Need IDE CD-R/RW purchase advice

[Knack]

What leads you to think that the ability to write several DVD formats as
well as CD is a "complex feature"? Your IRS analogy is flawed because it
assumes that more parts are needed in the DVD writer when in fact it
doesn't use more parts, it uses _different_ parts.

Oh sure, and I suppose you've dissected them both and counted the parts...
prove it ;-)

And another reason DVD-R units are buggier than CD-R/RW is because it's a
less mature stage of technology than CD-R/RW. It's a host of additional
hardware and software problems that I don't need, thank-you.

 

[Knack]

Yes, but thats got nothing to do with that superficial silly
stuff above which implied that you shouldnt go for the
system with more capability even if the price was the same.


Thats not the reason for the price difference.


Separate issue entirely.


Your problem.


No thanks.

You know kid, you're a genius. Maybe some day you should go work for NASA
and turn the program around, because according to you, they've got it all
wrong ;-) Their engineers deliberately avoid superfluous features that
increase the bugginess of the system.

Go to http://msxml.infospace.com/home/search/web/superfluous+features and
research the keywords 'superfluous features'. Maybe you'll learn something
from themany experts who published all of those articles (four pages just in
links to them all).

 

[John Turco]

Well, since I don't copy DVD disks or copy various movie clips, I don't have
a need for that feature, and its presence would only make the peripheral
that much more unreliable because of the added complexity.

Hello,

I resent being stereotyped as a "pirate!" ;-) All kidding aside, I
haven't copied any DVD movies -- not >yet<, that is. <g>

Regardless, with DVD's far higher capacity (measured in GB's, not MB's)
and the cost of blank media continuing to decline, I think it's a
greater value than CD is, both today and in the future. DVD
recordables/rewritables (DVD-RAM, especially) are better suited, for
storage purposes...and that, my friend, is what this newsgroup is all
about.

This rationale is similar to that of a good manufacturing engineer who must
maximize the uptime of his production line. So he selects automation
components with only as many features as will be used for production.

Bad analogy, I fear. DVD "burners" (and/or their bundled applications)
might, occasionally, face incompatibility with the Win9x family of
operating systems.

These are software issues, however, and have little (if anything) to
do with the hardware, itself. You're suffering from the common
misconception that DVD writers are vastly more complex than their CD
counterparts; they're just more sophisticated and offer superior
capabilities.

In any "case" (pun intended), the decision is yours: Stay a
"technophobe," or join the wonderful world of DVD! :-D


Cordially,
John Turco <[email protected]>

 

[John Turco]

Knack wrote:

[...]
Well, since I don't copy DVD disks or copy various movie clips, I don't have
a need for that feature, and its presence would only make the peripheral
that much more unreliable because of the added complexity.

This rationale is similar to that of a good manufacturing engineer who must
maximize the uptime of his production line. So he selects automation
components with only as many features as will be used for production.

Also knowen as "Simple is Beautiful" or more famous as the
"KISS-Principle" (Keep It Simple, Stupid) in many other engineering
disciplines and in CompSci. A very sound and applicable principle in
this case, since the manufacturer can only spend so much money and
time on implementation and testing. The more features, the less
individual attention they will get.

Arno

Hello, Arno:

Hey, man, ain't you the one singing the praises of MO drives? <G>


Cordially,
John Turco <[email protected]>

 

[Rod Speed]

You know kid, you're a genius.

You know, cretin, even you should be able to bullshit your
way out of your predicament better than this pathetic effort.

And I'm likely to be old enough to be your
father or even your grandfather, thanks.

Maybe some day you should go work for NASA and turn the
program around, because according to you, they've got it all
wrong ;-) Their engineers deliberately avoid superfluous
features that increase the bugginess of the system.

Got sweet **** all to do with what makes sense with PC components.

Even someone as stupid as you should have noticed
that with a hard drive or an optical drive, the extra
capability is entirely in software, not hardware, and
so its presence has no effect what so ever on reliability.

