Since the last few years, I have been buying a new Optical drive almost every year as the tray soon starts to give problem which is the most common problem & the drive isn’t being used much either.
I was thinking, do we really need an optical drive now anymore? Other then Installing Windows on a new computer, I seriously see no use of my Optical drive today at the end of the year 2008. The availability of cheap bandwidth & Torrents has changed the way I get my digital media.
I have a 512kbps BSNL Dataone connection which I m soon upgrading to 1mbps cos I can easily pay the cost of it & the bill will just continue to reduce. Sure it feels good to have a physical movie DVD but I can easily get the same movie or documentary or T.V Show from Torrents or legally through online movie rental stores & save the clutter of multiple physical DVDs.
We can already see how successful Steam has been in selling games online, you download the game to your computer, login using your steam account & you can play the game on any computer. No Anti-Piracy measure required & no need to buy a DVD from store either.
iTunes has been extremely successful in selling music & T.V shows, as well as rented movies through there distribution system with or without DRM. There are other Music stores which are now going DRM free way so you can use your digital media content anywhere. No need to buy a Movie DVD or Audio CD when you can get DRM/DRM free DVD rip/480p H.264 movie under 2.5 GB or Lossless FLAC/Mp3 for Audio off the internet which isn’t that big in Megabytes considering today’s fast Internet Speed.
We can already see how successful Linux Package Managers have been in distributing Software online. Synaptic & Click n Run has been quite successful in just searching for the application & installing it along with all the dependencies automatically.
Microsoft has followed suit & even they are now providing Microsoft Store from where you can buy all Microsoft Products & download them or have them shipped to your doorsteps in Physical form. It won’t be long before they start an iPhone App Store like Application Distribution service for Windows Mobile & the next XBOX may come without an Optical Drive at all.
We are aware of the Virtual harddisk (.vhd) & Disk Image (.dmg) format of Windows & Mac OS, which could meen, digitally secure hard disk images, which can be compressed & distributed off the internet & there is no need to extract the content. Just mount & run the software from it. NFS Undercover can very well be distributed as a Digitally secure VHD file which you can download after you purchase the game from some online Game store & simply double click on the VHD to play. It will mount it somewhre cos basically, it is just another folder with files in it.
The only use in my digital life today for an Optical Media is for backup & archival purpose but even then the Media isn’t very reliable. I can burn 5 DVD rip movies on a Rs 12 DVD or 12 episodes of some T.V show after I m done watching it, but I m still uncertain whether the Media will work after 2 months or not as it is prone to scratches etc & if it is corrupted, then all the data is destroyed.
External Hard disk are getting cheap these days. I can buy a 160 GB Western Digital External HD for as low as Rs 2,500 & store all the game VHD/ISO, movie shows on it, although DVDs are still cheaper. I can get 160 GB worth space in Optical Media under Rs 500 which in case of external hard disk will cost Rs 2,500.
If it is about installing Windows or an OS on a new PC with no OS on it, then we can still do it using Flash Media. Windows Vista can very well be installed through a 4 GB flash drive, after you extract the Vista DVD ISO to a pen drive, make it bootable & set the BIOS to boot from USB drive. Infect, even Windows Vista can be distributed using Right ones Memory Cards or Pen drives so that you can at least install Windows on a new PC. Also, using EFI/Splashtop you don’t even need a Media for installation. Start the EFI, go to your Microsoft Store Shopping cart, download the ISO/VHD to your hard disk as EFI detects the hard disk & install from that VHD after EFI automatically mounts it. Same goes with installing Linux Distribution ISO on a new PC.
Now, I want to ask you all one thing….is it time for Optical Media to die? I mean, seriously, when was the last time you used it & for what.
I don’t think so it’s time for optical drives to die. Though broadband has penetrated a lot now, still many users don’t have a decent internet connection at their disposal.
Also how can one share with their friends some 5 GB of data? Now don’t say, you can upload it online & give them the URL
It’s still a long time before optical drives meet the fate of floppy drives !!
Well, you cannot burn 5 GB of data on a 4.5 GB DVD anyway
. But you can transfer them using a 8 GB USB Drive.
Well it appears that it has been 1 year since this blog was written, but even now it seems as though optical will be a storage medium that will last or at least be evolved in a newer version (ie. Holographic Versatile Disc). Giving your friend your pen drive is not a good means of distribution because with a DVD that costs 20 cents (here in the US) you wouldn’t care if you got your disc back from your friend, whereas with the pen drive, your friend better give your pen drive back
What I am saying is that at the current time there is no other form of disposable computer storage as cheap as optical media. I am sure that the future will be all on the internet, but that is a long way off especially with the current state of the internet’s architecture and bandwidth limitations. My guess would be that optical will fade off in the next 5-10 years, but it will still continue to exist. Remember even when floppies died off, they weren’t absolutely dead until a few more years later.
I agree with U on the fact that Optical Media is cheapest storage medium right now