DVD-ROM adoption

[Mercutio]

I like to tell people that DVD-ROM is the optical medium of... sometime in the future. Everyone responds with "But I don't want to watch movies on my PC!" Of course, when a 16x DVD-ROM costs and performs about the same as a 52X CD-ROM, the DVD is the superior choice.

Yet I still get argument... I don't wanna pay $2 more for a DVD-ROM!

At which point I usually give up. DVD-ROM drives find their way into just a little less than half the machines I build.

So, just out of curiousity, is anyone else having better luck putting DVD-ROM drives into their PCs?

 

[Buck]

Nope, but I'm not trying as hard as you are.

 

[Mercutio]

Looking back at the computers I sold in 2002, out of 39 machines, 31 had CD-RW drives. That's a damned good rate of adoption.
19 had DVD-ROM. Most of those drives went to college kids. Only one machine I sold had a DVD-ROM and no CD-RW.
Seven machines had a CD-ROM for a second drive, and seven machines had only a CD-ROM.

The cost difference between (Lite-On) CD-ROM and (Lite-On or Toshiba) DVD-ROM over the course of the year appears to have been about $8 and sometimes as little as $3.

Kind of interesting how little computer-buyers seem to care for that feature.

 

[Buck]

Most of my business for 2002 was for businesses . . . er . . . for companies. Anyhow, they were all satisfied with 52x CD Drives and would pick the option of a CD-RW for backup purposes only. Now, the few home users I had all picked CD-RWs, but still didn't see the need for DVD. They tended to play DVD movies on their home entertainment system, not their computer. I was amazed to see how many home users that were doing upgrades already had DVD players (usually Compaq systems) and really didn't care about them. They were much more interested in upgrading their CD burner from something like 4x to 24x.

 

[blakerwry]

I sold my father on the idea of getting a DVD/CD-RW combo drive. CD-RW cause he wants to download muic/make mixes and backup his CD's that are constantly getting scratched up. DVD for video as much as furture data uses. The DVD was more of an extra because the price difference was pretty much negligable(as merc pointed out).

LG GCE 4320B 32x10x40, 16x DVD for $72

 

[Mercutio]

I've found that dual drives are a fairly easy sell. Most people will take the speed hit in copying CDs to not have to swap the disc in the middle of the process.

 

[blakerwry]

Merc, were you were talking about my combo drive when you made your statements about selling dual drives? ...there is an old ~16x goldstar CD-ROM in there as well as the combo drive...


I agree that dual drives is an easy sell, but I'm not sure why you made the comment...


speed hit? copying "on the fly" is almost always faster than reading and writing using the same drive. Although not usually as reliable a copy (since CD-R drives usually are much better readers of disks than CD/DVD-ROM drives)

 

[Handruin]

I haven't had much need or inclination to buy a DVD-ROM in my own machine, but I think I will next time around because the cost is similar. I was surprised to see the majority of sun servers we had in the lab at work came with DVD drives. Maybe it's a Sun thing...

 

[Tea]

OK guyz, it's big statement, out-on-a-limb time for me.

DVD's are damn near useless. The counts against them are:

• They cost quite a lot more than CD-ROM drives - my retail is $100 for a DVD (Samsung) with 12 month warranty versus $$70 for a CD-ROM (Mitsubushi) with a two-year warranty.
• They seem to have have slower settle times, and thus anoy the user more with that damn wait-till-the-computer-sees-the-disc.
• They seem to be less reliable.
• They can't read scratched or worn CDs anywhere near as well as a true CD-ROM drive.
• DVDs have that appallingly predatory reigon coding scheme, for which no rational excuse has ever been mounted, and which can only be explained in terms of naked greed.
• You can't copy them without frustration, lots of fancy software, and a couple of bravery pills.
• DVDs provide only a modest capacity increase over CD-ROM technology.
• They just generally suck.

In their favour:

• They can read DVD discs.
• They are supposed to have a higher DTR, not that anyone much would ever notice.

We can discard the second advantage as it is trivial, and now ponder the first one: DVD drives can read DVD discs. First, scratch everything else except movies. Out here in the real world nothing comes on DVD except those stupid cover discs you get on DVD magazines. Well, barely anything. And there has been no discernable movement for data DVDs to take off either: it's a dead dog of a product that will shortly go the way of 8-track tape.

That leaves movies. Who, in their right mind, would watch a DVD movie on their computer when they can watch it on the big-screen TV?

(Come to that, who in their right mind would watch a movie at all when there are so many better things to do, such as read a book, post on Storage Forum, sleep in till lunchtime, or ... what are we comparing to again? Oh yes, watching mass-release movies .... or watch paint dry.)

(Shutup, Tannin!)

Worst of all, is the incredibly stupid writable DVD format war, which shows no sign whatever of being over before it doesn't matter anymore because the capacity of a blank DVD is considered too small to be worth bothering with.

It's a dead format, guyz. Forget about DVD. By the time the industry getz them right, they will be fit only for storage with Tannin's collection of MFM hard drives.

(Huh! As if I'd bother collecting DVD drives when I've got real hardware to store away.)

(Shutup Tannin.)

 

[Platform]

DVD's are damn near useless. The counts against them are:
[*]They seem to be less reliable.

Yes, indeed.

[*]They can't read scratched or worn CDs anywhere near as well as a true CD-ROM drive.

YES, INDEED!

[*]DVDs provide only a modest capacity increase over CD-ROM technology.

Not true.
~4.7 GB is a *lot* more that ~0.7GB.

