Optical Drive on MB/MBP now Defunct?

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  • Reply 61 of 62
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BenRoethig View Post


    leaving it out on the other models would absolutely kill Mac sales.



    But it's not being left out. It's just external. People can choose not to buy it if they already have one or don't need it but it would be a default option.



    It wouldn't cost more to do this because although internal drives are cheaper, Apple still need to design the machine to accommodate one.



    Also, if you play/burn discs inside the machine, it builds up heat, unlike the external. If you have a game disc inside the machine while playing, it makes the machine get hotter.



    The external options are a way that Apple could bring in Blu-Ray without the headache of having to fix HDCP issues. People can choose to get say these drives as BTO or an Apple branded equivalent:



    http://www.lacie.com/uk/products/product.htm?pid=11054

    http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/m...ry_Code=STORBD



    for authoring movies or burning data. Then the content protection issues/licensing can be officially covered later on. But it won't burden users with a drive they can't resell easily if it doesn't meet their needs or if they need to get a faster drive in a year or so.



    So why not just buy one 3rd party as well as the internal DVD drive? Well, for the other reasons of cost and size. Why buy an internal if you're only going to be using the external anyway?



    One flaw I can see is when it comes to application support though. If people are encouraged to go external, they may opt for cheaper 3rd party brands and iLife apps may not be compatible. Same with Bootcamp. With the internal, they can guarantee support.



    But thinking about the future of optical discs, Sony have won the format war and will define the next generation of optical discs but we know what Sony is like. They go overboard with their DRM and HDCP is nothing but DRM on your hardware. This will be a serious issue for adoption among hardware vendors.



    The way that I see computers in a few years does not include optical drives. I see a future computer as having 2 or 3 SD card-like slots and one of them is your main hard drive - using the reliable SSD media. Simply shut down, eject the card and you can put your data in your wallet, take it to work or school and boot up.



    Right now a 32GB SD is £65. Right now a write-once dual-layer BD-R 50GB is £20. In 3 years, why go for a noisy write-once format when we can get a much smaller read/write format where drives can be the size of a USB port? We just need to start adopting the best format to get the price down. This way you can use the same content distribution for mobile devices as well as desktop devices. There's no way you're fitting a Blu-Ray disc in a future iphone. It goes back to the idea of taking your data with you, mobiles will become powerful enough to boot your main drive.



    Perhaps that's too far down the line at this moment in time but everywhere you look, solid state is the buzzword in storage because it offers huge advantages. Blu-Ray is just a DVD with more space.
  • Reply 62 of 62
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    But it's not being left out. It's just external. People can choose not to buy it if they already have one or don't need it but it would be a default option.



    It wouldn't cost more to do this because although internal drives are cheaper, Apple still need to design the machine to accommodate one.



    Also, if you play/burn discs inside the machine, it builds up heat, unlike the external. If you have a game disc inside the machine while playing, it makes the machine get hotter.



    The external options are a way that Apple could bring in Blu-Ray without the headache of having to fix HDCP issues. People can choose to get say these drives as BTO or an Apple branded equivalent:



    http://www.lacie.com/uk/products/product.htm?pid=11054

    http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/m...ry_Code=STORBD



    for authoring movies or burning data. Then the content protection issues/licensing can be officially covered later on. But it won't burden users with a drive they can't resell easily if it doesn't meet their needs or if they need to get a faster drive in a year or so.



    So why not just buy one 3rd party as well as the internal DVD drive? Well, for the other reasons of cost and size. Why buy an internal if you're only going to be using the external anyway?



    One flaw I can see is when it comes to application support though. If people are encouraged to go external, they may opt for cheaper 3rd party brands and iLife apps may not be compatible. Same with Bootcamp. With the internal, they can guarantee support.



    But thinking about the future of optical discs, Sony have won the format war and will define the next generation of optical discs but we know what Sony is like. They go overboard with their DRM and HDCP is nothing but DRM on your hardware. This will be a serious issue for adoption among hardware vendors.



    The way that I see computers in a few years does not include optical drives. I see a future computer as having 2 or 3 SD card-like slots and one of them is your main hard drive - using the reliable SSD media. Simply shut down, eject the card and you can put your data in your wallet, take it to work or school and boot up.



    Right now a 32GB SD is £65. Right now a write-once dual-layer BD-R 50GB is £20. In 3 years, why go for a noisy write-once format when we can get a much smaller read/write format where drives can be the size of a USB port? We just need to start adopting the best format to get the price down. This way you can use the same content distribution for mobile devices as well as desktop devices. There's no way you're fitting a Blu-Ray disc in a future iphone. It goes back to the idea of taking your data with you, mobiles will become powerful enough to boot your main drive.



    Perhaps that's too far down the line at this moment in time but everywhere you look, solid state is the buzzword in storage because it offers huge advantages. Blu-Ray is just a DVD with more space.



    But you go from having a computer that "just works" to having a machine that you have to buy something extra. Also, many buyers may purchase a Mac thinking it has an optical drive like everything else.
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