studio audio recording from analog sources.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QWotrW-RVM

I've heard some fairly recent artists do that just to colour their sound like a watermark.

wierd_w wrote on 2026-10-27, 22:30:

As for the question-- There may be compelling reasons to *MISUSE* some older formats.

VHS for instance, while notorious for its stretching and rainbow funshows--- Is actually *BANGER* for studio audio recording from analog sources.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QWotrW-RVM

Hi! Yes, but only helical audio tracks supported by the "Hi-Fi Stereo" VCRs.(Using the video head to encode audio or computer data into picture information was another possibility.)
The ordinary VHS VCRs of the 70s and 80s had a mono audio head that used linear recording.
Okay, strictly speaking there also were some that had stereo support.
And I should mention that most VHS tapes had both a mono (linear) track and a stereo (helical) track.

Sometimes, they carried different audio recordings even (for dubbing, audio comments etc).
I once read that some had different languages on mono vs stereo track, for example.
Higher-end VCRs allowed selecting between the tracks manually. But I don't know much about this.

That's why I'd like to quote some commenter on that YT channel.
"A video about using a VCR for audio recording, but neglects to mention one very important thing, HI-Fi Stereo.
Unless a VCR is Hi-Fi Stereo capable the recording will be of mediocre quality and very likely be mono as well,
unless using one of the rare linear track stereo VCRs from the early 80s.
The VHS tape speed for PAL in SP is 0.92 ips, which is significantly less than compact cassette at 1.78 ips."

My server shows 112.19 TiB used which range from 480p to 2160p so streaming from my server for me.

I clicked on this thread expecting to answer "kodachrome" but I see I misinterpreted the title

Jo22 wrote on 2026-10-27, 23:14:

Hi! Yes, but only helical audio tracks supported by the "Hi-Fi Stereo" VCRs.(Using the video head to encode audio or computer da […]
Show full quote

wierd_w wrote on 2026-10-27, 22:30:

As for the question-- There may be compelling reasons to *MISUSE* some older formats.

VHS for instance, while notorious for its stretching and rainbow funshows--- Is actually *BANGER* for studio audio recording from analog sources.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QWotrW-RVM

Hi! Yes, but only helical audio tracks supported by the "Hi-Fi Stereo" VCRs.(Using the video head to encode audio or computer data into picture information was another possibility.)
The ordinary VHS VCRs of the 70s and 80s had a mono audio head that used linear recording.
Okay, strictly speaking there also were some that had stereo support.
And I should mention that most VHS tapes had both a mono (linear) track and a stereo (helical) track.

Sometimes, they carried different audio recordings even (for dubbing, audio comments etc).
I once read that some had different languages on mono vs stereo track, for example.
Higher-end VCRs allowed selecting between the tracks manually. But I don't know much about this.

That's why I'd like to quote some commenter on that YT channel.
"A video about using a VCR for audio recording, but neglects to mention one very important thing, HI-Fi Stereo.
Unless a VCR is Hi-Fi Stereo capable the recording will be of mediocre quality and very likely be mono as well,
unless using one of the rare linear track stereo VCRs from the early 80s.
The VHS tape speed for PAL in SP is 0.92 ips, which is significantly less than compact cassette at 1.78 ips."

I wouldnt say 'hifi stereo' was 'rare' over here stateside...

I use DVD and i have some Blurays and 4K Blurays.

I would use a VCR as a kid to record my favorite radio shows while I was on holiday. I had it connected to a radio which was itself connected to an external timer programmed on a weekly schedule.

I would get 8 hours of audio from a single tape. It was mono though, which sucked, as I was recording music shows. But better than nothing.

wierd_w wrote on Yesterday, 00:06:

Jo22 wrote on 2026-10-27, 23:14:

Hi! Yes, but only helical audio tracks supported by the "Hi-Fi Stereo" VCRs.(Using the video head to encode audio or computer da […]
Show full quote

wierd_w wrote on 2026-10-27, 22:30:

As for the question-- There may be compelling reasons to *MISUSE* some older formats.

VHS for instance, while notorious for its stretching and rainbow funshows--- Is actually *BANGER* for studio audio recording from analog sources.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QWotrW-RVM

Hi! Yes, but only helical audio tracks supported by the "Hi-Fi Stereo" VCRs.(Using the video head to encode audio or computer data into picture information was another possibility.)
The ordinary VHS VCRs of the 70s and 80s had a mono audio head that used linear recording.
Okay, strictly speaking there also were some that had stereo support.
And I should mention that most VHS tapes had both a mono (linear) track and a stereo (helical) track.

Sometimes, they carried different audio recordings even (for dubbing, audio comments etc).
I once read that some had different languages on mono vs stereo track, for example.
Higher-end VCRs allowed selecting between the tracks manually. But I don't know much about this.

That's why I'd like to quote some commenter on that YT channel.
"A video about using a VCR for audio recording, but neglects to mention one very important thing, HI-Fi Stereo.
Unless a VCR is Hi-Fi Stereo capable the recording will be of mediocre quality and very likely be mono as well,
unless using one of the rare linear track stereo VCRs from the early 80s.
The VHS tape speed for PAL in SP is 0.92 ips, which is significantly less than compact cassette at 1.78 ips."

I wouldnt say 'hifi stereo' was 'rare' over here stateside...

Helical AFM stereo (Hi-Fi) on VHS was very common on the market by the mid-90s, in Canada at least. My first HI-FI stereo VHS VCR (4-head too) was purchased new for 200 Canadian dollars in the mid-90s, at a department store (I forget whether it was Zellers or Walmart). It was one of the cheaper brands one could find, but it worked well for the five or six years I had it. VHS decks with HI-FI stereo were quite common and inexpensive by then, but not ubiquitous.

