Alternative distribution to optical disks : SSD, cards, and download*

[steampoweredgod]

Well i don´t consider noise a pro, i am just pointing out that the problem is.. shall we say overdone to the extreme and without any proof of it being a problem except in the relation to the next generation, and funny enough, the same people that would make it a problem had no problem buying the most noisy console ever produced..

I am going for the blu-ray install to hard drive solution. Imho that is the right way to solve the next gen storage challenge. My solution does not need the fastest drive possible, it just needs one that is fast enough.

I am not sure where you are getting at with the purble comment, how does that relate to flash/optical costs and benefits.. they also did Wii?

if the drives noise is repetitive simple pattern of noise, noise cancelling algorithms can be used and a speaker can eliminate it entirely in the console. It is only complex patterns like baby cries that evade noise cancelling tech.

 

[steampoweredgod]

I had over 1,500 dvds and I ripped them and put them in storage. I love that I regained a large amount of square feet in my house. I was able to put a 175 gallon fish tank in one of the area's that housed a large amount of my cds and dvds.

I think going foward people are going to become more acustom to having everything on cloud storage or home server storage vs having a ton of discs taking up rooms.

Only those who consider themselves collectors (and old collectors at that) will want discs and boxes for everything.


The only reason I buy blurays currently is because they offer me the highest quality source material to rip. But once i rip them my blurays go in the attic . My purchases of blurays is also much lower than that of dvd. I find that zune 1080p video / amazon video is high enough quality for the majority of movies , esp those with no special effects or action.

And some of us have billions to spare, and pay for random carts and rare unopened discs. So it is he who's a fool who'd rather not have something that may be worth 1000s or millions of dollars in his home.

I'm sorry but the inconvenience of having to get a large area to store all this random stuff and have someone catalogue and organize such is worth the trouble.

Even simple coins, cards, comics have gone for ridiculous sums of money. This won't be the case with a digital copy as far as I can tell unless it was tied directly to the corporation with some stupendous drm impeding its use via server verification ala microsoft live.

If you somehow gain fame, even soiled pampers are worth thousands or millions. So everything you touch gains extreme value depending on your fame or accomplishments. In fact people prefer the sweaty unwashed clothes over the cleaned ones, cleaning devalues the clothes

Think about that for a moment, it starts a chain of collect it all as any random thing could be worth millions.

 

[AlphaWolf]

1500 DVDs is worth about 30000$.

Doubtful. I have a large collection myself, but my average purchase price is probably closer to $5 than $20. Even new releases can often be had for below $20.

 

[MrFox]

Doubtful. I have a large collection myself, but my average purchase price is probably closer to $5 than $20. Even new releases can often be had for below $20.

Just count yours any way you like, if you want to count bargain bins, that's your buying habits. It's irrelevant to end up at 20000 instead of 30000.

For insurance claims here they average a DVD at 20. Value at release, not used, nor bargain bins. Different countries have different prices. Disks accumulated in the last 10 years were 30 each the first 5 years so half that collection was probably paid 30 each, most new releases are 15 to 20 today. With 1500 films the average of 20 is fair.

Interestingly, my disk collection (CD, DVD, bluray) is fully insured by my insurance company. They won't insure any downloadable media.

 

[manux]

Just count yours any way you like, if you want to count bargain bins, that's your buying habits. It's irrelevant to end up at 20000 instead of 30000.

For insurance claims here they average a DVD at 20. Value at release, not used, nor bargain bins. Different countries have different prices. Disks accumulated in the last 10 years were 30 each the first 5 years so half that collection was probably paid 30 each, most new releases are 15 to 20 today. With 1500 films the average of 20 is fair.

Interestingly, my disk collection (CD, DVD, bluray) is fully insured by my insurance company. They won't insure any downloadable media.

I doubt 20$ is anywhere close reality. My blu-ray collection average price is something like 12$. It pays off to buy from amazon when they have good deals. I doubt anyone who collects movies would be stupid enough to pay high price for any release when you can get a good deal slightly after release.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What one pays for DVDs doesn't seem entirely relevant to me regards next-gen distribution strategies.