 

[Tannin]

We ship systems as standard with a Lite-On 48X burner. A CD-ROM drive is an optional extra, ditto with a DVD. (Or whatever combination the customer wants.)

About one customer in 10 asks for a DVD drive. As we work our way through the order form, deciding what CPU option to have and if they need a modem and all that stuff, we get to the square where it days "Optical Drives" and I ask "What are you going to use the DVD for?"

The usual answer is "Err ... dunno."

"Are you going to watch DVD movies?"

"Half say "no", the other half say "yes". So I clarify: "You want to watch movies on the computer screen?"

"Oh no - why would I? We just spent $2000 on a wide screen TV/home entertainment system. We wouldn't use the computer to watch movies on."

"So what else are you going to use it for?"

"Errr ... What else is there?"

"Beats me."

"Uhh, scratch the DVD. How much cheaper did you say a CD-ROM drive was again?"

"Thirty bucks. And they read CD discs better to, especially if they are scratched or burned."

"And then ... we could get those better speakers after all?"

"Sounds good to me."

There you have it. The average DVD drive sale.

We buy a box of 8 CDRWs once, sometimes twice a week. We buy a box of ten CD-ROMs every ten days or so. We buy two DVDs about every six or eight weeks.

Or as my good friend and esteemed colleague Tea says, DVDs suck.

 

[Tea]

The way I see it, if it ain't a factor of ten, it ain't worth bothering with. Not if you have to change formatz. In practice, a factor of about 50 seems to work. Notice how not one single floppy drive replacement product even looked like taking off until the 100MB and 120MB Zip and LS-120 drives came along. Unless you count those ztupid Zony magneto-optical thingz, which I don't. Tea's first law:

Any product that is dead in the water is ... er ... a product that's dead in the water.

 

[Fushigi]

1. Sun boxes showing up with DVD drives: If they're -R or +R drives, then they offer a method of backing up for those who dislike tape and have small amounts of data to backup. Otherwise, Sun is probably gearing up to start offering OS releases on DVD instead of CD. How many CDs make up an OS release for Solaris? If it's more than 5, DVD starts to make sense and is certainly much more convenient.

2. DVD Capacity: 4.7GB is the least common denominator. Really, a pressed DVD can easily be dual-layer so you get a little over 9GB, which beats Tea's factor of 10 with a little headroom. I'll ignore that you can dual-side them as well & get up to 18GB; I dislike dual-sided media that's not encased in anything protective.

3. Watching shows via DVD-ROM: Believe or not, a lot of people do this. One of the most common groups are younger folks (teens through college students) who have a PC in their room but no space/budget for a TV. Others use the DVD-ROM but use TV out to hook up to a real TV for viewing. My notebook has a CD-RW/DVD combo drive and I've used it to watch movies when working over the weekend. Doing a system upgrade is typically a hurry up and wait thing; 5 minutes of activity then you wait 20 minutes to 3 hours to do the next thing. There's little entertainment in the data center and I get tired if I read too much.

Out side of that, I've little to no use for a DVD-ROM drive. Or an RW for that matter. I put a DVD-ROM is my wife's PC (more for kicks than anything else) but I can't say we've used it for very much. Her LiteOn CD-RW does DEA faster and we don't copy CD to CD very often so it's mostly idle. Backups go to tape.

I own hundreds of DVDs, but I watch them using a real home theater; not a PC screen with questionable sound.

- Fushigi

 

[Newtun]

We ship systems as standard with a Lite-On 48X burner. A CD-ROM drive is an optional extra, ditto with a DVD.

Just as an aside, what CD-ROM drives do you like?

 

[Tannin]

I like the Mitsubushi 52X, Newtun, though I haven't compared it to very many others lately. We used to be a Panasonic shop, for CD, DVD, CDR and FDD, but only stock the FDDs now, because about a year or 18 months ago their quality fell in a big, black hole. I guess we replaced around 20 or 25 Panasonic drives (mostly 48X CD-ROMs) where in a normal year, we would have maybe 2 or 4. Not good enough. So we switched. We tried three or four brands - Mitsubushi, BCN, one or two others - and the Mitsubushis were the best. We sell heaps, the price is good, they have a nice, smooth action, plenty fast so far as settle time goes, no long, long spin-up time like the old Mitsubishi 40X had, and ... oh ... One failure? Two? None? Kristi might remember. I think it might be just the one drive out of perhaps 300.

 

[Mercutio]

Also, on the up side for DVD on a PC, TVs suck. Monitors don't. The picture available to my 27" 800x600 presentation display was light-years better than the best TV I could find.
Also, for someone looking at a "Home Theater" experience, it's interesting to point out how little work needs to be done to make a PC a respectable HT, compared to the average 10-year-old TV and (maybe) receiver. 5.1 sound? You may have it already on your PC, and if not, a $30 purchase can get it for you. DVD? A standalone player is still around $100, but a DVD-ROM is $35. Nice speakers? Well, a good set of PC speakers costs $75 - $300. That might buy a good-quality sub or center channel...

Just thought I'd mention that.

One other thing: DVD as a data format is not dead. It's uncommon, sure, but I shudder to think of how much crap I'd have to sort through if my MSDN subscription didn't come in that format.

 

[Cliptin]

It is much easier to justify a ~$1200 19/20/21 inch computer monitor that I could also watch DVDs on rather than a very large ~$2000 TV that I would have to buy a PC for to do anything other than watch movies.

Late last year I spent only $450 total to install digital 5.1 sound for my computer.