• Mist101@lemmy.world
    672·
    5 days ago

    I still burn CDs. This whole streaming thing won’t last. Also, my back hurts…

        • FrChazzz@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          4 days ago

          Me too! I recently put Linux on it and it runs like a brand new computer.

          • wowwoweowza@lemmy.world
            3·
            4 days ago

            I run Linux on my daily driver, but I’m addicted to the click wheel iPod and I use this machine because of iTunes.

            • StarMerchant938@lemmy.world
              1·
              4 days ago

              I have two absolutely gorgeous Nanos with zero battery bulge and not a single device that can run iTunes. I even have the 30 pin cable. Once upon a time I would’ve used the family PC but that thing has more viruses than the hospital thanks to my little sister.

              • wowwoweowza@lemmy.world
                2·
                4 days ago

                I like using my own library of MP3s and knowing that for at least a small amount of time, I’m not being tracked in terms of what I’m listening. My clickwheel has a solid state terabyte so I just threw everything onto it.

                If you long to use those nano-s, there are some cheap old Mac’s showing up on eBay or Craig’s list sometimes.

      • VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        2·
        4 days ago

        There where points in time where I had a lightscribe disk, and points in time where I had a lightscribe drive. But never both at the same time. I feel like this says something, but I dunno what.

      • Psythik@lemm.ee
        1·
        4 days ago

        I went out of my way to buy a LightScribe drive for my 2008 build [C2D E8400, 4GB DDR2 800, AMD HD 4870, Vista Ultimate + Linspire], and I never even used the feature. Burned less than a dozen discs total as well.

        I feel like optical media died around that same time. Netflix introduced its streaming service, torrents entered the mainstream, Blu Ray flopped, and MP3 players replaced CD players (and then streaming replaced MP3 players shortly after). Didn’t even bother with an optical drive in my 2014 build [i5-4670K, 16GB DDR3 1866, GTX 780, Win8.1 + Ubuntu]. Current build doesn’t have one, either [7700X, 32GB DDR5 6000, 4090, Win11 + Arch]. Just been hanging onto the same drive since 2008, for the rare occasion that I actually need to burn a disc. At this point it’s been over 5 years.

  • Lorindól@sopuli.xyz
    13·
    4 days ago

    I burned an audio CD just a few weeks ago. My car doesn’t have Bluetooth audio, so I’ve kept going old school all along. I bought a few stacks of empty CD-R’s and DVD-R’s when the stores wanted to get rid of them.

    I have zero streaming subscriptions and no intention of getting any. The number of films, games and music albums I’ve bought from flea markets and second hand stores during the past 10 years has to be in the hundreds. And not one has cost more than 3$.

    Even my kids haven’t complained about the lack of streaming, they seem perfectly happy using my physical media library.

    • applemao@lemmy.world
      3·
      4 days ago

      Yep, don’t give in to ease of streaming, that’s how they win, and take it all from you. Everyone needs to own what they pay for.

      • Lorindól@sopuli.xyz
        2·
        4 days ago

        Yep. My brother has at least 4 streaming subscriptions that add up to closer to 100$ per month. I once asked him how much he actually uses them and his response was: “I don’t know, many times a week! But it’s nice to have them if I want to watch something!”

        To me the idea of basically throwing away more than 1000$ per year is simply horrifying.

        • applemao@lemmy.world
          1·
          3 days ago

          And not even owning it…and they’ll keep upping the price little by little, slowly sucking us dry

    • KiESi@lemm.ee
      3·
      4 days ago

      Whoa, you sound exactly like an improved version of me!

      Where do you get .wav files these days??

  • poloqualle@feddit.org
    9·
    4 days ago

    I thought that I burned my last cd a long time ago until my uni required me to hand in my thesis on a cd.

    Buying a 4-pack of CDs (with cases) was more expensive than buying a 128gb sd card.

    • Eufalconimorph@discuss.tchncs.de
      112·
      4 days ago

      They don’t last very long. About 5-10 years at most, and that’s if you bought special archival burnable DVDs. If you depend on them for backups, you should check the integrity annually (always include a checksum like SHA256 with any backup archive).

      • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
        5·
        4 days ago

        I have CDs that I burned in the 90s that still work fine. I’m assuming the blu-rays I burn now will probably last as long, which is decades longer than I need them to.

        • oo1@lemmings.worldEnglish
          4·
          4 days ago

          I heard that the higher the data density on DVD and BR means the higher the failure rate. Though i have no real evidence of that myself.