And even someone as stupid as you should have noticed
that while modern motherboards do have quite a bit integrated
that some dont use, that that has no effect on reliability either.
In fact if you are stupid enough to use your approach, you'll
have to spend MORE to get a modern motherboard which
doesnt have any integrated USB, sound, lan etc if you dont plan
to use those components. Only a fool like you would do that.

Go to http://msxml.infospace.com/home/search/web/superfluous+features
and research the keywords 'superfluous features'. Maybe you'll learn something
from themany experts who published all of those articles (four pages just in
links to them all).

You clearly dont have enough viable between your ears to be
able to consider how relevant that stuff is to PC components.

Your problem.

 

[Rod Speed]

Knack wrote: [...]
Well, since I don't copy DVD disks or copy various movie clips, I don't have
a need for that feature, and its presence would only make the peripheral
that much more unreliable because of the added complexity.

This rationale is similar to that of a good manufacturing engineer who must
maximize the uptime of his production line. So he selects automation
components with only as many features as will be used for production.

Also knowen as "Simple is Beautiful" or more famous as the
"KISS-Principle" (Keep It Simple, Stupid) in many other engineering
disciplines and in CompSci. A very sound and applicable principle in
this case, since the manufacturer can only spend so much money and
time on implementation and testing. The more features, the less
individual attention they will get.

Hey, man, ain't you the one singing the praises of MO drives? <G>

Right between the eyes |-)

Bet he'll ignore that and hope it goes away |-)

 

[Arno Wagner]

Knack wrote: [...]
Well, since I don't copy DVD disks or copy various movie clips, I don't have
a need for that feature, and its presence would only make the peripheral
that much more unreliable because of the added complexity.

This rationale is similar to that of a good manufacturing engineer who must
maximize the uptime of his production line. So he selects automation
components with only as many features as will be used for production.

Also knowen as "Simple is Beautiful" or more famous as the
"KISS-Principle" (Keep It Simple, Stupid) in many other engineering
disciplines and in CompSci. A very sound and applicable principle in
this case, since the manufacturer can only spend so much money and
time on implementation and testing. The more features, the less
individual attention they will get.

Arno

Hello, Arno:

Hey, man, ain't you the one singing the praises of MO drives? <G>

Yes, so? A MOD has no features except whats in the SCSI-optical
command set.

Arno

 

[J. Clarke]

Knack wrote:
[...]
Well, since I don't copy DVD disks or copy various movie clips, I
don't have a need for that feature, and its presence would only make
the peripheral that much more unreliable because of the added
complexity.

This rationale is similar to that of a good manufacturing engineer who
must maximize the uptime of his production line. So he selects
automation components with only as many features as will be used for
production.

Also knowen as "Simple is Beautiful" or more famous as the
"KISS-Principle" (Keep It Simple, Stupid) in many other engineering
disciplines and in CompSci. A very sound and applicable principle in
this case, since the manufacturer can only spend so much money and
time on implementation and testing. The more features, the less
individual attention they will get.

Arno

Hello, Arno:

Hey, man, ain't you the one singing the praises of MO drives? <G>

Yes, so? A MOD has no features except whats in the SCSI-optical
command set.

But it does have a component count, and since it needs both a laser and a
magnetic head its complexity is higher than that of any CD or DVD burner.
If you are judging merit by complexity then the MO loses bigtime.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Arno Wagner wrote:
[...]

Yes, so? A MOD has no features except whats in the SCSI-optical
command set.

But it does have a component count, and since it needs both a laser and a
magnetic head its complexity is higher than that of any CD or DVD burner.
If you are judging merit by complexity then the MO loses bigtime.

Aha, _now_ I understand what you mean.

Actually I don't think so. For example the whole "magnetic head" does
not move at all. It is simply a fixed coil. The laser-head is also fixed.
Keep in mind that this is a "high-power" laser that operates in
continously-on mode for writing and is not pulsed like in CD/DVD.

