I hate how they dropped the DVD player

[Devie]

I watch DVD's on my 2012 MBP.

That sounds horrible

 

[Tomorrow]

In this age most people can download the contents Of a CD faster than you can put a CD in your computer and load it.

I think this is a bit of a stretch.

Do you know how many DVD's I have? Do you honestly have a clue what you are asking? Do you assume I have the time to fart around and do all this converting work wit my busy schedule?

Well, you have time to fart around and watch movies with your busy schedule, so perhaps it's not so far-fetched?

I bought mine last year and it works fine. It's light and runs the latest Mac OS well with no problems. I have plenty of RAM and no gripes.

You sure about that? Because someone reading this thread just might get a different impression.

 

[poematik13]

But it is nearly 4 years old.

CPU and RAM speed for macbooks has plateaued since 2012. There is like a 10% difference between the 2012 MBP's i5 and the current i5 in the 2015 MBP. Integrated graphics has come a long way though, that's where you'll feel a difference. The intel 4000 is almost obsolete versus the iris 6100 which can play some games at sub-console frame rates

 

[Primejimbo]

When was the last time you visited a Fry's electronics or a Best Buy? The last time I visited Fry's I saw isles upon Isles of DVD's for sale many of which are not available on iTunes or are much cheaper to purchase than on iTunes. I bought a DVD TV season for $14 and that DVD TV season is not available on iTunes, and even if it was for $14? Get real.
[doublepost=1456750018][/doublepost]

I take it you do not have a DVD library of movies.

I have a few 100 DVD's and ripped them all to iTunes. I am so glad I did that. It took a while, but now it's done and I don't have to do it again. I have them all backed up to a 4TB hard drive as well.

Best Buy around there (3 by me) have very little music or movies left, so little, if you blink while walking, you'll miss it. I also get iTunes gift cards on sale and makes buying music or movies cheaper for me. A few weeks ago SAMs had them on sale, $100 for $80.

Well I can't stop ministries that mail out CD's to their partners and I'd imagine it's easier for them to do it this way when dealing with thousands of people. So I am glad I have a CD and even so in my car for this reason. Granted I rarely use it there as mostly I use Bluetooth and USB but I am glad I have one for those niche uses.

I love using bluetooth. I bought a $100 Alpine carradio just for the bluetooth, and it was worth it. I haven't touched a CD in years. Main reason I went bluetooth was because I kept damaging the AUX cord and then the jack in the radio.

Do you know how many DVD's I have? Do you honestly have a clue what you are asking? Do you assume I have the time to fart around and do all this converting work wit my busy schedule?

I was in the same boat. I would rip a movie here and there while I cleaned, worked, goof off on line, and it's done.

I was in the same boat as you, and was mad they started to drop the optical drive. Ya know what? I don't miss it. I have a late 2008 Aluminum Macbook and I can't remember the last time I used it. No more scratched DVD's or CD's to worry about, and all is backed up at least twice. Optical drives are going away, might as well start now.

But it is nearly 4 years old.

As for the 2012 Macbook Pro, that this is AWESOME! My daughter has one and I threw in 16GB of RAM in it with a 500GB SSD, it FLIES!

 

[zonazolazia]

I purchased super drive alongside my retina MacBook Pro 3 years ago and probably had used it less than 10 times since.

 

[varian55zx]

I personally don't miss it at all, don't even notice it's gone.

I watch a lot of HD TV shows on my Macs but I have them digitally. Much prefer that to carrying around and inserting a physical disc. Sounds horrible.

 

[Smeaton1724]

Insane to have DVD players in laptops now, no need whatsoever.

Personally if I had a 2012 Macbook Pro then I'd replace the internal drive with a 2TB, could store a few hundred ripped DVD's on the hard drive!

 

[taedouni]

For my PC Gaming Desktop, I didn't include an optical drive (even though I had a blu ray one already laying around) because I didn't want to ruin the ascetics of the case (Corsair 750D).

 

[JackieInCo]

I bought mine last year and it works fine. It's light and runs the latest Mac OS well with no problems. I have plenty of RAM and no gripes.

