[jokell82]

Originally Posted by icruise 

Why couldn't you? But in any case, I imagine that by the time it would become an issue, the cost of players would be so low that this would be a non-issue.

I guess it may be *technically* possible, but who are we kidding? Sony would never make an external HD DVD drive for the PS3.

And you're right about standalone costs.

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

I guess it may be *technically* possible, but who are we kidding? Sony would never make an external HD DVD drive for the PS3.

With the life-spam of current video-game systems maybe not, but as for PS4 you never know…

[sek929]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Windows goes without saying of course - regardless of it's objective qualities. Where Microsoft succeeds in quality is actually their hardware. My Intellimouse is going strong on it's seventh year now.

I guess we bought ours at the same time then. Mine still works great too

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

With the life-spam of current video-game systems maybe not, but as for PS4 you never know…

Oh no I think the scenario where Sony makes an HD DVD player is *possible*, but not for the PS3.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by sek929 

I guess we bought ours at the same time then. Mine still works great too

I have an original IntelliMouse Explorer that still works great. It's probably 10 years old now.

[Kevin]

Yeah.. Didn't MS buy out a mouse making company?

[- - e r i k - -]

The point is...the optical media era is ending, just like the magnetic tape era ended. Very soon (before the end of the decade hopefully) there will be no need for fragile disks anymore. Solid state and digital online delivery is the way of the future™.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

The point is...the optical media era is ending, just like the magnetic tape era ended. Very soon (before the end of the decade hopefully) there will be no need for fragile disks anymore. Solid state and digital online delivery is the way of the future™.

You think hard discs will be replaced by solid state by the end of the decade? That's just over 2 years from now.

I agree that digital delivery will eventually be the standard, but not until solid state storage completely replaces hard disc drives. I don't see that happening for at least another 10 years.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

You think hard discs will be replaced by solid state by the end of the decade? That's just over 2 years from now.

Uh no. What gave you that impression? I said optical media will be replaced by solid state (and more to the point digital online delivery to hard drives). Hard drives will at some point eventually be replaced by solid state, but that's way forward in the future.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

The point is...the optical media era is ending, just like the magnetic tape era ended. Very soon (before the end of the decade hopefully) there will be no need for fragile disks anymore. Solid state and digital online delivery is the way of the future™.

Yep, this is probably the last optical disc battle.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Uh no. What gave you that impression? I said optical media will be replaced by solid state (and more to the point digital online delivery to hard drives. Hard drives will at some point eventually be replaced by solid state, but that's way forward in the future.

Your last line when you mentioned solid state...

But yeah, I'm not sure digital downloads will be the standard until that happens. My parents have had to replace their DVRs 5 times with the cable company all due to hard drive failures. If they had held all their *purchased* media they'd be pretty pissed.

[- - e r i k - -]

That's the way of hard drives unfortunately. The only certainty is that they will fail - so you better keep backups of your purchases.

[icruise]

If only there were some way to have a hard copy of your movies. Perhaps on a disc of some sort... No, that's just crazy talk.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by icruise 

If only there were some way to have a hard copy of your movies. Perhaps on a disc of some sort... No, that's just crazy talk.

Well, that's where we are hoping solid state will go. Or even on your iPod. Multiple movies on a portable medium? Wow. That's crazy talk!

Optical disks are still in use because they are cheap to manufacture. As a technology it's at the end of the line. It's a fragile, unreliable medium and that worsens the higher the capacity is pushed.

[icruise]

Solid state may be the future, but it's not the near future. I think there's plenty of time left before the technology matures for a final disc-based medium to have a full lifespan.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by icruise 

Solid state may be the future, but it's not the near future. I think there's plenty of time left before the technology matures for a final disc-based medium to have a full lifespan.

Why does it necessarily have to be disk based at all? 720p streaming is here now. Even if video was stored on a disk, and the disk failed, it wouldn't be too much trouble to redownload it. XBox Live let's you redownload 720p video, and it's very good quality with 5.1 audio.

I think the digital distribution era is much closer than people think, and the format war is just helping the digital distribution camp.

[exca1ibur]

Originally Posted by icruise 

Solid state may be the future, but it's not the near future. I think there's plenty of time left before the technology matures for a final disc-based medium to have a full lifespan.

I agree. Most important, for me, I prefer to not have a leash, by the company, with my purchases. A hard-drive is not reliable enough for me to want to back up a massive movie collection on long term. Nor do I care to have to re-download it all in a crash.