Do you have a DVD drive in your computer?

Things have moved on from the days of the 5½ inch floppy disk. With Blu-Ray and HD-DVD around the corner, it's now the standard DVD drive which is facing obsolesce.

But forget hi-def, do you even have a standard DVD drive in your computer? Do you use it install software, or watch movies? Or are computers not the place to watch films?

Or are you still using the good old CD-ROM drive?

Maybe you even use some wacky or old storage solutions?

Tell us your thoughts. Anyone can post in this thread and vote in the poll, even if you're not registered. But registering is recommended.

My work desktop computer has an internal CD-ROM and an external DVD-RW/R drive. Work laptop has a CD-RW/R/DVD-ROM drive.

One home computer has DVD-ROM and a DVD-RW/R drive. I install software from either of those.

Another home computer has CD-ROM and a CD-RW/R drive.

My Linux computer at home has a CD/DVD-ROM drive.

I read an article about a month ago about DVD and Blu-Ray where the topic was how soon DVD would be obsolete. The author believes that DVD will still be available for the next 5 to 10 years.

I remember that after DVD became available the LaserDisc was obsolete within a couple of years.

I have cd player and dvd writer/reader/cd-writer combo in my tower. I use the DVD writer to burn tv shows onto what I receive on my computer via WinTV-PVR and also use that writer to write backups and erase.
What's all this talk about getting rid of dvds? What will replace them?

Well, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.

But that's one topic point I didn't put... who do you think will win the format war? Have Sony not learnt their lesson after Betamax?

I liked betamax, but VHS won :)

Movies on the Blu-Ray format are already available, but I haven't seen many on HD-DVD.

From reading the specs on both, I believe that Blu-Ray will support higher capacity for recording and video quality. Until I see them side by side, I wouldn't want to bet on a winning format at this time. :D

I think for us the PS3 will decide which format we follow..

I have a DVD/RW drive in the laptop at work. And I have an external ZIP drive plugged into the docking station.
At home I just have a CD and a CD RW. The PC at home also has an internal SCSI zip drive.
I have never watched a movie on a computer. But think if I traveled a lot it would be nice to able to watch movies on the laptop.

Yup. Desktop & laptop.
I don't have a video player or a TV so the DVD is most useful.

My PC has a DVD-ROM drive, but that drive became defective and doesn't work :(
Not that I use CDs/DVDs so much on my PC, so I don't miss it very much (the drive has been defective for 1+ year now). It used to have a CD-ROM drive, so I can always put that one back in.

My laptop, which I use most has a CD-ROM drive. Wish it had a DVD-ROM drive, but oh well :shrug:

As you can see, I do absolutely no CD/DVD-burning. I use USB pen drives for transferring data between computers. A 64 MB one has done it for me so far :)


Who'll win, blu ray or HD-DVD? Dunno, don't care :)
I'll wait and see who wins and use that format. I have no reasons to support either

I have a DVD burner in my home computer, very nice for backing up data since DVD's hold more than CD's... I've also used it for making some photo slideshows.

I have a DVD player/burner. Had to upgrade because my older DVD/CD+R/-R could not read DVD-R, I bought I tutorial for my work and it was very useful to me.

I bought a spindle of disks to do my backups with, though I do have a backup drive, but nothing is perfect, better to do a backup of my backup drive, no telling that it couldn't fail as well.

Thought I'd also restore some old videos of when my kids were little. Haven't gotten a round to it yet.

My youngest Granddaughter (9) sat in my car the other day, looked at the radio and said "What's that Poppy?" She meant the Compact Cassette sticking out of the front of the player! She'd never seen one in her life, and I must admit I'd never played one for several years. It's very similar to Antony's original question where he mentions floppy disc's. Floppy Disc's?

This "data storage" conundrum will only worsen in the future. Currently you store your photographs (possibly) in jpg (jpeg) format. This format uses algorithms to reduce data storage. However, with larger hard drives, broadband connections etc, do we need image compression?

So current/future formats aren't the big question, but backward compatibility.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Soquili

I liked betamax, but VHS won

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I liked Video 2000 which was far superior than those two formats, but like so often it was proper marketing that made the difference.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BlueFlare

I liked Video 2000 which was far superior than those two formats, but like so often it was proper marketing that made the difference.

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I like Xara Extreme which is far superior ..

Hi all

Yes well things move one one dont they.

Well dvd drives would be a sort of predictable as there are a lot fo dvd drives available.

Saying that most of my machines have a dvd reader in, except 2 which have cd's.

Ther are several differant dvd drives - dvd writers, they then come in several flavours (besides the obvious speed) there are single layers, dual and quad!

Although i have a quad drive (cost less than my dual one) have yet to so these disks on the marker ( nice one sony)!

Going back to an early post, 'betamax': this was far superior that vhs in more ways than one, just proves the popularity doesnt always mean its better.