          Maybe one or two bits corrupted here or there will only cause some unnoticeable artefacts anyway.

        • Eufalconimorph@discuss.tchncs.de
          2·
          4 days ago

          Music CDs or data? Music CDs have built-in error correction, data CDs don’t. You can certainly extend the lifetime if they’re stored in the dark in a cool, dry place (UV light, heat, and humidity all damage the dye that gets burned to encode them) but they’re not reliable archival storage without error correction.

          • socsa@piefed.socialEnglish
            1·
            4 days ago

            Data CDs actually use even more robust error correction since they use interleaving in addition to FEC since they don’t need to scan in “real time”

          • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
            2·
            4 days ago

            Music. I have some data CDs I burned in the mid 2000s, that I booted up a few years ago (Linux live CDs). I don’t have any data CDs from the 90s though. IIRC, ISO 9660 does have error correction.

            Edit: I just looked it up. ISO 9660 doesn’t have error correction, but the underlying system, CD-ROM Mode 1, does have error correction.

    • Pnut@lemm.ee
      73·
      5 days ago

      …you need so much specific equipment. You do realise that the day blue ray was announced we collectively gave up on physical data storage in the form of polished mineral disks right?

      • droans@midwest.socialEnglish
        10·
        5 days ago

        So much equipment.

        First you have to buy the DVD writer and then you also have to get yourself blank DVDs.

      • dustyData@lemmy.world
        61·
        5 days ago

        We definitely did not gave up on discs. They may no longer be mass consumer oriented. But bluray for backup, archiving and data transfer are still a thing. Nothing beats the bandwidth of a plane filled with hard drives. The media itself is not relevant, magnetic tape is still available and used to this day. The first time I held more than a terabyte in my hand was in a data tape cartridge. Consumer hard drives hadn’t gotten there yet. Even today, new optical media is being researched. There are fascinating breakthroughs on laser engraved crystal storage.

        Anyways, I just wanted to remember that wasteful mass consumption media is not representative of humanity as a whole.

        • Korhaka@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          1·
          4 days ago

          Aren’t SD cards higher data capacity than HDDs at this point? Sure maybe not per unit or cost but for the volume of space I am pretty sure HDDs lost a while ago.

          • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
            2·
            4 days ago

            High capacity SD have a miserably failure rate with regular use. In PI’s and dashcams many only get a couple of years before they start having errors. USB thumb drives do better but they have heat problems. neither are great for backups unless you just do a lot of write once and store

            • Korhaka@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              2·
              4 days ago

              Could just have more than 1 backup though, then it doesn’t really matter much if the storage is less reliable as its very unlikely for multiple to fail at the same time

          • dustyData@lemmy.world
            1·
            4 days ago

            Today? Of course. But until recently that wasn’t the case. Longevity though.

            We got prediction of sector failure rates on HDDs and magnetic tapes down to a science. Makes archiving really easy as you know with statistical significance how often to test, copy and move data, to preserve it virtually forever (as long as there is someone maintaining the archive).

            Solid state memory can be extraordinarily dense, but the denser it gets, the more it’s prone to corruption and failure. Worse still, when solid state fails, the whole storage unit becomes obsolete, and data gets nightmarishly hard to extract, maybe even gone forever. Only with very rare and specialized workshops that have the equipment to do it. On the other hand, I’ve seen technicians recover data from tapes that were literally in a fire, right there on the field with bog standard equipment.

            When you factor in that the average cost of a terabyte of magnetic storage is less than half of the average cost of a terabyte of solid state, then a few cubic centimeters of space per unit become practically irrelevant. Corporate settings actually prefer more smaller storage units than larger, as they cause less trouble when they fail. Redundancy is a numbers game.

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
      31·
      5 days ago

      NOOOOO! You must use cheap AliExpress SSDs, because something something 1980’s tech something something technological advancements must be pushed at all cost!

          • ulterno@programming.devEnglish
            01·
            4 days ago

            DIY Tape Drive:

            • Keep the core-rings remaining from sticky tapes that you use.
            • When you are about to finish your fourth, save some tape
            • Peel the remaining tape and encircle 2 of the core-rings
              • Do the same with the other 2 core-rings and remaining tape
              • You might want the amount of tape used to be same for both the pairs
            • Connect core-rings to the axle of your choice
    • misteloct@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      21·
      4 days ago

      I use them all the time. If you plan to leave any data behind that even theoretically exists in 50 years, readable or not, optical media is your only option. Or Ardrive if you want to spend 1000x the amount and make it public. Or microfilm if you are a masochist. In case you plan on leaving any videos around for your grandchildren.