I bought mine for just over $700 at BestBuy last July during their Cyber Monday sale. I don't use it much anymore since buying it but I bought it because it does have the replaceable parts and the DVD burner. I upgraded the RAM to 16GB. I left the HD in it because I don't need the speed of an SSD. I don't even need the speed of an SSD in my 2015 MBP.

Lately I've been using my 2015 15" MBP. I rarely even use my Surface Pro 3 as well.

 

[Meister]

But it is nearly 4 years old.

It's still an excellent laptop.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

It's still an excellent laptop.

No it's a mediocre laptop these days and expensive for what it is.

 

[steve62388]

Well I can't stop ministries that mail out CD's to their partners and I'd imagine it's easier for them to do it this way when dealing with thousands of people. So I am glad I have a CD and even so in my car for this reason. Granted I rarely use it there as mostly I use Bluetooth and USB but I am glad I have one for those niche uses.

Ministries? Are you referring to the church? The church has never been a bastion of modernism.

Let me think about what would be easier. Copying and mailing out thousands of CDs, or uploading a single file to a cloud service and then emailing everyone a link?

 

[Brian Y]

None of the computers in this house have a DVD player. I haven't used a DVD for years, other than for PS4 games since digital copies are so expensive.

In this day and age, people who need a DVD player are in the minority. Why should everyone else pay to have a DVD player they're not going to use?

 

[Arline]

When my dad bought his new iMac Retina, he was upset that it didn't have a DVD/Bluray drive. He loves keeping physical collection of movies and his music. Just a hobby of his.

Solution? An external optical drive and proper playback software. He's happy again.

 

[MrNomNoms]

All I can suggest is that you rip your DVD's and store the ripped versions on a RAID like a Drobo device or something - I've got a DVD burner/player that I use between my two computers, my sisters laptop and my mum's two computers so worse case scenario borrow a drive, do what you need to do then return it.

 

[squarebreathing]

I purchased a $20 LG DVD/CD external usb drive for my retina pro when I bought it a year and a half ago. It works fine and the only reason I even needed it was to write CDs of my music as freebies for people who come to my shows. Most people don't even have any hardware that runs CDs or DVDs besides a game console. With streaming services (with superior quality to DVD) being so cheap, locally stored media is going the way of the dinosaur.

 

[duervo]

With streaming services (with superior quality to DVD) being so cheap, locally stored media is going the way of the dinosaur.

I wouldn't go that far. With 4K Blu-Rays becoming common items that are now priced where Blu-Rays were at when they came out, a lot of Blu-Rays are now dropping in price to what DVD's were years ago.

Also, there are a lot of rural communities in North America, as well as the rest of the world, where access to relatively cheap broadband internet is far from a reality. So, I think we are still quite a long way away from seeing physical optical media permanently going away, and even further from seeing "local storage" going away.

I get why Apple did it, and I understand where Jobs was coming from with his statement about Blu-Ray (the intention there was to nudge customers towards iTunes, Apple's long term cash cow), but I think the Company jumped the gun a little bit in refusing to support Blu-Ray in any way. The push to zero optical media was a little premature ... Expected, but a little premature.

 

[adamchris123]

I was fortunate to have purchased my MacBook Pro with a built in DVD player and am saddened that Apple feels the need to discontinue it on all their Mac's even their desktops. Apple needs to realize that some of us have massive DVD libraries and we cannot afford to re-purchase them on iTunes and besides not all of my DVD's are available on iTunes. Also I regularly receive sermon CD's once a month and the publisher only sends them out in CD format so its nice having that CD player. I do not feel the need to digitize every single CD that I receive. These are some of my reasons why I think it was unwise to drop the DVD player on their Macs.