I think Sony do well, they brought to us the humble 3.5" floppy drive (amongst other things) and now their new inovation they have already slapped on selected models in their vaio lappy range.

What will happen is suppose only time will tell. Needless to say it looks like another upgrade session will be coming soon.

DVD's have advantages and disadvantages! i prefer to back up to cd (which the manufacturers prefer us to ditch for dvd). The reason is simple, i have lost software/data on both cd and dvd, cd not very often - dvd more than i wish for. With dvd you can lose a hell of a lot more than on cd:(

Even when i preach and practice 'not putting all my eggs in one basket' i still lost my 6 year collection of top notch screensavers and my entire back up of all the software that i've paid for and downloaded - and i cant remember them all on DVD. where as i've lost 2 cd's that were well outdated.

I have DVD Burners at home and at work...


"The Banned"

I have DVD drives in my computers at home and at work, but they're only used for CDs. Mostly for software installation. Sometimes for archiving.

Tried using DVDs for backup, but I think they're a waste. I'm much happier with an external hard drive at home and the tape drive in the office.

BTW, I also have an external zip drive at home, which I still use for some interim data backups. It's just so much faster and easier than having to go through the burn process. And I can reuse the disks over and over again.

I have a DVD/CD RW combo and a DVD/CD reader on my desktop at home. I have a CD-ROM drive on my laptop at home (I'm retired so I don't have a work computer). I have the two computers networked wirelessly, so I transfer data over the network.

I teach a three-hour Computer Science course at a local collelge once a week. I carry my lesson materials (mostly PowerPoint presentations) to class on a USB flash drive.

DVD's have advantages and disadvantages! i prefer to back up to cd (which the manufacturers prefer us to ditch for dvd). The reason is simple, i have lost software/data on both cd and dvd, cd not very often - dvd more than i wish for. With dvd you can lose a hell of a lot more than on cd:(

DVD-RAM is the right answer for backup.

Unregistered, I don't understand the last sentence in your post. Can you explain?

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Originally Posted by atarian

The reason is simple, i have lost software/data on both cd and dvd, cd not very often - dvd more than i wish for.

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That doesn't prove that DVD is worse for archiving in my view, because one has to take in account things like:

- quality differences in media
- quality of burn
- quality of burner
- storage

Yes I do and they cause no end of trouble. Over the last year I have had 3 computers and not once have I been able to simply put a DVD in the drive and burn it. It's either a format mismatch or this brand of disc doesn't work in this drive or something else. My latest computer, a HP laptop that's just over a year old, has a TSST corp CD/DVDW TS-L532R drive that I cannot get to burn a disc at all. Web searches indicate others have had similar frustrations. And now we have the Blu-ray format war. I'd like to put all these people in a wash machine with a fast spin cycle and not let any of them out until the drips delivered a single working system - not that I want to stand in the way of progress!

My Medion puter came with a DVD/CD writer, it also came with the little floppy as well, funny tho since I don't need to use it.

All four of our computers (two desktop, two laptop) have DVD R/W and CD R/W internal. We also have a couple of external DVD R/W drives which are currently functioning as paperweights.

I have two desktop PCs at work, each with DVD-ROM and DVD-RW/R (with capability of Blue-Ray). DVD-RW/R is mainly for backing up data.

At home I use two desktop PCs and a notebook for different purpose; all of them have been installed with both DVD-ROM and DVD-RW/R (Blue-Ray) except the notebook with DVD-RW/R only.

I use DVD burner as a versatile tool for storage backup, and DVD-ROM a handy, cheap media player.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ren2980

DVD-RW/R (with capability of Blue-Ray).
DVD-ROM and DVD-RW/R (Blue-Ray)

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It's minor, but the proper name is actually Blu-Ray (without the E).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BlueFlare

It's minor, but the proper name is actually Blu-Ray (without the E).

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Thanks BlueFlare.

Is it just me or is asking whether people have a DVD drive almost like asking whether people have a cdrom drive 5 years ago? I think the poll results only confirm this.

I have got one but I hardly use it.

Yes and ive burned terabytes of stuff to them and so far have been very happy. I don't know what long term storage will be. Ive burned many cds and the cheap no brand COMP-USA cds are failing and my stuff on them is gone. the lifespan of burns on DVD is yet unknown to me.

As to BLU RAY and HD DVD there are things that must occur for me to consider its purchase:
1--cost ; it must be approaching current dvds and dvdrs pricing.
2---NO copy hassle, I can currently backup my movies. The BIG BROTHER schemes they are proposing for these BLU and HD formats appear that such a thing is intended to be extremly impossible to the point that my own movies I purchased in their formats may not work on my equipment withoutvarious expensive hardware upgrades that may be ongoing
3--selection of movies available must increase to what is available on DVD now

i have 2 in my computer

Yes I put a DVD player CD R/RW in my computer because the drive cost the same as just a CD R/RW. Don't use the DVD though. Maybe someday.

Joe