On 02/17/2014 10:00 AM, Tim wrote:

Allegedly, on or about 17 February 2014, Tom Horsley sent:

I checked every model HP was selling, and they removed CD/DVD printing
from all their new printers, so I abandoned HP.

Just recently, I went looking for a printer that could print on discs,
more out of curiosity than anything else, and there's none to be found
in any of the local shops.

I think that, not only has the concept of printing on discs fallen out
of favour, but the idea of burning things to disc, too.  Blank discs, of
any sort, are getting harder to buy, never mind printable ones.  Fewer
shops stock them, and with fewer options (less brands, less different
types of discs).  And thanks to changes in media distribution (rental
shops dying off, viewing things on-line going up, people exchanging
their "recorded" videos on memory devices instead of DVDs, etc.), I
think the mass video piracy that pushed the high volume of blank discs
sales, has diminished.

I work in legitimate video production, anything from filming sporting
matches to stage plays, etc.  I have a good reason to buy discs in bulk.
Likewise for businesses that do organised back-ups.  But I can't really
see much need for the average consumer to have to buy 100 blank discs
regularly.

It's getting to the point where I'm going to need to special order
discs, because the shops don't have them, or really crap ones.  I did
have to go out of my way to buy boxes for the discs.  That's another
thing that I don't get - shops selling 100 disc tubs of blanks, but no
disc boxes or sleeves to put them in.  It doesn't make sense.

Where are you writing from? From the spelling you used (the extra "u" in the "or" words, "s" for "z," et cetera), I gather you write from the UK.

Here on this side of the pond, you can still buy blank media, and in bulk.

I grant you this much: the idea of having all your favorite (favourite?) recordings on-line, and not stored in your own library, is catching on. But how large a library can you reasonably afford to maintain that way? A one-terabyte DVR extender (the maximum that my "cable" provider supports) will comfortably store, by my estimate, 120 hours of "high-definition" programming (that is, 1920 x 1080 resolution on a 16:9 screen). Now you can probably store, on average, sixty titles on such an extender. Add this to the half-terabyte internal storage available on Motorola's top-of-the-line DVR, and now you have, perhaps, ninety titles.

But as it happens, I have, by my estimate, a thousand titles on various optical media (BD and DVD). I can swap those easily into my desktop, or take any of them on the road. A DVD will even serve as good on-the-trip entertainment on a chartered bus (omnibus?)--and as it happens, I often find myself elected to provide tour guidance and on-board entertainment on a forty-eight-passenger bus making a trip to a political rally. And I have not yet found a bus charter service that provides WiFi-capable smart media players that can simply dial into an account on Netflix, for example, and stream out a film. I have to carry my content with me. (And if you doubt the need for that, let me remind you: even a group of adults can get the Are We There Yet Blues. Now try to keep a busload of adolescents entertained without on-board video content!)

There is more. Many operators of CATV channels still "pan and scan" their titles to the prevailing aspect ratio of whatever definition ("standard", i.e., low definition, or the new high definition) their channel is rated for. Professional film directors are not the only ones who resent the "pan and scan" method and insist on letterbox to preserve the aspect ratio at which *they* shot the film. Until the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, and the Directors' Guild of America, manage to pass a law mandating letterbox for every title shown on television, this debate will continue. (I don't care what anybody says: even at the new 16:9 or 1.77:1 aspect ratio in use on HD channels, you still miss something when you crop the sides of a film shot in 2.3:1 aspect to fit the 16:9 screen.). I know: sign up for Netflix and get the video stream. Fine, if you're not on the road. (See above.)

Again, I'll grant you: the modern Internet makes available certain dedicated appliances that can even capture a video stream and play it on a telly that does not happen to double as a computer monitor. But some of us still prefer to build our own libraries of motion picture titles that might show once in a proverbial blue moon, and never show again for a year or more, and are not available for repeat viewing, and even if they are, you have to pay $4 US for twenty-four or forty-eight hours of viewing. Now *that* gets expensive. And you simply can't store enough titles on a typical DVR--not at high definition, you can't. (Standard definition is a different story, but I suspect that will become obsolete within a year or so.)

You asked why the average consumer would ever need to buy 100 blank disks in bulk, and regularly, or at least semi-regularly. I told you what I did by buying blank media regularly. Maybe you don't consider me an average consumer. But it has always seemed a good idea. And it will continue to be a good idea. Some of us would rather pay about a dollar US for a blank BD disk, and "burn" two to three and one-half hours or programming on it, than pay $10 US per month to Netflix for the privilege of streaming content that might not even include the content we are interested in. (Just try to find A Fever in the Blood, with Efrem Zimbalist, Jr and Angie Dickinson; Warner Bros. Pictures, 1965, on Netflix.)

Temlakos