First off, the DVD is pretty much obsolete technology. Secondly, with the amount of streaming services available, and their popularity, the demand for DVD's has gone down, and the people using them are becoming a minority (if not already). Also, by getting rid of the disc drive, it allows Apple to make their computers much thinner, lighter, better looking and more reliable due to less moving parts. Since hardly anyone needs a disc drive anymore, and with the fact that they add more weight and bulk, Apple has deemed them unnecessary. Plus many other PC brands are following suit as well. And guess what! for the people that need to play discs, you can pick up an external disc drive for under $30. Problem solved!
http://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronic...457054551&sr=8-1&keywords=external+disc+drive

Basically, at this point, disc drives in laptops are nothing more than a waste of space.

 

[jwolf6589]

First off, the DVD is pretty much obsolete technology. Secondly, with the amount of streaming services available, and their popularity, the demand for DVD's has gone down, and the people using them are becoming a minority (if not already). Also, by getting rid of the disc drive, it allows Apple to make their computers much thinner, lighter, better looking and more reliable due to less moving parts. Since hardly anyone needs a disc drive anymore, and with the fact that they add more weight and bulk, Apple has deemed them unnecessary. Plus many other PC brands are following suit as well. And guess what! for the people that need to play discs, you can pick up an external disc drive for under $30. Problem solved!
http://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronic...457054551&sr=8-1&keywords=external+disc+drive

Basically, at this point, disc drives in laptops are nothing more than a waste of space.

I will never have a streaming service due to their cost and all the immoral trash that comes with them. DVD's allow me to pick and choose appropriate movies and not have to deal with all the other trash that ship with the streaming service. I do not even have cable so in my situation DVD is the way to go since I watch only select movies.

My desk is not the size of the entire world so in my situation since I only watch movies on my computer a built in DVD player is the way to go.
[doublepost=1457056117][/doublepost]

I wouldn't go that far. With 4K Blu-Rays becoming common items that are now priced where Blu-Rays were at when they came out, a lot of Blu-Rays are now dropping in price to what DVD's were years ago.

Also, there are a lot of rural communities in North America, as well as the rest of the world, where access to relatively cheap broadband internet is far from a reality. So, I think we are still quite a long way away from seeing physical optical media permanently going away, and even further from seeing "local storage" going away.

I get why Apple did it, and I understand where Jobs was coming from with his statement about Blu-Ray (the intention there was to nudge customers towards iTunes, Apple's long term cash cow), but I think the Company jumped the gun a little bit in refusing to support Blu-Ray in any way. The push to zero optical media was a little premature ... Expected, but a little premature.

Also not mentioning the fact when an evangelist goes onto the streets to witness its 500 times easier to hand someone a physical DVD/CD of a sermon that they can play on their computer or DVD player.
[doublepost=1457056286][/doublepost]

Ministries? Are you referring to the church? The church has never been a bastion of modernism.

Let me think about what would be easier. Copying and mailing out thousands of CDs, or uploading a single file to a cloud service and then emailing everyone a link?

That would be a bad idea since it will allow everyone access to the CD content when these CD's are mailed out to people that support the ministry with financial gifts. Look these ministries have IT people who disagree with your opinion on CD/DVD's. Why are you right and they wrong?

 

[steve62388]

That would be a bad idea since it will allow everyone access to the CD content when these CD's are mailed out to people that support the ministry with financial gifts. Look these ministries have IT people who disagree with your opinion on CD/DVD's. Why are you right and they wrong?

If your ministry's IT people think that uploading a file to a cloud service gives everyone access then the ministry needs better IT people. There are a couple solutions to the problem:- the file link generated is a long random series of characters that cannot be guessed, or for even more security the file can be restricted to specific users via their email address when using the same service (and I would hope the ministry is modern enough to maintain email mailing lists). Most cloud providers have options in this regard. This is in comparison to a CD which can be copied, so choose your poison.

We are all working off information you have provided and from that everyone on the thread is telling you CDs are old fashioned. I have pointed out an alternative solution.

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2494822?hl=en

 

[jwolf6589]

If your ministry's IT people think that uploading a file to a cloud service gives everyone access then the ministry needs better IT people. There are a couple solutions to the problem:- the file link generated is a long random series of characters that cannot be guessed, or for even more security the file can be restricted to specific users via their email address when using the same service (and I would hope the ministry is modern enough to have email address lists). Google has options in this regard. This is in comparison to a CD which can be copied, so choose your poison.

