Digital vs physical media which do you prefer?

[Ryujin]

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

Pretty much anything that nails physical media will also take out data, but the reverse isn't necessarily true.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Pretty much anything that nails physical media will also take out data, but the reverse isn't necessarily true.

This, however, ignores the fact its far easier to have backup duplicates of data than physical media. The backups of all my PDFs, music, maps and videos cost me the price of a few portable hard drives. How much more do you think it'd have cost to by backup physical copies of all that? I can promise it'd be far more than the total cost of those hard drives.

 

[Ryujin]

This, however, ignores the fact its far easier to have backup duplicates of data than physical media. The backups of all my PDFs, music, maps and videos cost me the price of a few portable hard drives. How much more do you think it'd have cost to by backup physical copies of all that? I can promise it'd be far more than the total cost of those hard drives.

True enough, though the physical + digital/PDF model (when available) works well for that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

True enough, though the physical + digital/PDF model (when available) works well for that.

Sure, if you find having both useful. I don't fault people who still like physical media (though I never really cared outside of books), but most of the times these days, the physical media are just another thing I have to find space for. I mean, its not like CDs and DVDs are self-contained anyway; you still need a player for them. Books at least there's an argument for.

 

[payn]

 

[Vael]

A mix ... and both for certain content.

I really prefer comics in paper, as much as apps try and help, reading a comic digitally (unless it's a webcomic) feels wrong.

RPGs ... I want both. I want the book to flip through, but I need PDFs because I would rather have a tablet or laptop with all those books when I travel to play an RPG.

Novels ... digital is fine.

 

[Scribe]

Physical, because you may not own digital, as the OP demonstrates.

 

[payn]

Physical, because you may not own digital, as the OP demonstrates.

Long ago I had this worry, but my CDs and DVDs just collect dust. Pretty much anything I want to revisit I can fairly easily with digital options. I know folks have been burned by digital and maybe ill change my mind if I got burned, but don't think I will even then.

 

[MGibster]

Long ago I had this worry, but my CDs and DVDs just collect dust. Pretty much anything I want to revisit I can fairly easily with digital options. I know folks have been burned by digital and maybe ill change my mind if I got burned, but don't think I will even then.

My CD collection isn't collecting dust only because I have it all boxed up. If I want to listen to one of them I can just search for it on YouTube.

 

[GreyLord]

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).

I'd talk to amazon about that.

There is generally a warning about things that disappear these days.

If you had THAT much disappear recently, I'd imagine it may have been when they switched formats (for their old format to using more of the ebook format now, which I actually appreciate because I can buy books online from other stores and then download them to my Kindle as I wish much more easily. Project Gutenberg books are easy to put onto the kindle).

In regards to the topic question, I suppose it depends. For games, I only buy games that have offline installers (which means, I don't use STEAM and it's default DRM, which is steam...some have even MORE DRM than that). I store them on a backup hard drive. Does that mean I have physical media or digital media?

For books I use a Kindle these days. I still have a huge library with physical books, but most of my reading is via Kindle these days. It's just easier to carry around with a bunch of books on it. They are all stored on the Kindle though, so is that physical or digital media?

All my music is off of Itunes these days. They are downloaded to various apple items though, and those things are physical. Is that physical or digital?

I can't read RPG books off a computer though. I need to be able to flip through them as I wont. RPG books that I actually USE, those are all physical media.

I also refuse to play those boardgames which require you to use a tablet or phone to play. My boardgames are ALL physical media.

Movies are MOSTLY physical media still. I have at times rented or bought a movie because I didn't want to take the trouble to try to hunt down a physical copy (normally it's a movie I haven't seen before and so I'm not sure I WANT to have a physical copy, if I REALLY like it, I can always try to hunt down a physical copy later) and thus would have it digitally (if bought that's a digital copy I own supposedly).