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Anyone else returning to Physical Media
- Thread starter JamesMay82
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Physical media can be better for those who care (quality over convenience).
It is a good idea to run some of these players periodically, just to make sure they still work. It's really annoying when age catches up to some of these electronics, stuff like capacitors drying out or rubber belts crumbling.
It is a good idea to run some of these players periodically, just to make sure they still work. It's really annoying when age catches up to some of these electronics, stuff like capacitors drying out or rubber belts crumbling.
MacInTO
macrumors 68000
Agreed about region locking! I use mine a few times per year. The picture is so-so but the sound is great because it is digital. Some discs even have 5.1. As an added bonus, my laserdisc player can play CD videos - an obscure format. I have some of these from Japan.
MacInTO
macrumors 68000
The belts have been an issue in my vintage tech. I've managed to find replacements for pretty cheap from eBay and Amazon.
I needed a full refurbishment of my turntable which is over 40 years old. Even some of the plastic parts disintergrated.
MacBH928
macrumors G3
LD bros 🤜🏼
I like how that dvd drive is hidding in the middle between the mini disc and LD.
I didnt know mini discs players came in this huge size. I thought the idea of a mini disc to play on mini devices. That must be a multi media type player
throAU
macrumors G4
Stuff I care about - yes I am picking up physical dvd/bd/ultra hd blu-ray
1: quality
2: need something to do when the internet goes out / apocalypse happens
1: quality
2: need something to do when the internet goes out / apocalypse happens
MacInTO
macrumors 68000
Minidisc wasn't big in North America. It was pretty big in Japan though. I think there is still a minor following there. My car is a 2006 and it has a MD player! The home unit is from the Sony store. It was the only one they had and I paid full retail for it, $700 in 1999. It only plays regular MD format, not even mdlp format. I also have a portable player. The laserdisc player can play multiple formats though and it is even older!
Solarflares
Suspended
For the most part, I’m happier playing my CD’s on my Superdrive into my Mac Mini M4 at 16-bit/44.1Khz.
I use a Bryston BDA-2 DAC, BP6 preamp, 4BSST power-amp, and Tannoy studio monitors - a very revealing system indeed. For $20,000 it certainly should be, and I’ve tweaked it to be totally flat and honest.
Apple Music converts everything to 24-bit, and my music productions run at 96Khz - so most Apple Music conversions run at that rate. Fantastic on paper…
But I find the 16-bit/44.1Khz CD’s to sound slightly more organic, if that’s possible.
I don’t like the clutter of having CD’s around, but the only other Apple-free option was to buy a reportedly problematic Bryston BPD-3 player, for which there are now no spares. 16-bit/44.1 on AES/ABU with Bryston/AKM upsampling would be lovely though, but you have to be realistic.
Physically picking up a piece of media invokes memories of when you bought it.
Pressing a play button just makes you think of nothing - except perhaps when you last heard it!
I use a Bryston BDA-2 DAC, BP6 preamp, 4BSST power-amp, and Tannoy studio monitors - a very revealing system indeed. For $20,000 it certainly should be, and I’ve tweaked it to be totally flat and honest.
Apple Music converts everything to 24-bit, and my music productions run at 96Khz - so most Apple Music conversions run at that rate. Fantastic on paper…
But I find the 16-bit/44.1Khz CD’s to sound slightly more organic, if that’s possible.
I don’t like the clutter of having CD’s around, but the only other Apple-free option was to buy a reportedly problematic Bryston BPD-3 player, for which there are now no spares. 16-bit/44.1 on AES/ABU with Bryston/AKM upsampling would be lovely though, but you have to be realistic.
Physically picking up a piece of media invokes memories of when you bought it.
Pressing a play button just makes you think of nothing - except perhaps when you last heard it!
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Solarflares
Suspended
The Pioneer BDR-X13E-S is well liked, and ships with 2023 firmware.
9 Best Professional Blu-ray Authoring Software on Windows and Mac [2025 Update]
Looking for top-tier Blu-ray authoring software to create professional-quality discs at home? Whether you're a home entertainment enthusiast or a professional video creator, Blu-ray authoring software is essential to produce high-definition movies with stunning menus and flawless video quality...
burgman
macrumors 68040
Can’t remember a time when I said to myself, hell I forgot to pack my ancient media players. However nostalgia is a powerful thing.