  • TurtleMelon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    6·
    4 days ago

    CDs are geat, still burn them all the time. I have a Jellyfin server that hosts my digital music collection, but sometimes I may be going on a long drive without internet and CDs are unmatched for that. No battery, no internet requirement, and hold hundreds of hours of music in a a small book in my backseat.

    • MothmanLives@lemdro.idEnglish
      1·
      4 days ago

      I have an old android phone running lineage and I host a hotspot if I want it to have data, it’s amazing how well Android Auto works without Internet access compared to having data though.

  • doingthestuff@lemy.lolEnglish
    17·
    4 days ago

    I still have a big stack of blank CDs and DVDs. I burned a DVD late last year. I don’t think I’ve hit my last time yet. But maybe.

  • Animal@lemmy.world
    7·
    4 days ago

    Remember me Nero Express, good memories, awesome name for a CD burner.

    My brother recently found 15 year old CDs with family photos and they still work.

    It’s funny how video game media often degrades quickly due to use, but well-packaged and lightly used discs can last for many years. Maybe still a great solution for data that doesn’t need to be accessed constantly.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
        5·
        4 days ago

        It’s why I’ve gone through all of my old media and transferred them to my media PC. But I have to admit it’s more satisfying when it’s in the form of physical media, when it’s all computer files I hardly ever look at them.

        • applemao@lemmy.world
          2·
          4 days ago

          That’s me. ADD and 678 folders of digital media is not fun. I need physical. Plus, it’s actually real then.

    • UltraMasculine@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      1·
      4 days ago

      As a kid I always thought that Nero is a stupid name for a program because in Finnish nero means genius. To be honest I still think that it’s a stupid name.

  • DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    12·
    4 days ago

    Jokes on you, I still burn my acquired digital media to BluRay discs

    Disk rot is like 25 years while an SSD still doesn’t have that kind of shelf life

    • deadbeef@lemmy.nz
      11·
      4 days ago

      Who are these mad men who are dumping stuff to SSDs and then sitting them on a shelf? Can’t get my mind around it.

      • DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        1·
        4 days ago

        You’d be surprised. And then they tell me disk rot makes BD not recommended… meanwhile this happens after several decades and is exceedingly rare

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      4 days ago

      Doesn’t it make more sense use harddisks?

      I mean, the ultimate long terms storage medium seems to be tape, but that stuff is very expensive, but outside that harddisks seem to have the best balance of accessibility and shelf life.

    • bier@feddit.nl
      51·
      4 days ago

      Physical media yes, CDs or DVDs no. Most discs I burned are probably unreadable by now. I remember my favorite artist explaining how he probably had to stop making music because it just wasn’t financially viable. So I decided to buy all his albums (I had all the albums in mp3 format for years). Its about 10 years later, all the CDs are lost or destroyed (most in my car). I still have a NAS with the original mp3s I downloaded 20 years ago.

      • Merva@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        4 days ago

        Yeah, I burned 100s of music cds as well about 20 years ago, and stored them in those books with slots. They weren’t stored in a car, but still about a quart of them doesn’t play anymore, and I am sure it won’t be long before none of them will. All my store bought cds of the same age or older still works fine though.

        Homeburning is not a good physical media alternative.

        • antimidas@sopuli.xyz
          3·
          4 days ago

          Homeburning can be surprisingly robust as a backup method, and as an option of physical media, but I’d still keep backups on an actual NAS as well. There’s also a ton of variables that affect the lifetime of a burnt CD, like dyes used (cyanine - phthalocyanine - azo), lamination quality, storage and the burner used. Especially the quality and intensity of the build has a surprisingly strong effect, despite things being set in a standard – you can get a lot more storage life out of a CD burned using a quality 5.25" burner compared to a budget slim drive.

          Also early discs based on cyanine had a notoriously short shelf life compared to the later archival quality discs, around 30 years or so in optimal conditions (and typically a lot less), so much of the stuff burnt in 90’s and 00’s has already began deteriorating. More recent quality discs can last over a century if stored properly, but the older ones can’t.

          DVDs can also often have issues with delamination, meaning that especially the outer rim of the disc can start exhibiting bit rot quite early if you’re using low quality media. I’ve noticed even new discs having signs of early delamination between the two disc halves (DVDs have the data layer in between two acrylic discs, unlike CDs which have it on the backside directly under the reflective coating). I’ve also experienced a lot of issues when burning multilayer DVDs that might affect how long they last in storage, so for actual backups I’d prefer using a single layer disc instead.