 

[MrFox]

I doubt 20$ is anywhere close reality. My blu-ray collection average price is something like 12$. It pays off to buy from amazon when they have good deals. I doubt anyone who collects movies would be stupid enough to pay high price for any release when you can get a good deal slightly after release.

Once again, that's your buying habit and you're obviously a good bargain chaser, it's not the norm. By far the biggest sale of DVD and bluray is during the first 3 or 4 weeks. Film lovers don't wait months, look at the sales chart:
http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/weekly/thisweek.php
Divide total units by total sales, average sale price remain 15 to 20 for a DVD depending on the studio and the title, even after 6 months.

The same goes for games, most gamers will pay full price, some will wait to play it used, or get the greatest-hits bargain, but it's not the norm.

 

[MrFox]

What one pays for DVDs doesn't seem entirely relevant to me regards next-gen distribution strategies.

Sorry, I got carried away
Still, the physical disk having an intrinsic value in the eyes of insurance companies (being film or games), while downloadable having no intrinsic value, I think is relevant to distribution strategies.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think DD only is off the cards anyway. Insurance companies are facing either covering discs or carts, which'll cost whatever.

 

[Acert93]

I didn't say it was big. One of many factors, if 10 factors count for 2%, you end up with 20% lost sales.

Do you agree it can account for 2% ?

You are right, you did not say big; instead your said huge:

No drive means:
1. lose a huge user base who want backward compatibility

And Alphawolf is correct, it was such a big deal Sony dropped it.

That said, with my XBLA library, if MS does not support complete BC for XBLA software that would be a big blow for me personally. XBLA is over 50% of my gaming time and the titles transcend graphics and such.

 

[eastmen]

I cannot imagine how long that would have taken.

I have a much smaller DVD/Blu-ray collection (<200) and care not to afford the time nor the effort to start ripping them to digital form. I have an equally as large digital collection of TV series, movies etc. and I appreciate that my PS3 supports all formats.

Had my console been without an optical disc drive, it would have necessitated a need for a secondary device to play my discs until i could find the time to rip them to my PC/NAS/PS3. Currently, I'm thankful to be able to enjoy the choice to rip or not to rip, whilst still being able to consume my content. Plus, my PS3 justifies my LoveFilm rental subscription as a can rent Blu-Rays and play them happily. Wouldn't want to break the law to start ripping rental DVDs/BRs to my system just to watch them ;-)

Next-gen consoles don't need to go one way or the other, and it benefits the complete range of different consumers that prefer to manage & buy their content in different forms to have a console that supports both physical and digital formats.

I worked at a block buster video store , so most of my dvds were free.

Ripping them is not a problem. I'd start a rip and go do something else , come back and change to another disc. Its not like i have to be at the pc while this is going on .

Holding on to legacy optical formats will just increase the bloat of the system.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I worked at a block buster video store , so most of my dvds were free.

Ripping them is not a problem. I'd start a rip and go do something else , come back and change to another disc. Its not like i have to be at the pc while this is going on .

Holding on to legacy optical formats will just increase the bloat of the system.

I wouldn't say that. It's merely one drive to sevre them all. And then a mass storage drive which is a given whether they choose carts, cards or optical discs.

I couldn't care less if a system looks bloated or has bloated features. If it serves all my technological requirements then it adds enough value for me to purchase it. I'm looking for a console that will be an all-in-one entertainment device. A console that doesn't support all of my existing formats will be a much harder sell for me.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

furthermore, an optical drive doesn't have to be big. PS2slim was the smallest console yet, wasn't it? Just have a top loader if you want to go the diddy-console route

 

[MrFox]

You are right, you did not say big; instead your said huge:

It looks like I did exaggerate a lot for the "dramatic effect", and didn't even remember doing so
There's probably a moral to this story. It's either a cautionary tale about exaggeration, or reading back our own posts before exaggerating.

