Why are PC Blu-Ray drives so scarce and expensive?

Chevron

Chevron

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Koosi said:
If streaming and external hard drives are so cheap, then why are DVD writers still available and cheap?
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Coz you need those to install windows.

You don't need a BD Drive for a windows disc.
 
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Nerdcrowd

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I agree. Go for a nice NAS device and u will forget about CDs or DVDs all together ;)


Sent from my iPhone using MyBroadband Tapatalk
 
Polymathic

Polymathic

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Rickster said:
BR Reader

BR Writer

@OP it would be silly to get a BR drive instead of buying her a external Hard Drive, imagine one day someone asks her to copy a whole lot of files (series/movies) since that someone doesnt have internet.

She copies it to a BR Disc and hands it to him, he looks at it with a WTF face...see the problem?

EDIT BR Blank discs arnt cheap either. For the price of a BR drive you could get a nice 2TB external.
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although you run the risk of getting a virus by plugging in their HD or having your HD infected by their PC
 
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Syphonx

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mmmig said:
although you run the risk of getting a virus by plugging in their HD or having your HD infected by their PC
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And you run the risk of damaging the discs if you leave them in the sun or the microwave.........
 
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grim

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mmmig said:
A lof of People are buying external hard drives. Personally in terms of long term storage I feel disc based storage is the best option
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Writeable discs don't last that long, I have a couple of backup DVDs from about 5 years ago that refuse to read.

Chevron said:
Coz you need those to install windows.

You don't need a BD Drive for a windows disc.
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HavocXphere said:
BD missed the boat. Its all netflix etc now.


Even that can be worked around with sufficient ingenuity/determination. Quite a schlep though.
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Because downloading the ISO and copying it to a USB flash drive is a schlep?
 
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HavocXphere

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grim said:
Writeable discs don't last that long, I have a couple of backup DVDs from about 5 years ago that refuse to read.
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Without a technet sub you need to find an ISO somewhere else then you need a tool to calculate the hash sums, then you need to find the correct hashes for that particular person. Then you copy it to a USB flash and realize you need to find a way to make it bootable. As I said...its a schlep...



Because downloading the ISO and copying it to a USB flash drive is a schlep?[/QUOTE]
 
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reactor_sa

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I've had a LG internal bluray writer for 4+ years. It cost about 1k back then, they still about the same price, suppliers seem to run out of stock every so often though.

Scarce? I don't think so.
 
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Keeper

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I would honestly backup to Blueray discs if they just weren't so damn expensive.

Blueray kinda shot itself in the foot, it's just not viable to use it as storage.
 
D4N

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HavocXphere said:
Without a technet sub you need to find an ISO somewhere else then you need a tool to calculate the hash sums, then you need to find the correct hashes for that particular person. Then you copy it to a USB flash and realize you need to find a way to make it bootable. As I said...its a schlep...
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Microsoft released a tool that automates the whole process, you just need to find an ISO (legal download hosted by Microsoft) or point it to the disc drive

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool
 
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Space_Chief

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Keeper said:
I would honestly backup to Blueray discs if they just weren't so damn expensive.

Blueray kinda shot itself in the foot, it's just not viable to use it as storage.
Click to expand...

BD is for movies and games mostly. Also distributing your own.
 
Captain Beer

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I've got a Blu-Ray drive in my laptop. The only thing I've ever used it for is to watch movies.
 
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Sparhawk

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Rectron has a writer:

LG 16x Blu-Ray SATA Super Multi ReWriter - 16x BD-R (SL/DL), 2x BD-RE, 6x BD-ROM, 16x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD±R DL, 48x CD-R, 24x CD-RW, Includes PowerDVD, Power2Go, PowerBackup, PowerProducer

code is BH16NS40

When i checked last week they had stock arriving in JHB this week sometime believe it was the 11th need ot check my emails to be sure
 
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Sm00thSm0k3

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mmmig said:
A lof of People are buying external hard drives.
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..and why do you think this is?

A quick Google reveals that a pack of 10 BD-R discs costs roughly R260 - R300 for 250GB of storage so lets do a quick calculation; If you want to backup 2TB worth of content to BD-R media you'd have to fork out R2K - R2,5K just on media and if you throw in the cost of a Blu-Ray writable drive it's going to set you back between R3,3K and R4K.

For this kind of money you could grab 3 if not 4 x 2TB external drives which just makes a hell of a lot more sense. Then there's also the shlep of spending time burning and labeling the discs not too mention the storage issue.

mmmig said:
Personally in terms of long term storage I feel disc based storage is the best option
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I have no idea how reliable BD-R media is but several of my old DVD-R backup discs are now unreadable so I just don't trust optical media anymore. For critical/important/sentimental data, a primary HDD with a secondary HDD as backup is the way to go.
 
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