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Sony Data Storage

Sony Won't Phase Out Blu-ray Movie and Game Discs (tweaktown.com) 46

Posted by msmash from the sigh-of-relief dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Sony plans to eventually stop producing consumer-grade recordable Blu-ray discs, but commercial products such as game and film Blu-rays will still be produced. Sony Group will lay off 250 employees at a division that produces recordable media discs, and start winding down the production of specific Blu-ray products, sources have told Japanese newspaper Mainichi.

However, contrary to recent reports, this decision will not affect Blu-ray discs that contain games, TV shows, or films. The staff reduction is happening to the Sony Sendai Technology Center, which produces recordable disc formats like CD-R, DVD-R, BD-R and archival discs for the Japanese region. Standard Blu-rays, 4K UHD discs, and PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Blu-ray discs--which are made at Sony's separate DADC (Digital Audio Disc Corporation) facility--will still be manufactured, shipped, and sold worldwide. In other words, physical media will not go anywhere anytime soon, despite the prevalence and growth of streaming and/or digital media.
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Sony Won't Phase Out Blu-ray Movie and Game Discs More

Sony Won't Phase Out Blu-ray Movie and Game Discs

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  • Of course not (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2024 @02:49PM (#64598791)

    In other words, physical media will not go anywhere anytime soon, despite the prevalence and growth of streaming and/or digital media.

    How else can we save an archival copy of streamed content?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dbialac ( 320955 )
      On top of that, hard copies are starting to take off again. Licenses for something you enjoy watching or listening to don't suddenly get revoked because the upstream copyright owner decides they don't want to offer it on the service you subscribe to anymore. Performers also don't get to withhold rights to stream as they've already signed over rights to hard copy media. Go look at the movie PCU as a great example of that. If I'm going to pay for something, I want the media.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dbialac ( 320955 )

          I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.

          Strong cultural differences and dependency on resources others have will probably prevent that from ever happening, minus the nuclear weapons factor. They are the best peacemaking weapons ever created. Nuclear weapons have brought about the most peaceful time in history ever since the beginning of civilization. If you use them and your opponent has them, you're dead too. Had Ukraine not given up their weapons after the fall of the Soviet Union, I guarantee there would not be a war going on between Russia an

      • Exactly. I just imported the first season of Sweet Tooth on bluray from the US as it being a WB release is region free and it saves me having to try and use a HDMI capture device to record it off Netflix.

        I still use NEtflix but I'm not falling into the trap that I "wont leave because X or Y is on it and I might wnat to watch it in the future". Hopfully seasons 2 and 3 will also get released. I need to sort out getting the rest of The Expanse too.

    • USB drives have always been superior to optical media for everyday storage. As the cost of them continues to decrease, it would make sense that they would eventually become suitable for archival as well.

      • No, there is no reason to suspect that USB media will ever be useful for archival purposes. Not without a fundamental change to the tech.

        Blu ray in particular is very long lasting as optical media goes/ there is every reason to suspect any given blu ray will outlast a USB stick by many decades.

        • That's what people said about cdr. How did that turn out?

          • > That's what people said about cdr. How did that turn out?

            CD-R turned out perfectly. Yet to see one fail. NIST and other organisations even consider them to be some of the most resilient of media types next to DVD-R both lasting > 50 years.

            Those people claiming CD-R failed on them all bought crap terribly made discs from the supermarket and stored them in their cars in the Texas heat.

            Those claiming not to have done that still bought crap discs, because they were cheaper.

            Those who bought good discs

      • > USB drives have always been superior to optical media for everyday storage.

        No, thats a confusion.

        USB flash drives are *more convenient* than optical media as they are faster to drag and drop stuff onto.

        They however have nothing like the ruggedness or reliability of an optical disc however. I've been watching these things die since the came out when I used to sell them in Office World. They would frequently be returned for refunds as being faulty because they would just die.

        The main difference is that

    • Uh. Hard drive, SSD, USB removable flash drive, SD Card if you're into that kind of thing. I mean the options are numerous. Getting pits to get smaller is going to become/is already hard. We've still got a ways to go for FGMOS technology, so we can store more and more into smaller and smaller space. We're not replacing that technology with optical unless a even better optical medium comes available (like say a feasible optical capacitor with long-ish storage), which that might happen but it hasn't yet.

    • You can't rely on burnt CD/DVD for archival purpose, they have a limited retention period. People claim the nature of the coating (aluminium 1-2 years, silver 5-10 years, gold 50-100 years according to some anon at https://www.reddit.com/r/YouSh... [reddit.com] ), but in any case it's not a definitive medium.

      USB sticks / SD cards have retention time 10 years (only). Proper SSDs are said to be worse, they are designed to work powered with the firmware doing the periodical refresh as needed, but not designed for offline r

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        You can't rely on burnt CD/DVD for archival purpose

        True, for raw digital data. But audio or video will tolerate a few flipped bits. And anything saved with a good ECC is recoverable up to some error rate. Then the trick is to copy the data onto new media, perhaps a more robust media if available.

