Do you like DVDs or digital viewings?

I doubt it somehow. More cynical, definitely...

When CD came out, I er, took massive advantage of my local hi-fi store and got them to let me audition their entire range of CD players. Twice. Of course I had no intention of buying one. I just wanted to know if they all sounded the same, as was supposed to be the case...

The upshot was, if it didn't have a Phillips insides at the time, Pink Floyd sounded like "they had somewhere else to be"  whereas on the Phillips based players they sounded much more natural in the timing, however the phillips players sounded harsh in the really noisy bit in the middle of "money", and few players managed to make the sax sound right.

So it came down to the 800 - 1000 quid meridian MCD or MCD pro or a 400 quid Marantz player. If you wanted the best rendition of "dark side of the moon" at the time off a cd, AND I DID. well I could not afford either being on the dole at the time, and as I was getting ready to go I spied a gold coloured CD player with the word "Marantz" on the front tucked away in a corner. I asked what it was, and it was 200 quid, ex demo and under test, it sounded GOOD.  

I then had me a little career fixing and trading CD players. 

I've still got one of those Marantz 73's upstairs. And a couple of Cambridge Audio CD2's...

because people designing mechanism and cover are not the same people, HQs attract a special kind of 'brainiacs'.

That's why I chose my LG Blu-ray player - the main tray door has a cover which reduces the chance of dust getting inside.

Remember the VHS days when after a few years there would be a fair amount of dust and gunk on the internal mechanism because the gap around the flap was big?

Dragon said:

I have discs that I burned 15 years ago that still play perfectly

me too

But DVD/CD playing devices are not as resilient, and it's problematic to dust them inside, and they get dusty if unused for too long. Then they start making grinding noises when you play something and die spitting broken CD out

What I'm trying to say is AVOID DUST INSIDE, and wipe CDs before use is what helps

As long as you keep any optical disc in good condition, in its case and out of direct sunlight or extreme temperatures, they can last a lot longer than you think.

I have discs that I burned 15 years ago that still play perfectly because I keep them at an ambient temperature and out of sunlight. Always use a soft permanent marker - Sharpie pens are the best as they write very well onto the label side of blank discs.

Also doesn't hurt to give them a gentle wipe with a lint free cloth before you play them too.

When I saw that thread continued today I had thought about Luna as well. 

Her legacy lives on.

lovely words Simon, she does indeed. It’s so strange to have her so gone and yet so present. It’s lovely to see that some recently watched  films and shows brought her comfort so close to the end, lifted her spirits. 

Reading new replies in this thread today, almost in hope that Luna was responding, was the first time in some days that I've been able to look at her posts without turning swiftly away in utter sadness and in anger and denial at what has happened. Missing her has been so unbearable. But just look at the typical beauty, humour, passion and friendliness of her posts; so I'm happy that I finally looked, and thankful to the repliers who led me to be braver than I had been.

You live forever, lovely Luna.  x

^^

And that is a perfect example of how you are smarter than me.

When CD came out and they were touting them as being "pure perfect sound forever" I just turned to the nearest person and said, "so it'll be the players you'll need to keep changing then..."

Did blu ray really catch on?

I have an LG Blu-ray player but no BD discs - as it plays MKV, MP4 and AVI, 95% of my TV shows and movies are in those three formats. A few can't be played (either there's audio but no video or the format is incorrect and can't be played back) so I'll use the laptop for them.

haha I'm sure yopur grandkids are going to have lots of fun getting through them.

When I was 4y.o. I discovered that my grandpa keeps in the attic boxes with books and notebooks from my mom's and her sibiling's school years. It was like treasure hunting.

I used to have actual DVDs but now over 99% of my TV and movie collection has been downloaded and archived onto blank DVD discs. My last external DVD writer finally gave up after almost 15 years of frequent disc burning so it did very well.

I have five Amazon disc binders with each one holding 400 discs however I really need to spend a few hours to sort it into alphabetical order as it takes a while to find a certain TV show or movie to watch!

Perhaps a slight tangent but connected to some of the comments: vinyl LPs

they were my first music collection and I gathered maybe 2,000 in the end. Unfortunately when I moved in with mum to care for her in 2015 there wasn’t space for them so I entered them in a specialist auction and made a decent sum. Prices appear to have escalated further since, especially for first or rare pressings, there was an auction yesterday where classic albums by the likes of Pink Floyd, Led Zep, Motörhead, Hendrix, new wave stuff etc were making hundreds of pounds each lot. I think posting the link would be advertising and against group rules but just search on music memorabilia auction uk and you’ll find it probably, it’s not eBay btw. 

I watched all episodes of all series of Stargate 3 times  I know all events, history by heart now. I have them on hard drive. SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe, and all movies too. I wonder how long those stay usable. Excluding production faults of course. In the past some series of hard drives among thos bigger ones had over 15% of chance for a production fault, that was causing the disk to stop working after less than a year. But I didn't buy any of those 

Many, many of my printed DVDs have failed.  Almost my whole collection of Stargate Atlantis will not play. Although my Stargate SG-1 disks are fine.  Several episodes of Fawlty towers are unplayable, a few episodes of Chuck and likely lads have rotted.  My biggest disappointment was season 5 of Orphan black, I downloaded seasons 1 to 4 then I bought season 5 on Blue-Ray from HMV, brand new in original packaging. Straight from the packaging they gave errors, all three disks, I cleaned them, they played one day, next day errors.

as far as I know printed DVD disks (as opposed to writable ones) are fairly long lived. It is after all aluminium sealed in plastic. If the seal is good it will last for a very long time if stored in a dry place with reasonably consistent temperature. If the original seal was bad disk rot becomes an issue and DVD-R etc will only last about a decade I'm told because their chemicals degrade on the disk. magnetic tape lasts a lot longer so long as you stop it from getting too hot. A few printed DVDs are made with gold not aluminium ... these should last basically forever if well stored.

For personal information such as documents and photos I have a triple back up strategy, 

1. Desktop pc
2. Laptop
3. USB stick.

My problem is films and TV programs on commercial DVDs.  No backups and money wasted when I cannot play my favourites.

Digital for me. 

Discs are good but they get old and unusable whereas digital I can keep forever and it will never age and become unplayable. Also I'm lazy and don't like getting up to look for a new DVD 

I like the luxury of Netflix watching a series and it goes on to the next episode and the next. . . .