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Suspended
MacBH928
macrumors G3
Solarflares
Suspended
The Pioneer has been discontinued and there is no stock left in the USA. Does Amazon EU still have stock?
The case I bought for my most recent PC build didn't even have a place to install an internal drive so I bought an external drive that had decent reviews, the ASUS BW-16D1X-U with USB 3.1. I want to rip almost 600 CDs to a new music streamer.
I decided to pick up a backup and options are almost nonexistent, internal or external. ASUS SATA drives are backordered, LG SATA drives the same and may be discontinued. I ended up buying an OWC enclosure that takes SATA drives yet has a USB connection to a PC, MAC or Streamer. I got it with an installed optical drive. Windows properties indicate it is an LG BH16NS40 Blu-Ray Disc Rewriter so OWC must still have LG stock. I have two old PC's with SATA optical drives installed so I should have backup options for a while. Another option I found was Buffalo but the reviews are questionable.
I also just read about the Melco D100 | Optical Disc Drive/Ripper but don't know much about it..
D100 - DELA Audio
Optical Disc Drive/ripper (USB) D100 Overview The D100 is a highly advanced Japanese-technology optical drive that reads optical discs, such as CDs, with great precision. Using a D100 to ‘rip’ CD collections onto a Melco library or hard drive, allows for optimum data transfer in archive quality...
dela.global
Non-Euclidean
macrumors 6502a
I also appreciate streaming a new artist to check out the music.
I call that youtube video. Its free.
Otherwise, I never left physical media.
Marty80
macrumors 6502a
XboxEvolved
macrumors 65816
Return? I never left. Any moment I am able to get media physically, I will take it be it Blu-ray, game, and in some cases CDs. You own it, can sell it, can trade with someone, lend it out, etc. In a world of "you will own nothing and be happy" I guess I'm just miserable because I own quite a bit of physical media.
nickdalzell1
macrumors 68040
I've been embracing the 1970s more and more lately, as that's a decade I like the aesthetics of and it was the last analog era (albeit the beginning of the digital one; first MOS chips came out around this time as did early home computers like the Commodore PET and Texas Instruments TI-99)
As such I got quite the VHS collection, and a couple of era-appropriate VCRs, the most unique being my Panasonic PV-1200 in my bedroom. I do have DVDs and players, but they're the old VCR-sized ones that blend into the cabinet with the 1970s stereo receivers. I also love CRT TVs. I do have Apple TV so I can stream, but you never see the boxes, and the remotes I use to interact with them are from the early 1980s so the look is not thrown off. So I got vintage smart TVs without the inconveniences of a modern one. I also have vinyl, 8-track and 'compact cassette'. All of it is cheap, easily found secondhand, and I don't need internet, subscriptions, or deal with 'edits' of more gritty content due to some services wanting to be politically correct.
I find it much more convenient to pop in a VHS tape than sort through a dozen different streaming platforms just to find the ones that have Family Ties or Alice. Also, since most of the shows and movies I prefer to watch are so old to have never been HD-remastered, if I attempted to watch them on a modern HDTV, it'd look about as smeary and pixelated as watching shows on a 1980s Rear Projection TV and that was not a fun time I assure you. If you watch Babylon 5 on a modern TV you won't be able to stand its horrid CGI (done on an Amiga of all things), but on a 20" CRT it still feels mind-blowing as you're seeing the show as it was intended to be seen in '94.
I also have a period-accurate Atari Video Computer System (I refuse to call it a 2600!), woodgrain, six switch model. Games too. I find them very fun. It was amazing what they could do with a 6502 and 128 bytes of RAM!
As such I got quite the VHS collection, and a couple of era-appropriate VCRs, the most unique being my Panasonic PV-1200 in my bedroom. I do have DVDs and players, but they're the old VCR-sized ones that blend into the cabinet with the 1970s stereo receivers. I also love CRT TVs. I do have Apple TV so I can stream, but you never see the boxes, and the remotes I use to interact with them are from the early 1980s so the look is not thrown off. So I got vintage smart TVs without the inconveniences of a modern one. I also have vinyl, 8-track and 'compact cassette'. All of it is cheap, easily found secondhand, and I don't need internet, subscriptions, or deal with 'edits' of more gritty content due to some services wanting to be politically correct.