El-cheapo, sub 100$ 2-head, sometimes 4, but nearly always mono, decks were still available until, AFAICR, VHS/DVD combo decks were the last man standing on the market. Those combo units were always HI-FI stereo for the VHS side (there might have been some exceptions, but I do not recall seeing any).

EDIT : Playback only VCRs were also a thing at some point, probably peaking before the mid-90s, when removing the need for a working record head setup, associated control logic, tuner, timer, on-screen display and everything else possible in order to "muntz" a basic 2-head mono VHS deck down to the lowest price point possible was deemed worthwhile.

I grew up with in the VCR era. Recorded many movies and shows onto tapes.

I can tell you that despite whatever nostalgia one may have, VHS (and any analog videotape) is useless junk destined to the landfill and nothing more. It's total crap.

At some point I salvaged whatever unique content I had on my VHS tapes by digitizing them onto a PC, then got rid of the tapes. The quality was already bad by them after watching each tape dozens of times, but it was better than nothing.

DVD/BluRay are nice, but not convenient. I like DVDs for the Bonus content/features present in many of them.

Other than that, if you just want to watch the "main feature", a digital movie on your hardware/network is the simplest and easiest with least hassle. Open the file and push play.

If you don't want to hoard a multi-terabyte collection, streaming services are best - free, paid, legal, extralegal - whatever floats your boat - but they are not always reliable.

I am keeping DVDs, not sure about VHS long term, I am attempting to replace with DVD versions but not all stuff made it to DVD. Also some VHS might not depart, like original StarWars before Lucas meddled with it again.

I have a couple of terabytes of legally acquired digital.

I keep minorly futzing with a PVR setup for digital OTA, FTA capture but it's not "going" properly yet. Gonna stack a load of tuners in one box and build up a timeshifted cache of stuff to watch when the mood strikes. I watch OTA live sometimes too, there's often good old stuff on Charge! Antenna TV, Quest and Comet (scifi channel) Those will usually be on subchannels of your major local networks.

Online, free services get a look in occasionally, PlutoTV lot of classics on there, Plex has some free stuff.

Also you can look on the website of your local TV networks and get apps/web access to an amount of on demand stuff. Good one here is CBC GEM. PBS has a streaming site/app too.

dr_st wrote on Yesterday, 11:26:

I grew up with in the VCR era. Recorded many movies and shows onto tapes. […]
Show full quote

I grew up with in the VCR era. Recorded many movies and shows onto tapes.

I can tell you that despite whatever nostalgia one may have, VHS (and any analog videotape) is useless junk destined to the landfill and nothing more. It's total crap.

At some point I salvaged whatever unique content I had on my VHS tapes by digitizing them onto a PC, then got rid of the tapes. The quality was already bad by them after watching each tape dozens of times, but it was better than nothing.

DVD/BluRay are nice, but not convenient. I like DVDs for the Bonus content/features present in many of them.

Other than that, if you just want to watch the "main feature", a digital movie on your hardware/network is the simplest and easiest with least hassle. Open the file and push play.

If you don't want to hoard a multi-terabyte collection, streaming services are best - free, paid, legal, extralegal - whatever floats your boat - but they are not always reliable.

The quality of commercial releases on VHS varied immensely. Some of them looked worse, when new, than a freshly made SP recording onto low grade tape. I have no nostalgia for the quality, visual artefacts and limitations of VHS. I do enjoy trying to salvage old recordings of personal significance (marriages, graduations, etc) when I can (and have time for it).

I may yet get some hardware to try this https://github.com/oyvindln/vhs-decode

The quality of VCRs also varied immensely. Late 4 head models can look like DVD compared to older machines.

Edit: heh, and DVD can look like VCR, depending on conversion source and how early and cheaply it was converted. Some of them look like the FMV intro from a mid 90s game, artifacts and color banding up the wazoo.

like many i have DVDs, no VHS anymore and nostalgia aside i'm fine with it - there are lot of movies that were on VHS that never made it to DVD though. Many ended up in vhs rips on youtube, dailymotion (until dailymotion started wiping stuff) and some others. I guess i have more "hours" digitally than on a physical media

I never did get to using bluray and really don't mind, i'm happy with DVD. I just don't get the obsession with maxing out pixels that some people have, the visuals are a bit better but the movie is the same. standard DVD is enough. I have a couple of older smaller flatscreen tv's, kinda spares, and i think 3 or 4 older dvd players plus a couple of newer budget ones. these seems to be next to nothing in yard sales etc now

Mechanical hard drives and USB sticks. Look my avatar. 😏

gerry wrote on Yesterday, 17:22:

like many i have DVDs, no VHS anymore and nostalgia aside i'm fine with it - there are lot of movies that were on VHS that never made it to DVD though. Many ended up in vhs rips on youtube, dailymotion (until dailymotion started wiping stuff) and some others. I guess i have more "hours" digitally than on a physical media

I never did get to using bluray and really don't mind, i'm happy with DVD. I just don't get the obsession with maxing out pixels that some people have, the visuals are a bit better but the movie is the same. standard DVD is enough. I have a couple of older smaller flatscreen tv's, kinda spares, and i think 3 or 4 older dvd players plus a couple of newer budget ones. these seems to be next to nothing in yard sales etc now

You dont *necessarily* need to use the extra capacity of blueray disc for more pixels.

A better use is 'more episodes per disc', especially for old shows that were never shot outside of 4:3 ratio *anyway*.

regular watcher of DVD, but also have VHS tapes and some laser discs.

I never really went for the ripping of discs onto a drive.
It seems thats the main use for multi terabyte home servers. They wouldnt have any other use for the storage otherwise, which I do find amusing, considering most ripped those movies from a DVD.