where do you see optical media going?

[coppercone2]

I see optical media (blu ray) is being discontinued in many places. Personally I feel like its a big sham because I am starting to feel like they are just selling me tickets to go some where to a nanometer sized physical location that could disappear at any time. Master servers are bad enough. I avoided buying alot of stuff because I was not looking to be left snubbed with some ticket stubs for a theater or arcade that disappeared lol.

I wonder if we will see some optical storage media in the terabyte range that keeps reliable storage around.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/lg-one-of-the-last-holdouts-ceases-production-of-blu-ray-players/

But it is an opportunity for another manufacturer to pick up production, theoretically much of the machine tools required for production should be going down in price and going up in capability making the technology more accessible to manufacture. I am constantly seeing off brand but very nice looking optics positioner equipment and stuff like that showing up which might exceed the requirements for manufacture of optical media manufacturing equipment, there seems to be alot of progress for cheap precision static positoners and know how on how to make them that was just not there 20 years ago. I think alot of the unique R&D developments that were basically essential for optical media manufacturing have become mainstream for general purpose optics use, especially with the proliferation of laser cutters, inferometers, etc

non physical makes me think I am buying things from this joker. Its supposed to be a program but their trying to sell tickets for computer systems on ice like its a 1960 multics operation

[Foxxz]

I always wondered, after DVD, why they didn't go to something like read-only thumb drives. I guess duplication costs. But it would have been smaller and compatible with many devices without the need for a special, and physically large, optical drive. The media would have been more physically resilient. And the amount of speed and storage could be customized for the movie bitrate. Another benefit being non-existent seek times. USB2 is fast enough for even the highest bitrate bluray movies. They could have still encrypted the movies and even added special hardware in the USB stick for additional authentication methods.

[DiTBho]

I still use DVD+ram, 4.5GB cartridges 

[NiHaoMike]

How about just have digital downloads without the DRM nonsense?

[SiliconWizard]

Well, you may be in luck: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06980-y

[coppercone2]

it does seem to oscillate, they did like to use chips for storage a long time ago in lieu of a mag drive

[themadhippy]

I always wondered, after DVD, why they didn't go to something like read-only thumb drives

Knew i should have patented the  idea i had during a drunken discussion way back in the early 90's over which was better ,mini disc or digital compact cassette,were i  suggested why not just chuck it on a bloody big eprom instead of having your media spinning.

As for the future, whats the porn industry doing? they've always been early adopters of the whats best way to get there media to the general public,right back to the  first  printing press

[David Hess]

There is no consumer demand for an optical media better than Blu-ray, so it will be the last one.  I doubt it will be replaced with anything.

I always wondered, after DVD, why they didn't go to something like read-only thumb drives. I guess duplication costs. But it would have been smaller and compatible with many devices without the need for a special, and physically large, optical drive. The media would have been more physically resilient. And the amount of speed and storage could be customized for the movie bitrate. Another benefit being non-existent seek times. USB2 is fast enough for even the highest bitrate bluray movies. They could have still encrypted the movies and even added special hardware in the USB stick for additional authentication methods.

That would have meant Flash based media with a much shorter retention time than optical media.  While the copyright owners would enjoy this, buyers would have been upset to discover that the physical media they purchased only lasted a few years.

[coppercone2]

I wonder if thats really true or if its just because they can't figure things out


For instance imagine a optic media that you lay down over a reader like wireless charging and it scans a 20TB disk using advanced mems systems, without spinning it.

I think the right implementation would lay waste to all this bull crap we have now.