Post by Terry del FuegoPost by Dave GarrettEventually, the lack of functional playback hardware becomes an issue
for all media.
I would like to hope that this will be less the case with anything
based on bits that can be sucked into a computer. I don't know if my
HD-DVD player still works, but within the last few months I've been
able to enjoy HD-DVD contents because I got a cheap external HD-DVD
drive and converted everything to MKV.
Of course, getting that stuff into a computer is a job in itself. It
took me 18 months to do my CDs.
Among the archival community, the mantra for quite some time has been to
losslessly digitize audio and video content, and then, once digitized,
implement a migration strategy to ensure that you're never left with
digitized content contained in an obsolete file format. Obviously the
initial hurdle of digitization is the hard part - once you have the bits
stored somewhere, it's a lot easier to migrate them to new file
formats/storage containers as necessary.
Post by Terry del FuegoPost by Dave GarrettSimilarly, I still have a substantial number of laserdiscs, and several
working players, but it's gotten practically impossible to source
certain key parts for players, and there are only a handful of qualified
techs left who I'd trust to work on them.
Mine have suffered from mechanical issues (belts, mainly) that could
be dealt with, but I assume I'll eventually hit an electronic problem
and that will be the end of them.
The main things that fail on LD players are, as you mentioned, the
belts, but eventually the laser pickups wear out, and those might as
well be made of unobtainium once the existing inventory of replacement
parts is gone. I'm pretty sure that new pickup assemblies are no longer
available for the majority of Pioneer players. Beyond that, looking
further down the road, the usual gremlins that affect older electronics
come into play, such as capacitors that start to go bad. But those are
something that anyone knowledgeable about electronics could probably
replace - the vintage radio community has been dealing with capacitor
replacement on old radios for many years. Of course, old radios don't
have PCBs, which add an additional layer of complexity when it comes to
repairs.
Post by Terry del FuegoPost by Dave GarrettUntil I started researching the newer Oppo players in the wake of
Oppo's announcement, I was not aware that the 103/105 models
were the last ones without Cinavia.
I thought they *did* have it, though my understanding is that there
aren't actually that many infected discs. Allegedly, the original
mandate was that players only had to respond to Cinavia when playing
back an optical disc (i.e., streaming from USB or network would be
OK), but I don't know if that was really true or still is. But even if
the licensed disc spinners have to respect Cinavia, truly useful cheap
little boxes like a $60 Odroid C2 running OpenELEC don't.
Cinavia is essentially the same technology that "protected" DVD-A. I
can't play a 1:1 copy of a DVD-A disc, but I can effortlessly extract
the bits via a Foobar2000 plugin and stream the same music to the Oppo
(or Odroid) as multichannel FLAC.
You're right, the 103/105 players did have Cinavia. I had run across a
post on some forum where someone claimed they did not, before digging
further and determining that the 103/105 models were licensed after
Cinavia became a mandatory feature on new players. Apparently there were
some Asian vendors that offered custom 103/105 firmware for a while that
not only bypassed Cinavia but also restored the ability to play ISOs,
but it's not clear whether any of these outfits are still in business.
And you obviously run the risk of bricking a player when flashing third-
party firmware from questionable sources.
Post by Terry del FuegoThe problem with all this copy protection stuff for fans and
collectors is that few things stay in print forever. Sometimes less
than official channels are the only ways to get a desired title, even
with a willingness to pay. It's also a major expense for small
companies: Blu-ray encryption was broken a long, long time ago, but
Sony forces anyone selling a commercial disc to pay (a *lot*,
allegedly) for the "protection". It's literally money for nothing.
I imagine the more draconian DRM schemes like Cinavia would not be a big
issue for me - they tend to mostly be implemented on blockbuster titles,
and most of my interests are with classic and cult titles.
Post by Terry del FuegoI spent way too much time trying to get music bits off a DVD yesterday
only to eventually realize that over the last decade it has acquired
some subtle, invisible rot that makes it partially inaccessible. Used
copies are available, but at quite a premium and with an inherent
risk: It's not uncommon for entire batches of particular titles to go
bad. I can think of three just off the top of my head.
Been there, done that, starting with the infamous "laser rot" affecting
many laserdiscs pressed by Sony DADC, followed by the "coffee stain"
delamination affecting DVDs. More recently, there have been instances of
Blu-ray discs in expensive music box sets suddenly becoming unplayable -
some of the Pink Floyd Immersion sets are notorious for this.
--
Dave