MODs (at least mine) instead move a mirror. The issue of foccussing
the beam on the disk is far easier, AFAIK and not highly dynamic
as with CD/DVD. And finally the media are ISO-standardized and
hard-sectored. No need to adjust to media with different
characteristics. No need for complex firmware.

All in all I think MOD may compare to an older CD-Writer from
the point of view of overall complexity. But that is puerly my
opinion, as I have no design experience with these devices.

However, since with MOD there are no "extra features", it is
really a comparison between two different classes of storage
media with different characteristics, markets and user-base
and the comparison does not work anyway IMO.

Regards,
Arno

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Knack wrote:
[...]
Well, since I don't copy DVD disks or copy various movie clips, I don't have
a need for that feature, and its presence would only make the peripheral
that much more unreliable because of the added complexity.

This rationale is similar to that of a good manufacturing engineer who must
maximize the uptime of his production line. So he selects automation
components with only as many features as will be used for production.

Also knowen as "Simple is Beautiful" or more famous as the
"KISS-Principle" (Keep It Simple, Stupid) in many other engineering
disciplines and in CompSci. A very sound and applicable principle in
this case, since the manufacturer can only spend so much money and
time on implementation and testing. The more features, the less
individual attention they will get.

Arno
--

[snip]

Hello, Arno:

Hey, man, ain't you the one singing the praises of MO drives? <G>

Yes, so? A MOD has no features except whats in the SCSI-optical
command set.

Oh man wow, that is DEEEEEEEEP.
Exactly the same what is in the IDE optical
command set (SCSI/ATAPI MMC).

Arno
--

[snip]

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Arno Wagner wrote:


Knack wrote:
[...]
Well, since I don't copy DVD disks or copy various movie clips, I
don't have a need for that feature, and its presence would only make
the peripheral that much more unreliable because of the added
complexity.

This rationale is similar to that of a good manufacturing engineer who
must maximize the uptime of his production line. So he selects
automation components with only as many features as will be used for
production.

Also knowen as "Simple is Beautiful" or more famous as the
"KISS-Principle" (Keep It Simple, Stupid) in many other engineering
disciplines and in CompSci. A very sound and applicable principle in
this case, since the manufacturer can only spend so much money and
time on implementation and testing. The more features, the less
individual attention they will get.

Arno
-- [snip]
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws" - Tacitus

Hello, Arno:

Hey, man, ain't you the one singing the praises of MO drives? <G>

Yes, so? A MOD has no features except whats in the SCSI-optical
command set.

But it does have a component count, and since it needs both a laser and a
magnetic head its complexity is higher than that of any CD or DVD burner.
If you are judging merit by complexity then the MO loses bigtime.

And here I always thought that CDRWs are MO too.

 

[John Turco]

Arno Wagner wrote:


Knack wrote:
[...]
Well, since I don't copy DVD disks or copy various movie clips, I
don't have a need for that feature, and its presence would only make
the peripheral that much more unreliable because of the added
complexity.

This rationale is similar to that of a good manufacturing engineer who
must maximize the uptime of his production line. So he selects
automation components with only as many features as will be used for
production.

Also knowen as "Simple is Beautiful" or more famous as the
"KISS-Principle" (Keep It Simple, Stupid) in many other engineering
disciplines and in CompSci. A very sound and applicable principle in
this case, since the manufacturer can only spend so much money and
time on implementation and testing. The more features, the less
individual attention they will get.

Arno
-- [snip]
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws" - Tacitus


Hello, Arno:

Hey, man, ain't you the one singing the praises of MO drives? <G>

Yes, so? A MOD has no features except whats in the SCSI-optical
command set.

But it does have a component count, and since it needs both a laser and a
magnetic head its complexity is higher than that of any CD or DVD burner.
If you are judging merit by complexity then the MO loses bigtime.

And here I always thought that CDRWs are MO too.

Hello, Folkert:

CD-RW 's aren't MO; I think you actually meant DVD-RAM, perhaps?


Cordially,
John Turco <[email protected]>