I find it much more convenient to pop in a VHS tape than sort through a dozen different streaming platforms just to find the ones that have Family Ties or Alice. Also, since most of the shows and movies I prefer to watch are so old to have never been HD-remastered, if I attempted to watch them on a modern HDTV, it'd look about as smeary and pixelated as watching shows on a 1980s Rear Projection TV and that was not a fun time I assure you. If you watch Babylon 5 on a modern TV you won't be able to stand its horrid CGI (done on an Amiga of all things), but on a 20" CRT it still feels mind-blowing as you're seeing the show as it was intended to be seen in '94.
I also have a period-accurate Atari Video Computer System (I refuse to call it a 2600!), woodgrain, six switch model. Games too. I find them very fun. It was amazing what they could do with a 6502 and 128 bytes of RAM!
I just heard that Disney let go their entire physical media division in the recent layoffs.
nickdalzell1
macrumors 68040
Another thing I'll add about my Atari. I don't have to worry about updates, patches that take GiB of data to download before I can play the game, I don't have to pay for DLC, there are no bugs, and no account needed. Sure, they're bone simple but they forced you to use something that's being bred out of the youngest of us: an imagination.
Task: Play a newly purchased video game
Atari Video Computer System:
1. Turn TV on
2. Put game cartridge in game console
3. Turn game console on
4. enjoy!
PlayStation 5/Xbox One S, X/Steam PC:
1. Turn system on, wait a minute to boot up
2. Login to your account
3. Put disc in
4. WAIT 30 minutes to an hour plus to play because it "requires" a pre-game download of data for an asinine reason (What good is a dual-layer DVD even for if it's just there to activate the thing?!)
5. Launch game
6. WAIT (might take time to load in, log into the account on console, sync up data) 5 minutes?
7. Hope the heck it doesn't either crash to desktop or have some game breaking bug
8. Oops, this feature requires DLC. Need to spend more $$$ on a game you already own, to download the rest of it!
9. Wait again.
10. Maybe enjoy the game!
Maybe it's just me, but I see no improvement over the Atari. (Or original PlayStation, Nintendo NES/SuperNES/64/GameCube, Sega Genesis)
Task: Play a newly purchased video game
Atari Video Computer System:
1. Turn TV on
2. Put game cartridge in game console
3. Turn game console on
4. enjoy!
PlayStation 5/Xbox One S, X/Steam PC:
1. Turn system on, wait a minute to boot up
2. Login to your account
3. Put disc in
4. WAIT 30 minutes to an hour plus to play because it "requires" a pre-game download of data for an asinine reason (What good is a dual-layer DVD even for if it's just there to activate the thing?!)
5. Launch game
6. WAIT (might take time to load in, log into the account on console, sync up data) 5 minutes?
7. Hope the heck it doesn't either crash to desktop or have some game breaking bug
8. Oops, this feature requires DLC. Need to spend more $$$ on a game you already own, to download the rest of it!
9. Wait again.
10. Maybe enjoy the game!
Maybe it's just me, but I see no improvement over the Atari. (Or original PlayStation, Nintendo NES/SuperNES/64/GameCube, Sega Genesis)
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You definitely should be looking at this: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...nalog-tv-crt-simulator-now-for-macos.2480761/
I real admire the creativity and cleverness of 20th century electronics engineers and programmers. Look at the logic they made happen with vacuum tubes and things like this:
Or how they figured out how to broadcast color TV signals in a way that still worked on black and white TVs while still making colors of similar intensity distinguishable on black and white sets. Again all while working with vacuum tubes and the like. I thought they used Hilbert curves for this but I can't find record of that now.
Today's programmers are like, how could I possibly support an OS that's 4 years old? What you want to run my e-mail program on your computer with only 8GB of RAM and 200GFlops of CPU power? Then Apple doesn't even want to support their UI/UX at only 1080p.