On 27/06/2015 23:34, walt wrote: > On Fri, 26 Jun 2015 18:18:45 -0400 > gottl...@nyu.edu wrote: > >> My new (dell E7450) laptop will be a slimline with no internal optical >> drive. So I want to purchase an external optical drive. My first >> thought was to get a drive that is both >> a blue ray READER and >> a dvd writer >> >> I naively thought that USB is USB so any such drive would work. >> However googling (especially linux sites) shows pages devoted to DRM >> issues. Although I do not intend to rip or write a blu-ray, the >> number of pages devoted to DRM seem to indicate more pain than gain >> for the few times I might read a blu ray. > > I have zero experience with blu-ray, so obviously I'm compelled to have > an opinion instead :) > > Blu-ray feels to me like a technology that was obsolete when it hit the > market as a consumer product. I remember being hot to buy the hardware > when it was introduced, but it was way too expensive back then. > > By the time the price became reasonable, I realized that I wasn't using > even the dvd burners I already owned because disk space was so cheap I > was archiving to disk (redundantly, of course) instead of to dvd. > > One use-case I've never needed, though, is to burn 25 gigs of stuff so > I can hand it or snail-mail it to someone instead of sending it over the > internet. I just don't need it. > > I can imagine being required to use blu-ray by an employer or customer, > though.
My experience is similr to yours I have a blu-ray reader, plugged into my Kodi machine. It's never had a BR disk in it, instead, it plays CDs! On the very few times I've needed to do something with that many gigs of data, I've used a memory stick instead with the benefit they don't need optical hardware. I'd have to do this quite a few times to offset the cost of the hardware. I've also concluded that apart from movie studios and maybe niche markets, BR was dead when it hit the street -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