 

[eastmen]

I wouldn't say that. It's merely one drive to sevre them all. And then a mass storage drive which is a given whether they choose carts, cards or optical discs.

I couldn't care less if a system looks bloated or has bloated features. If it serves all my technological requirements then it adds enough value for me to purchase it. I'm looking for a console that will be an all-in-one entertainment device. A console that doesn't support all of my existing formats will be a much harder sell for me.

The xbox 360 doesn't support all formats , I don't see it selling poorly in the united states compared to Sony's system. We are now what in the 6th year of bluray's life and xbox 360 in the united states is selling extremely well . So while you may want the console to play those discs , it seems the majority of users could give a damn. IT they don't care now , why will they care in the future when DD / VOD formats continue to improve ?


In the end removing the optical drive will make the console alot smaller. We are talking about loosing 41.3x146mm in space to an optical drive. This creates a huge dead zone in the console . Which you can either take back to add more cooing and htus a hotter running faster chip or to make the console smaller . You can even remove the 2.5inch laptop drive and the 5 1/2 optical drive and put in a 3.5inch hardrive. This will allow more storage at faster speeds and you'd still have a smaller system than one with an optical drive.

 

[eastmen]

furthermore, an optical drive doesn't have to be big. PS2slim was the smallest console yet, wasn't it? Just have a top loader if you want to go the diddy-console route

THe problem here is drive speed. Looking on newegg.com there are two types of slim bluray drives , usb and internal. The internals are slow


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118070

The problem here is its a max 4.8x bluray vs the 12x of a full size drive. Its acess time is really good at 230ms

then you have usb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827140089

It seems like the fastest drives are only a 6x bluray drive. To add further your looking at access time going from 180ms to 250ms

So yea , your looking at drives as slow as 18MB/s to drives up to 54MB/s

If we were to go to take the slim sony drive you'd be looking at a drive around 22MB/s which would be slower than flash's transfer rate.

 

[Prophecy2k]

The xbox 360 doesn't support all formats , I don't see it selling poorly in the united states compared to Sony's system. We are now what in the 6th year of bluray's life and xbox 360 in the united states is selling extremely well . So while you may want the console to play those discs , it seems the majority of users could give a damn. IT they don't care now , why will they care in the future when DD / VOD formats continue to improve ?

There's quite a bit of exaggeration there. "Majority"? Not really. PS3 is basically half the HD console global market. It's silly to try to intimate anything about the "majority's" requirement for entertainment media playback based off one console in a single territory. That's a very poor basis for an argument.

I could argue that PS3's bluray and media playback capability is the chief selling point for PS3 in the global market, and has helped the console that carries a $100 premuim over its competitor, as well as a major disadvantage in online service and performance of multi-platform gaming to claw back an installed base practically equal to that of the Xbox 360. However since I have no idea how important Bluray and DVD is to Xbox 360 & PS3 owners, it would also be a poor basis for an argument. ;-)

In the end removing the optical drive will make the console alot smaller. We are talking about loosing 41.3x146mm in space to an optical drive. This creates a huge dead zone in the console . Which you can either take back to add more cooing and htus a hotter running faster chip or to make the console smaller . You can even remove the 2.5inch laptop drive and the 5 1/2 optical drive and put in a 3.5inch hardrive. This will allow more storage at faster speeds and you'd still have a smaller system than one with an optical drive.

This is nonesense. The volume of the cavity within your console box doesn't make cooling any more effiecient the more space you have. It's more about the tortuosity of the flow path than the total volume. Granted removing the optical drive could let you make the unit smaller, but there's no practical extra benefit to cooling. In fact a smaller box would imply a smaller external fan, so would require a faster rotational fan speed for a given air flow, thus more noise.

Regardless, it's all a moot point if removing the optical drive doesn't come with a more economical & overall beneficial physical media replacement, which of course there's been no reasonable suggestion of such in this thread thus far.

