Digital vs physical media which do you prefer?

[Ryujin]

I was talking about pdfs mainly, not cloud services. I expect those to be secure.

I didn’t expect the 4e tools to last forever tbh. Once you subbed, you had access to everything; didn’t think that would be in perpetuity. I paid it mainly for the tools themselves (used chargen and monster builder extensively) and convenience.

Silly me for taking them at their literal word.

 

[Yora]

I like print in theory, but in practice most RPG books that I see coming out these days are really inconvenient in print.

200 to 250 pages for a hardcover is fine. 300 is also okay.

But it seems like everyone is doing these humongous 450+ pages doorstoppers now, and those are just too huge to hold in your hand while reading. If I have to lie them down on a table and lean over them with a chair pulled up, then I don't want them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's their fault for using iTunes, frankly. This is an iTunes problem, not a digital media problem. It has been, almost since its inception, an inferior way to buy and catalog music. I buy actual MP3 or FLAC files from artists, store them wholly offline, and play them using a firewalled media player. My music's not going anywhere.

Yeah, being dependent on a proprietary file management process for using and storing items is not a way to count on having them. Short of all general PDF, music and video players going away tomorrow, the only way I'd lose any of mine is the way I'd lose physical media--destruction of where they're stored.

 

[trappedslider]

Hmm, let's see:

First, set up a strawman since the point as "portable" had never been applied to the physical media. Or at very least obfuscate the point.

Second, handwave the entire point that digital vs. non-digital suffices by just... stating it does without supporting evidence and in the face that it does not for at least one poster. EDIT: Reading others comments, multiple posters are making similar distinctions in what they want digitally.

I don't feel like going any further here will be productive.

I guess you couldn't infer that I wasn't limiting media to only books thus digital or non-digital suffices..

 

[Ryujin]

That's their fault for using iTunes, frankly. This is an iTunes problem, not a digital media problem. It has been, almost since its inception, an inferior way to buy and catalog music. I buy actual MP3 or FLAC files from artists, store them wholly offline, and play them using a firewalled media player. My music's not going anywhere.

It's a problem that could come up with any audio player, that has an online option as well. the people I mentioned specifically didn't have sync enabled, by default, but it got turned on via an update.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's a problem that could come up with any audio player, that has an online option as well. the people I mentioned specifically didn't have sync enabled, by default, but it got turned on via an update.

If, like us, you have a physical backup source, you should be able to figure out that happened before its irrecoverable. There's a reason I keep all my stuff backed up in 2-3 places.

 

[jdrakeh]

It's a problem that could come up with any audio player, that has an online option as well. the people I mentioned specifically didn't have sync enabled, by default, but it got turned on via an update.

Again, that's an iTunes problem. Yes, it could theoretically happen with any media player that has an online component, but it hasn't. As it stands, this is an iTunes problem and an iTunes problem only at present (and it has been an iTunes exclusive problem for almost a decade now).

 

[Ryujin]

If, like us, you have a physical backup source, you should be able to figure out that happened before its irrecoverable. There's a reason I keep all my stuff backed up in 2-3 places.

These people got caught with their pants down. Personally, I have a RAID box, 2 systems that have both have large secondary drives, and online storage for the tens of thousands of pictures I've taken over the last 20+ years. I had everything fail, including one drive in my RAID box, within days of each other. The only thing that saved me was being able to rebuild the RAID group, after replacing the dead drive. Things fail. Sometimes they fail with surprising synchronicity.

 

[trappedslider]

I lost roughly 75-100 dollars worth of ebooks from amazon, one day they went poof no sign of being purchased other than the "You already bought this" note on the books page.

As for non-book media, currently the only way I know to get ahold of a tv show that I enjoy is either buying the individual seasons or the complete box set as the show isn't up for streaming outside of 8 seasons out of 23 and only a few seasons are up for purchasing via prime video.

As for music, I have that all backed up or at least what I really like backed up to an external, along with a number of tv shows and movies. I guess if I really felt like (not lazy) I could back it up to a spare internal ssd I have ( i took it out and replaced it with the current one i have in my tower).

 

[Thomas Shey]

These people got caught with their pants down. Personally, I have a RAID box, 2 systems that have both have large secondary drives, and online storage for the tens of thousands of pictures I've taken over the last 20+ years. I had everything fail, including one drive in my RAID box, within days of each other. The only thing that saved me was being able to rebuild the RAID group, after replacing the dead drive. Things fail. Sometimes they fail with surprising synchronicity.

Yeah, but books get flooded on and DVDs get magblasted too. No media are invulnerable.