Physical Media might not be dead, but Physical Media in Retail Stores are accelerating the death (1 Viewer)

[BobO'Link]

I've had more failures with CDR and CDRW discs than anything else. Sometimes failing after less than a year. I used to back up everything on those discs until the failure rate hit ~50%. At that point I just purchased more drives and used them. Those failures are a major reason I don't trust BOD discs.

 

[LouA]

In the age of vinyl albums I learned to never lend anything. Period. I'd had people cut ads out of comics (ruining the book and story), cut ads out of magazines (ruining a story I wanted to keep), fold/spindle/mutilate comics/magazines/books, never return song books, albums, etc. or return them looking like the dog chewed them a while (or were used as coasters). I just got to the point that if I were asked the answer would be "Sorry, I don't lend. You're more than welcome to come to my house to read/watch/listen though." Family members were the absolute worst about trashing stuff and/or never returning it (usually only if I broke down and asked for it back). I've mellowed a bit in recent years and have 2 or 3 people I've carefully vetted (they take care of their stuff like I do) and will loan things to (but still no family members).

I don't lend for the very same reasons you cite . You keep something that you like, and enjoy, in nice condition . Then, someone insists on borrowing it . If you DO get it back it looks like something the cat dragged in . Usually people who are compulsive "borrowers ' don't want to spend the money for something, so they borrow it . It doesn't really mean that much to them , or else they would have bought it .But, since they didn't buy it themselves , it doesn't have much value to them and they don't take care of it . Many DVDs I've lent , never were returned. Having said all that , I have no problem GIVING someone a DVD, after I've replaced it with a Blu-ray. One acquaintance won't take the DVD - he wants only the best quality - BD - which he won't buy himself!

 

[jcroy]

I've had more failures with CDR and CDRW discs than anything else. Sometimes failing after less than a year. I used to back up everything on those discs until the failure rate hit ~50%. At that point I just purchased more drives and used them. Those failures are a major reason I don't trust BOD discs.

My failures back in the mid-1990s, were of factory pressed cd audio discs. Apparently they were cd titles released by some obscure record labels which went belly up sometime around 1991 or 1992.

In the case of burned cdr discs, I assumed they would be just as bad as my factory pressed cd audio discs (or worse). I didn't buy a computer cdr burner until around y2k. (My 90s era computers were mostly cd-rom only. One was a model which had the cd-rom drive connected to a Soundblaster soundcard).

 

[jcroy]

Frankly due to my past bad first-hand experiences with rotting cd audio discs more than 25 years ago, I never really trusted dvds, blurays, etc ... whether factory pressed or burned.

 

[jcroy]

But with $2-$5 dvds and blurays since the early-2010's, I was willing to take a chance at such low prices.

Anything on dvd/bluray over $10 a pop, is a much harder pill to swallow for me.

 

[TJPC]

I had a huge collection of LP records that I converted to CD-Rs over a number of years. Some of these now are almost 30 years old. I don’t think I’ve had trouble with any of them.

 

[jcroy]

I had a huge collection of LP records that I converted to CD-Rs over a number of years.

I thought about doing this when blank cdr discs first appeared on market. At the time circa 1990s, I still had many vinyl lps which were not released on cd yet.

What changed my mind, was that previous first encounter with the failure of pressed audio cd discs back in 93 or 94. It left a bad taste in my mouth. Since then, I took the attitude that I'll just wait for these partciular vinyl lp titles to eventually show up on cd sometime in the then-future.

(Of all these vinyl lps titles I had which were not released on cd at the time, all of them were eventually re-released officially on cd since then. The last of them was finally released officially for the first time on cd in 2016).

 

[BobO'Link]

I thought about doing this when blank cdr discs first appeared on market. At the time circa 1990s, I still had many vinyl lps which were not released on cd yet.

What changed my mind, was that previous first encounter with the failure of pressed audio cd discs back in 93 or 94. It left a bad taste in my mouth. Since then, I took the attitude that I'll just wait for these partciular vinyl lp titles to eventually show up on cd sometime in the then-future.

(Of all these vinyl lps titles I had which were not released on cd at the time, all of them were eventually re-released officially on cd since then. The last of them was finally released officially for the first time on cd in 2016).

My decision to not transfer my vinyl collection was similar. Add to your reason that I didn't want all the surface noise transferred as well. My car still had a tape player so the vinyl to tape transfers I'd made for it were good enough. Flash forward and there are still 4 or 5 albums (and a few I never purchased on vinyl) that've never seen CD release. A couple are available digitally (but MP3 rather than FLAC - I'll likely get 'em at some point) but I should really transfer the others.

 

[TJPC]

My collection consisted mostly of Broadway shows, rare soundtracks and classical music that were/are really hard to find. I was an audiophile, so my collection was mostly pristine.

My computer program allowed me to see a visual representation of music tracks and edit out the rare instance of a click or pop and CD-Rs are so inexpensive that it was an easy way to unify my collection. I also utilized the public libraries in this area, which often had the cd version of something I only had on LP.
Sometimes library CDs would have damaged tracks, so I made a “Frankenstein” disc with LP tracks inserted for the damaged ones.