        But then I've got to question the figures given for even the lowest quality optical mediums. I have some 20 and 30 year old CDs that have spent most of their life in my cars. And they still play fine.

      • So to summarize your post:
        Optical isn't good only because the cheapest quality ones last 1-2 years.

        Flash doesn't work because it requires active power. (Something that WiiU and 3DS owners have found out the hard way.)

        Tapes are too expensive for the average person to afford.

        Use an actively powered always online HDD as a last resort that any ransomware will infect at the first opportunity.

        No, thanks. Given the lack of accessible options, I'll use better quality optical media, and Sony can simply not

        • Optical isn't good only because the cheapest quality ones last 1-2 years.

          Some random guy on Reddit says that the golden colour lasts longer. The only thing you have is the word of a random Reddit poster. You have no way to be sure if the disk will last. Would you risk your precious data over that?

          There is one more solution (the one I use): several (offline) external disks which I synchronize once a week and store at home and work (and monitor SMART systematically).

      • > You can't rely on burnt CD/DVD for archival purpose, they have a limited retention period

        Which far exceeds the life span of anything else today.

        Apart from paper, and stone.

  • Optical drives are a bit rare these days, I still use mine to rip purchased media but burning recordable media is more of a novelty
    • How do you define "rare"? A recent visit to Micro Center proved that they have shelves full of the drives.
      • He's probably a USian. They typically don't have Micro Centers, or PC shops of any kind, and throw out their hardware on regular basis because some parasitic company asked them for more money.

        TL;DR: "Rare" means: "Not offered on pre-builts at Walmart / Best Buy." Or for many of them "What's a PC?"

        • In the UK we don’t have many places to simply walk in and get an optical drive but like with everything, a look on amazon or ebuyer or scan.co.uk shows a ton of internal and external option for next day delivery etc.

          I find so many over here also think that X or Y isn’t available anymore because they don’t see them in the supermakets :D

          I once mentioned to a guy at work that I had popped to HMV on the weekend and bought a handful of blurays, he exclaimed "Do they still make them?". I mean FF

      • Sure you can get the components, I have a 5 1/4 drive I use in an external bay. But if you're wandering around looking at retail computers then they're rare as hens teeth. That something is available to enthusiasts is not necessarily relevant to its current commercial market presence.

  • You must have physical media (Score:4, Insightful)

    by NewtonsLaw ( 409638 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2024 @03:57PM (#64599045)

    I have a library of hundreds of DVDs and BluRay disks that I scooped up when all the DVD rental shops went out of business.

    Having that content on physical media gives me a perpetual license to watch it and even though it's mostly ripped to hard-drive now and wired into my Kodi system, I can still provide proof of ownership (by way of the physical DVD/BluRay disk) if challenged by authorities.

    We've all seen that "purchasing" a title via one of the various streaming providers is just a fraud and you're purchasing nothing but a revokable license to view. If the streaming platform loses its rights to the title or if they go bust then you've got *nothing* but a broken promise. Likewise, when you die, odds are that your entire collection of "purchased" rights via an online streaming platform will evaporate along with your corporeal form.

    A DVD/BluRay disk is tangible and real -- the only way to ensure that you have rights in perpetuity.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      A DVD/BluRay disk is tangible and real -- the only way to ensure that you have rights in perpetuity.

      For values of "perpetuity" that are limited by the life of the physical media, which, for most commercial DVDs and BluRays, is maybe 20-30 years, tops.

      • i have major doubts a player would last that long

        • Bye a new one duh

          These sorts of arguments are always pretty brain dead.

          When a player breaks, you either fix it or buy a new one.

          If my 1960's reel to reel player and 1980's computerised linear tracking turntable and my 1980's commodore 64 and it's 1980's 1541 5.25" floppy disc drive can continue to work 40 or more years after they were made with nothing more than a bit of grease and a clean and at most a replacement of a capacitor or two, well a brand spanking new DVD player mate TODAY will lats the rest of

          • thinking there will be new blu Ray drives in 30 years is hilarious. Usable media then doubly so. The electronics in those is fragile compared to the devices you mention, and normal people have no use for the devices you mention. The audio specs on a reel to reel are gawdawful compared to even a PC with good mics. And a floppy disk? May as well be a punched card reader. Useles crap from a bygone era, Dino. To the tar pit!

      • Why are you giving a lifespan for blu ray that assumes it is a CD with shitty dye?

      • Odd, I've only ever had two DVDs outright fail, and they were both due to known manufacturing defects.

        Maybe I'll go watch my 1999 DVD copy of Starship Troopers tonight as a sort of '25 years of DVD' anniversary.

      • > For values of "perpetuity" that are limited by the life of the physical media, which, for most commercial DVDs and BluRays, is maybe 20-30 years, tops.

        It's DOUBLE that mate

    • Must is a strong word. Movies and games are entertainment. For some people they feel a need to own something specific, for others (like me) I feel the need to be entertained. Does item X not feature of my streaming service? No biggie, there's 10000 other titles that would fill that need that I can use in X's stead. So no one "must" not own physical media. Not if you don't want to.

