technology You do NOT own digital media

[Pentium100 2,056]

47 minutes ago, BornAgainBrony said:

If only I could trust physical media either. I'm still stuck ripping things. I can leave a CD in a sleeve after playing it just once, and then years later when I try to play it again, I'll encounter skipping.

Having backups is a great idea, though I wonder how you manage to damage CDs that quickly. Either your CD player has bad optics and cannot correct a small scratch or you are throwing CDs around.

However, some of the official, licensed CDs I buy are actually CD-Rs (apparently recording to CD-R is cheaper for small runs) and those will go bad over time. I have backed up most of my CDs to my file server (as .wav files).

[Jesse Terrence 2,963]

Hrm, problem with physical media on game consoles nowadays is that you don't actually own the game anyway. Since the last generation (ps4/xbone) the discs are partial installation discs. If you don't have the game installed on your hard drive and they decide to take it down from their servers, you don't get to do the full install for bigger games that require of a download due their size. Some games are still complete on their installation disc, but unfortunately that's no longer the case for several good games.

[Steve Piranha 28,768]

On 10/30/2020 at 1:26 PM, Light Blade said:

@Vefka The other advantage is that you can hold it in your hands. You can feel it physically.

Heheheeee, true. I’ve purchased Cadence of Hyrule digitally before, but during their Nintendo Direct announcing the DLC, and a physical release, I had to purchase it again because it’s simply more comfy for me 

[Stardust 640]

Lol I was confused for a sec cuz I was thinking like u dun own most stuff at all these aren't ur characters. And u can own digital media if you made it ur self (and not on some dodgy platforms with weird rules). I guess by own u mean u can give away/sell it and control the content. 

On 10/30/2020 at 3:10 PM, Pentium100 said:

 (also known as "the cloud") 

Also heard that a lot of these clouds are worse for the environment than using just ur pc without it. I dun like cloud gaming and stuff anyway connection isn't good enough for me to play it and i sometimes want to play in the garden where i mostly dont have internet even when i attempt to use the extension. I think a lot of it seems at an early stage but I guess it is supposed to be the next big thing. I didn't have good impressions of stadia tho. The platform itself felt meh until u remember the draw is cloud gaming.

Edited November 27, 2020 by flurry

[Stardust 640]

2 hours ago, Pentium100 said:

Having backups is a great idea

Wish i had this a long time back like a lot of my digital photos years back got stolen from a virus which deleted it all but I was only a kid then. I still have the hard drive of that pc but no idea where the files are if they are still there cloaked because it seems like all trace of them is been removed and the virus is still on there lol. 

 

My dad did start to back up some stuff on this physical drive thing but its a hassle. I end up using all these dodgy online storage after all, but it's scary to think they could just terminate them whenever they want.

Edited November 27, 2020 by flurry

[Pentium100 2,056]

6 minutes ago, flurry said:

I guess by own u mean u can give away/sell it and control the content. 

I own the record I bought - I can sell it, give it away or play it and the manufacturer cannot take it away from me.

8 minutes ago, flurry said:

Also heard that a lot of these clouds are worse for the environment than using just ur pc without it.

They created "cloud" as a cute name for "someone else's server". IT's not just games, a lot of things are advertised as "cloud-based", you can back things up to "the cloud" , you can stream movies from "the cloud" and so on. However, you should never forget that "the cloud" is really just a server belonging to some company and that company can kick you out for pretty much any reason.

On the other hand, I control the files that are on my servers, they would have to hack my servers to delete my files and they would have to break in to take away my backups and my record/tape/laserdisc/etc collection. If I lose or damage a recording, then it's on me, not because someone in some company decided to kick me out or delete that file.

5 minutes ago, flurry said:

I end up using all these dodgy online storage after all, but it's scary to think they could just terminate them whenever they want.

Online ("cloud") backups, like backblaze are convenient, but unreliable and slow. The company can kick you out at any time and when you need to restore, you will have to download everything, which, if your internet connection is slow, would take a while. Then again, doing a full backup would take a while as well. I would also encrypt the files before backing them up to someone else's server.

On the other hand, online backups are good in the sense that they are offsite - if something bad happens to your house, the data is safe on the server. 

It all depends - you can buy an external hard drive and back up to that (or two drives - keep one locally and ask your friend to keep the other one safe). 

[TransitPony 219]

I am a person who prefers using physical media more than digital media. Recently, I got a laptop with a DVD drive and have started to watch movies through that again. I feel more intimacy with physical content than with digital content. The new media companies (Amazon, Netflix, etc.) need to understand the limits that comes in terms of what type of media people want to use. Not everyone is on-board with streaming. 

[The Kaeya Simp 13,953]

8 hours ago, cuteycindyhoney said:

I love having the physical disc in hand. I also use nefarious means to download movies and whatnot directly to my hard drive. I regularly burn things to DVD so I can save them. I do not trust "The Cloud". I have never 'bought' something from Netflix and the like, just to pay for the privilege to access a file on THEIR hard drives.  I want direct control of all my files!

That makes perfect sense. I do the exact same thing. I "Rip" DVDs I get from the library, download things, and burn everything onto DVD (And keep the files on hard drive, too) .

I also can never pass up used DVD Blu-Ray sales!

Awesome!

I really need to pick your brains with stuff like that

[Kadae 655]

I own anything I care about physically, or have some sort of backup that I'll always have access to! I'm a fan of books, vinyl records and retro games, so I'm all for physical media! I do like how convenient services like Netflix or Steam are for finding things easily though.

[DixonTheAdversary 1,631]

It's a good thing that I prefer the physical copies of stuff, I find it looks cool all lined up on a shelf, plus it doesn't eat up unnecessary hard drive space.

[Stardust 640]

1 hour ago, Kadae said:

Steam are for finding things easily though

Steam is sure convenient yah i dun think id play as much pc games if it wasn't for it.

There is still gog I guess for drm free but still managed games if you use gog galaxy.

[ZiggWheelsManning 7,348]

In the old days, I had glory with a bulky ZEN MP3 player.  Nowadays it's in a sack that's gathering dust and has gone untouched in many years