This activity plus scanning the cover of the record to make a CD booklet provided me with a hobby for about 5 years, as I CD’d each LP and sold off the records to a store in Toronto.

I do replace these home made discs when I see a bargain or from iTunes. Many rare LPs have never been on CD, and some which were on CD are now out of print. I often check Amazon to replace my home mades when I play through my collection, and find they are only available at astronomical prices.

 

[jcroy]

Add to your reason that I didn't want all the surface noise transferred as well.

(On a tangent).

The absolute worst type of album re-released officially on cd, were ones where they just did a "dub" from an old vinyl copy and put that "dub" onto a factory pressed cd disc. All the record noise and scratches are still there with no effort whatsoever to clean up the sound.

The semi-official excuses I've heard online about such half-assed official re-releases, is stuff like:

- The original master tape is missing.
- The record company won't give them access to the original master tape.
- The master tape is in an unuseable decayed condition and sounds worse than a version already on vinyl.
- etc ...

 

[Mr. Handley]

I have some friends that work for re-issue record labels. One of them is the top in his field of cleaning up vinyl for CD release. All of those above are plausible excuses for using a vinyl dub. What is not excusable is not making any efforts to clean up the surface noise, pops, etc. The software exists to make it happen. Those that don't are either too lazy or too cheap (or both) to care.

 

[TJPC]

I had found free “depopper” programs on line that even helped with 78s.

 

[jcroy]

I’m not so sure any more. Probably the things that are safest are the titles where I have the disc, have the movie ripped to my HTPC, and then also have a digital copy thanks to an included code - three different version stored in different formats in different locations, I feel confident I don’t have to worry as much about those.

I was thinking in this manner almost a decade ago, though with a slightly different premise. At the time, I was encountering newly purchased dvds which had freezing, skipping, pixelation, etc ... problems when played on my standalone dvd players. Though when I checked the same dvd discs on the computer, there were no problems and the discs ripped at the full 12x speed without any slowdowns.

Whatever was happening on different players and discs, I knew right away that playback was highly variable and somewhat unpredictable.

So I went all in and decided that playing iso rips on the computer, was a more reliable viewing experience than dealing with the vagarities of different player/disc combinations.

 

[jcroy]

In a different context, I've been coming to the realization that storing films/shows in different places (ie. drives, cloud, discs, safety deposit box, hard drives, etc ....) has less and less cache for me as I get older.

I've been finding that with each successive viewing of a movie/episode, it gets less and less interesting / exciting to me.


Though with that being said, the only scenario I've been finding where my interest is maintained or even boosted in a particular movie/show, is something else completely unrelated to watching tv/movies.

I've been finding that reading the original books that a movie/show was based on or adapted, was more interesting and detailed than watching the same episodes/movies over and over again. For example, such as reading some of the Star Wars movie novelizations, or the novelization of the first Star Trek movie and TAS episodes. In the case of Marvel or DC movies, it involved reading some of the graphic novel compilations of the comic book issues which some of the movies were loosely based on.

 

[jcroy]

In the case of movies like Dune, Lord of the Rings, etc .... I've found that my interest wanes considerably with each viewing.

Reading the original books were much more interesting by then.

 

[Bryan^H]

Something that bothers me is the inaccurate info about archival life of discs. I read somewhere once that a burned DVD-R has a shelf life of 5 years. Of course when I read it I thought that was absurd. I recently watched 12 discs I burned on a cheap Panasonic recorder in 2004. All the discs played perfectly. 16 years later and counting.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Across the board, I’ve had better long term survival ratios on burned media than pressed media, whether its CD, DVD or BD. It could just be that my sample size of burned discs is too small, but I no longer distrust them. I don’t expect any disc to last forever and ever and if it’s something I cannot lose under any circumstances I plan accordingly, but I no longer fear that burned things will be turning into coasters overnight.

 

[Bryan^H]

Across the board, I’ve had better long term survival ratios on burned media than pressed media, whether its CD, DVD or BD. It could just be that my sample size of burned discs is too small, but I no longer distrust them. I don’t expect any disc to last forever and ever and if it’s something I cannot lose under any circumstances I plan accordingly, but I no longer fear that burned things will be turning into coasters overnight.

I'm walking a tightrope without a net when it comes to my discs. I don't back anything up, so if they fail (and some have) that is it for that specific title. I don't even have the desire to rebuy another copy.
I do however buy doubles sometimes triples (borderline OCD, I know) of content I really love, and with almost 100% certainty feel will not be released again physically. TV shows mainly.

 

[jcroy]

I'm pretty much at the point where if my house burns down or is destroyed in a natural disaster (ie. flood, hurricane, etc ....), I would not "rebuild" my cd/dvd/bluray collection at all. (Nor my personal library of books).

Any data of importance, I'll print out several copies on paper and keep one in a bank safety deposit box. If it is too large to print out on paper, I'll make several copies on different flash drives and external hard drives. (So far I have no need to do the latter yet).

 

[jcroy]

It would be pointless to "rebuild" a cd/dvd/bluray collection of stuff that has very little to no rewatch value for me.