objectwerks inc <[email protected]> squaked out on Tue 02-Aug-2011 12:52 > > On Aug 2, 2011, at 11:03 AM, Arno Hautala wrote: > >> On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 12:41, objectwerks inc <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I'd say we're further along than we were when Apple dropped the >> floppy. > > I disagree. For one big reason. The optical drive on computers has many > more uses now than the floppy did in 1997 (not only for SW distribution, but > also for media -- music and movies) AND in 1997 there was a reasonable > replacement -- the CD-ROM and CDRW drives. Today, there are still a lot of > people using DVD media for movies (Red Box is always busy when I see the > kiosks and I've seen a few neighbors recently walking to the mail box with > Netflix envelopes) and lots of people still use their computers to watch > things, and still an awful lot of CDs sold (yes CD sales have tanked > percentage wise but there are still a lot of CDs sold).
If someone is buying a CD they are probably either not computer people at all or they are the very small minority of users who never buy anything on the scary Internet or the even tinier percentage who are buying less mainstream music that is not available on Amazon or iTunes digitally. And if for some reason someone with a computer DOES buy a CD it gets used exactly once: to load the music onto the computer. >> As they pertain to computer uses, optical discs are already >> mostly gone. Their primary use to consumers is through other, >> non-computer, devices (CD / DVD / BluRay players, game systems, etc.). >> I bet a very small percentage of users have computer based media >> centers > > That is probably true, but not all users of optical drives for media are > using them for media centers. A lot of people still consume media on their > computer. I know people who use their PCs or Macs to watch movies on a > regular basis. They can watch stuff the kids shouldn't see, or while they > pretend to work, etc. Floppies were used for all sorts of things besides saving files. Firmware updates required a floppy in the Windows world for many years in this century, for example. And they are watching of a physical DVD? Have they HEARD of Handbrake? 1GB file on the hard drive for SD quality DVD movie. Rent, rip, watch whenever you want, and delete. > I bet if Apple had come out with just one variant of the mini with an optical > drive, it would outsell the server dual HD version. Quite possibly. The server unit is not there to sell to your general consumers, it’s there for CoLo companies to buy. It also demonstrates a commitment to OS X Server itself. > On Aug 2, 2011, at 11:18 AM, LuKreme wrote: > >> objectwerks inc <[email protected]> squaked out on Tue 02-Aug-2011 10:41 >> >> I don’t allow my kids NOW to handle discs, much less when they were little. > > Who said anything about letting the kids HANDLE the discs. Just having an > external drive attached to the computer is tempting for kids to mess with. > They are not allowed now to handle discs -- parents handle the discs for them. It’s a lot easier to point them at the Movies folder and let them watch what they want (Of course,from the selection of Movies that I have chosen to put in that folder) and then I don’t have to go find a disc and switch it for them. >> Everything gets ripped to the hard drive with Handbrake. The slowest part of >> that process is feeding the discs to the drive. > > I do something similar, but my time is limited and I have a stack of discs to > slowly do. So if the family wants to watch a movie while they are waiting > for me to rip them to the family server (transitioning over to a Nexenta > based system running Netatalk as the current system is full) they use the > disc, with a parent to do the actual inserting. I have a few hundred movies on the server, so if they need to wait the 30-40 minutes for the movie we just picked up, they have a lot to choose from. Usually they watch a Wallace and Gromit or a few Shaun the Sheeps or, the time it takes to rip a movie is almost exactly the time it takes to watch a 1-hour TV show (40-42 minutes). > Additionally, we borrow discs from my parents, the library, etc and I don't > take the time or space for these short term discs to rip them (let alone the > time until I would get to it). For those kinds of discs we use the actual > disc. I rip them, watch them when we get around to it, and trash them. > (I don't use handbrake though as I like to have the complete DVD with menus > etc for my family to use so I use something else that keeps it in DVD format > and use Media Central as the playback system) (yes I know it takes a lot > more space -- I handbrake some stuff for me to use on iPad/iPhone) The only discs I’ve ever worried about the extra content on was the Lord of the Rings discs and the Criterion Collection discs, and then I just make a folder: Casablanca/ Casablanca.m4v Casablanca Extras/ —> Extras go here > Of course, but there are major differences. See my comments to Arno above. There are always major differences. The fact is, Apple saw with the mini server that a lot of people bought it just for the dual hard drives and lack of optical and then didn’t even run OS X Server on it. The writing is on the wall. An optical drive is no longer something you have to have, and if you do need it, you only need one not one on every machine. > I am not saying Apple should not start going down this road, but was just > wishing that they had one variant available with an in-built optical drive. They did that last year. > I was ready to get a new mini but the money did not come through I was > planning on (at least yet) and then when I read about the optical drive my > enthusiasm was diminished some. I am really waiting to hear GPU performance specs for the low (Intel 3000) and mid range (Radeon 6630M) minis before getting one. My current mini will be promoted (demoted?) to being the TV computer as I am finding that the Apple TV simply doesn’t do enough of what I want even with jail breaking. I was quite happy to see I wouldn’t have to have the bother of a DVD slot and the dust it allows on the new models. -- Looking into Granny's eyes was like looking into a mirror. What you saw looking back at you was yourself, and there was no hiding place. _______________________________________________ MacOSX-talk mailing list [email protected] http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
