[Locomotive Breath]

I do video for my son’s sports team. I have to distribute the video to some extremely non-technical people. They can just barely get a conventional DVD player to work. The DVDs are $0.30 in bulk. No way I can distribute the video on SD.

Also, what’s the archive lifespan of a SD versus a properly stored DVD. No where near as permanent I’ll bet.

[Swordmaker]

I do video for my son’s sports team. I have to distribute the video to some extremely non-technical people. They can just barely get a conventional DVD player to work. The DVDs are $0.30 in bulk. No way I can distribute the video on SD.

Also, what’s the archive lifespan of a SD versus a properly stored DVD. No where near as permanent I’ll bet.

They're not gone yet... and external drives will be available for some time. What we're talking about is the removal of optical drives mostly from notebooks first... some time later they will become unnecessary on desktops as well.

[Terpfen]

Also, what’s the archive lifespan of a SD versus a properly stored DVD. No where near as permanent I’ll bet.

Optical formats aren't exactly permanent. Over time the surface pitting erodes or becomes unreadable, the read/write surface is extremely sensitive to everything from dust particulates to scratches, and the discs themselves can be easily bent or snapped.

Optical discs are great, but they do have their drawbacks. When Blu-Ray won its format war with HD-DVD, a lot of people speculated that Blu-Ray would be the last optical format. I'm starting to think they were right.

By the way, Flash storage lasts for the physical life of the card. As long as you don't break anything, or exceed the read/write lifecycle of the Flash chip, the data will be there whenever you need it.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Give it time mate. I was shocked when I bought my first computer without a floppy disc.

I thought it had one, but it turned out to be a propriety Sony storage medium.

I was very upset until I realized that the little tiny slot for a memory stick WAS my new floppy disc. And that little tiny memory stick could hold the equivalent of 50 floppies.

I still have a bunch of floppy discs with stuff on them... But I haven’t used them in 15 years.

[itsahoot]

The DVDs are $0.30 in bulk. No way I can distribute the video on SD.

Those dang cars will never replace horses. Of course we are about to retro to bicycles...So maybe you won't have to change.