 

[zealjuniorwarrantofficer]

There's quite a bit of exaggeration there. "Majority"? Not really. PS3 is basically half the HD console global market. It's silly to try to intimate anything about the "majority's" requirement for entertainment media playback based off one console in a single territory. That's a very poor basis for an argument.

I could argue that PS3's bluray and media playback capability is the chief selling point for PS3 in the global market, and has helped the console that carries a $100 premuim over its competitor, as well as a major disadvantage in online service and performance of multi-platform gaming to claw back an installed base practically equal to that of the Xbox 360. However since I have no idea how important Bluray and DVD is to Xbox 360 & PS3 owners, it would also be a poor basis for an argument. ;-)



This is nonesense. The volume of the cavity within your console box doesn't make cooling any more effiecient the more space you have. It's more about the tortuosity of the flow path than the total volume. Granted removing the optical drive could let you make the unit smaller, but there's no practical extra benefit to cooling. In fact a smaller box would imply a smaller external fan, so would require a faster rotational fan speed for a given air flow, thus more noise.

Regardless, it's all a moot point if removing the optical drive doesn't come with a more economical & overall beneficial physical media replacement, which of course there's been no reasonable suggestion of such in this thread thus far.

All thermal exchange of 3rd dimensional object occurs at 2dimensional surface interface, maximize 2d surface as in the bird lungs and you obtain theoretically optimal heat exchange... though how to keep such a nanostructured surface going without clogging full of dust is a very good question.

 

[Prophecy2k]

All thermal exchange of 3rd dimensional object occurs at 2dimensional surface interface, maximize 2d surface as in the bird lungs and you obtain theoretically optimal heat exchange... though how to keep such a nanostructured surface going without clogging full of dust is a very good question.

Sorry i'm not following your line of reasoning at all. How does removing the optical disc drive maximise the 2d surface interface for heat exchange?

All it does is makes more vacant room within the box. Alone this doesn't offer any benefit to cooling efficiency within the system.

Console cooling systems are more akin to laptops than PCs (well at least the PS3's is). Thus the thermal exchange route goes as follows:

Chip --> Heat Pipe Fluid --> Fan assembly --> External Air

In a PC it would be:

Chip --> Heat Sink --> Chip Fan --> Internal Cavity --> External Case Fan --> External Air

Thus for PCs the volume of the internal cavity can affect the overall cooling system performance, whereas in consoles and laptops it's irrelevant because the heatpipes carry heat directly to the fan assembly which forces the flow of hot air clear out of the unit.

Also, the only 2d heat exchange surfaces of relevance are the "chip-to-heatsink/heatpipe" interface, and surface area of the "heatsink/air fan assembly-to-external ambient air" interface. Removing an optical drive alone changes neither of these.

Edit:
Unless you were thinking about heat exchange from dissipated chip heat through the motherboard, basically conductive heat exchange through the Mobo, metal and external plastic case of the console? If so, in reality it's probably a pretty negliable amount, and ultimately I doubt the removal of an optical drive creates that much more surface area available for heat exchange through this route anyway.

 

[-tkf-]

THe problem here is drive speed. Looking on newegg.com there are two types of slim bluray drives , usb and internal. The internals are slow


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118070

The problem here is its a max 4.8x bluray vs the 12x of a full size drive. Its acess time is really good at 230ms

then you have usb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827140089

It seems like the fastest drives are only a 6x bluray drive. To add further your looking at access time going from 180ms to 250ms

So yea , your looking at drives as slow as 18MB/s to drives up to 54MB/s

If we were to go to take the slim sony drive you'd be looking at a drive around 22MB/s which would be slower than flash's transfer rate.

6xspeed might be acceptable depending on just how good the install stuff is handled, and it would take away the worry about noise. However, this is all slim drives that so far have not been the target for any kind of power users, they are used in Notebook and USB drives. With USB you have 5Watt(?) power, that puts a natural limit on the speed. Putting a 8 x speed drive in a PS4 should not be a problem. But i seen no reason why they shouldn't go a full size drive.