We are all working off information you have provided and from that everyone on the thread is telling you CDs are old fashioned. I have pointed out an alternative solution.

Then I won't be able to listen to the CDs while in the car.

 

[Michael Scrip]

To the OP: you are definitely in the minority. If people were so bent out of shape that Apple dropped the DVD drive from nearly all of their computers over the past few years... Mac sales wouldn't be as high as they are now.

So clearly DVD drives and physical media in Macs aren't as big a deal as you think they are.

However... I look at DVDs from another angle: video production and sales.

I still burn and sell DVDs of dance recitals and stuff. I know DVDs are old-fashioned and whatnot... but I don't know any other way to deliver 2+ hours of content... easily.

I'm not talking about easily for me (burning and printing and packaging 300 discs certainly isn't easy...)

But easily for the consumer to watch the content they paid for.

They know what to do with a DVD. Clearly the people who buy my DVDs have a DVD player hooked to a TV somewhere. It's familiar and it works.

It looks terrible though. I shoot Full HD and have to dumb it down to 480p for a DVD. But it works.

Blu-Ray solves the quality issue... but Blu-Ray players in the living room are a fraction of DVD players. (I'm talking about middle-of-America households... not tech-centric households)

Thinking beyond the plastic disc... would the average consumer know how to get an MP4 file onto their TV? Or how to click a streaming link and get that onto their TV? Could they easily copy the file?

That's why I still make DVDs.

Getting back to the original topic... the only DVDs I put into my computer are blank DVD-Rs. And then they go into my duplicator and my printer.

I can't even remember the last time I watched a DVD movie on my computer... or installed software from a disc.

If I wasn't doing video production... I don't think I'd ever use an optical drive in a computer.

 

[gngan]

Then I won't be able to listen to the CDs while in the car.

Love how you just ignore what people replied and bring out more of your 'issue'.

Your so call 'issue' isn't really a issue because there are solution to it but it's just that YOU refuse to acknowledge it. Or maybe you refuse to accept new things.

Now...back to your so call 'issue'... many modern cars have Bluetooth sync or a 3.5mm jack to plug into your MP3 player. If you have an older car then you have the options to mod your car's stereo system. Ever heard of FM transmitter or a Bluetooth that plugs into the cig? If you have an even older car then there is a cassette tape that links to a 3.5mm jack so you can plug it into your MP3 player.

If you refuse to evolve with the latest technology then don't whine or complain. You sound like an old person keep saying how they love cassette tape and don't understand the whole CD thingy.

 

[lowendlinux]

I'm with you OP I still buy CD's and I still burn media out of necissity at work and to have backup movies at home BUT I also have everything digital..

You got to do what you got to do but you're still pretty far away from having to make a decision why not revisit this when you need to rather than creating problems now.

 

[snaky69]

Then I won't be able to listen to the CDs while in the car.

A CD/DVD burner and downloadable files would solve that, and cost less in shipping for your *shudders* ministry in the long run.
[doublepost=1457090721][/doublepost]

I will never have a streaming service due to their cost and all the immoral trash that comes with them. DVD's allow me to pick and choose appropriate movies and not have to deal with all the other trash that ship with the streaming service. I do not even have cable so in my situation DVD is the way to go since I watch only select movies.

I literally spit out my cereal at that. How old/prude are you, man? If you're old enough to argue your point on the internet, surely you're old enough to pick and chose the movies you watch, even on a streaming service. You do know that you can chose what you're going to watch on Netflix, and that satan or whatever else you believe in doesn't switch to movie to anal child porn out of the blue?

That would be a bad idea since it will allow everyone access to the CD content when these CD's are mailed out to people that support the ministry with financial gifts. Look these ministries have IT people who disagree with your opinion on CD/DVD's. Why are you right and they wrong?

If those IT people really think that way, I wouldn't let them touch my computer with a 50 foot barge pole. They don't know what they're doing, quite evidently.