          But as per reasons for still using discs – they’re an unparalleled cold storage solution. With proper care you can actually leave them be for decades and be sure the data is still readable, unlike with SSDs which will lose their data when unpowered for a long period of time. Tape is a good option, but not really viable for consumers – also tape needs more active upkeep, since you typically have to copy over the old data to new media every 20-30 years or so (promised life in archival is 30 years, after which it might not be possible to get new drives for reading the tapes). Optical is also king when you need to transfer data into air-gapped environments, since with optical media it’s relatively easy to audit that what’s burned to the disc is unalterable. There’s a reason why I still keep a full install set of Debian handy.

    • 4k93n2@lemmy.zip
      2·
      4 days ago

      minidiscs are a good sweet spot if youre looking for something physical. theyre not too big so you can fit a few discs in your pockets. the player itself can easily fit in your pants pocket as well. any minidisc player that has webMD netMD support will let you add or remove tracks using a web browser. theres the LP mode that lets you fit more music on a disc

      • thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        4 days ago

        I would legitimately switch back to one of my old MD players in an heartbeat if I had access to a decent software to load music on. Those little wired remotes with LCD screens were when technology peaked, IMO.

        Any recommendations for an alternative to SonicStage (or whatever Sony’s proprietary crapola from back in the day was called)?

        • 4k93n2@lemmy.zip
          2·
          4 days ago

          yea! those remotes were definitely handy back in the day when you would be out and about with it, but i mostly just use it at home these days so i dont have the remote attached.

          webmd.pro is what i use. it runs in any chrome browser. its a bit on the slow side but i cant remember at this point whether it was always slow to burn to these disks.

          but as long as the minidisc player has “netMD” on the front it should work with that. the only other thing you have to do if youre on windows is install this driver

          theres also ElectronWMD which is basically just webmd.pro packaged into a desktop app. that may or may not have the driver included, i havnt tried it yet

          • thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            4 days ago

            I haven’t been able to find something quite like it available already - so I do wonder if there would be enough demand to kickstart a Bluetooth/wireless DAC/receiver remote to bring back that tactical functionality…

            But anyway - thanks for the heads up! I’ll check it out in the morning and see if I can connect my N910 and NH1.

            Come to think of it, I hope I can find the correct cables, and that they still work… wish me luck!

            • 4k93n2@lemmy.zip
              2·
              4 days ago

              this guy is using a transmitter with his minidisc, im sure any transmitter you could find would work

              seems like kind of a chore having to charge 3 separate things though. if someone would just do a kickstarter for a new minidisc player that had bluetooth built in and usb-c to power it i would buy one in an instant!

              the minidisc i have now uses mini usb to transfer data and then has a weird 3v charging port, and the cable for that doesnt work anymore so im just stuck with using AA batteries to power it now. its a bit of a mess. these days it would be just a single usb-c port that would handle all that

              good luck with your minidisk journey anyway if you head down that road haha

              • thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
                1·
                3 days ago

                See - that’s the problem with me writing comments at midnight right before bed, I don’t communicate as clearly as I think! 😅

                What I was wishing for, was a product that looked like an MD remote (similar to the RM-MC35ELK ideally), which could wirelessly connect to a smartphone, allowing for tactile media control, and the use of higher impedance wired headphones/in-ear monitors.

                Because currently having to use wireless earbuds means I have to randomly squeeze the earpiece stems an arbitrary amount of times to change tracks, and good flipping luck trying to change the volume or switch albums otherwise without having to remove your phone from my pocket.

                • 4k93n2@lemmy.zip
                  1·
                  1 day ago

                  ah ok! i have a fiio btr3 bluetooth receiver that is something along those lines. it doesnt show any track info but its got buttons at least and you can plug in whatever headphones you want. there could be others around that are more like the MD remotes but i havnt done much research

                  if youre on android theres also “key mapper” by sds100 that will let you change to the next/prev track by long pressing the volume keys so you dont need to take it out of your pocket!

  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
    17·
    5 days ago

    Last time I saw this template it was “Someday your parent will carry you in their arm for the last time and neither of you will know it was the last time.”

    😭

    • bstix@feddit.dk
      4·
      5 days ago

      My grandfather made it a point to lift everyone until he couldn’t get then off the ground anymore.