      So much content in the world, I have little desire to revisit that which I have already seen / played.

      • Awesome!
        For you.

        For others of us, I guess we just like being able to retain the things WE PURCHASED instead of renting our lives. Archaic I know, but I prefer it that way. Would you believe I still have a car from 2007 AND IT STILL WORKS?! Weirdly enough, Toyota didn't pull the plug on it to prop up their sagging bottom line.

        Yes I'm well aware that a DVD/ game isn't a car...and if that's the best counter argument you have you might want to think it over.

      • > So much content in the world, I have little desire to revisit that which I have already seen / played.

        Oh dear. I cant stand people like you, my mum is like that. She never watches a repeat!

        Me? Totally the opposite. I usually ONLY rewatch the same stuff. The new stuff is mostly crap. So yeah, I dont need streaming, I have everything I'll ever need and more. Games for all sorts of systems, books, dvd/bluray, magazines, recoded TV and radio plus many other hobbies. If you unplugged me tomorrow the o

  • >"In other words, physical media will not go anywhere anytime soon, despite the prevalence and growth of streaming and/or digital media."

    You might even want to change the word "despite" to "because." Since streaming and digital media are becoming ever more fragmented, annoying, expensive, difficult, unreliable, and encumbered, quite a few people are probably realizing that "owning" some "physical" media has a lot of long-term value.

    It is true that very few people care about actually writing discs anymor

    • > quite a few people are probably realizing that "owning" some "physical" media has a lot of long-term value.

      I'm told by my parents that I should chuck out the dvd/bluray shelves and go all streaming.

      Then they call me up asking if I have X or Y and if they could borrow it :D

  • I bought a Blu-ray burner with my desktop 14 years ago. I still have about 75% of the tall stack of blank writable blue ray disks I also bought at the time. I also repurposed that machine for the kids at this point too. I guess I’m sucker for those type of peripherals. Once upon a time I had a Zip drive too. Hard drives with server software, networked drives, thumb drives, etc is definitely more convenient than disks at this point.
    • Until some ransomware finds it's way in at least. Then you'll really wish you had some of that stored offline in a format that couldn't be overwritten by simply plugging it in.
      • Nah, just properly back up you data and ransomware become pretty much a non-issue. Format doesn’t mater as long as you have a back not connected actively to you network. Hard drive, disk, records, tape. It’s just a medium.

        • Hard drive isn’t a storage media, it is a storage device.

          Plenty of people keep external ones plugged in all the time, ready for encryption by said ransomware.

          > Format doesn’t mater

          Yes, it can.

          I use BD-RE to store an offline, read only copy of the latest snapshot of my home directory. Ah, but BD-RE is RW is it not? Yes, but it's mitigated by the fact I'm not using the UDF filesystem on it. By using ISO9660, even if the BD-RW was in the drive when the ransomware attacked, all it would be able

    • More convenient, maybe, to a point. Personally I find SSH and HDD pretty annoying as they are so delicate that I must constantly RAID them and SMART them and badblocks them and maintain 3-2-1 backups just in case one morning the HDD doesn’t spin anymore, something that has happened to me 3 times over the years. 3 times too many. 3 times more than any optical drive I have ever had and I still have most of them.

      I had a 64GB flash drive go to silicon heaven just sitting on a shelf. Just went "poof". L

  • So what you're saying is that "Phase 1" of the Blu-ray phase-out involves ceasing to produce "consumer-grade recordable Blu-ray discs", but "Sony Won't Phase Out Blu-ray Movie and Game Discs" in this phase of the phase-out, and will instead leave that until a later phase? Noted.

  • It's very hard to update DRM on physical media, so usually it's not done. So you can fairly easily strip that DRM of the content you licensed.

  • Lots of people do not have access to high-speed internet. Disks are the only way for them to get the software. Excluding that demographic would be shortsighted and alienate a measurable subset of customers. *glances to XBOX*

    • For me I archive to BD-R and LTO tape. I have a 200Mb broadband connection, but the ISP is asymmetric so they only give a 20Mb upload speed, which is about 2MB a second!

      By the time I have uploaded 25GB of data to the cloud I have already finished burning teh BD-R and writing the backup to LTO tape. It takes all night to upload the same data to the cloud.

      Even if I went for the 1Gb package they offer they only boost the upload bandwidth to 30Mb!

      Now, if I could get a 1Gb symmetric link, I'd use cloud storage

  • I archive to BD-R and DVD+R and when I need a CD I tend to re-use CD-RW as I have so many of them.

    DVD+R is usually digitised VHS and family camcorder stuff as well as some TV content depending on use. This is the easiest way to give family captured tapes as they have DVD players everywhere.

    My archival data goes onto BD-R DL. Which is also copied onto LTO tape and then into Amazon Glacier. I never intend to ever download from Glacier unless stuff really hits the fan. The BD-R's have ECC files to fix any

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