Did dual-layer recordable dvd discs ever make it mainstream?

[superboyac]

I don't ever remember the dual-layer DVD discs taking off, what happened to them?  They barely even sell them in the stores.  If you go to best buy, there may be one package of 5 discs somewhere along that entire shelf of recordable media.

[nudone]

maybe it's due to people getting used to DVDShrink (etc) before dual layer came out. also, there's little point in converting a 700 meg downloaded film into a 8 gig dual layer file to watch on your dvd. yeah, piracy is naughty but let's face it - i think it fair to say it drives the sales of dvd disks.

i suspect the cost also put people off - and there lack of availability in the first place.

[Mark0]

Naahh... serious video consumers just stream!

BTW, I completely agree on the DVDShrink thing. DL support always costed way more than two Single Layer, so there never wasn't much convenience in them.

Bye!

[f0dder]

They're readily available, but prohibitively expensive...

And most pirated downloaded are in single-layer re-encoded format (with proper CCE compression, not dvd shrink) anyway, which is probably why consumers aren't buying DL discs and thus driving prices down.

[superboyac]

Interesting, I didn't think about it that way.  It popped into my head because I was burning a bunch of my unused documents off of my computer, and I used 6 DVD discs, but if I had dual layer, it would have only taken 3 discs.

What about Blu-Ray and HD-DVD for storage?  Do you guys think those will take off.  I read that they'll be able to store around 50GB per disc.  Wow!  That would be amazing, especially if the price was reasonable.  Let's say I can get 4.7GB DVD discs right now for about $0.20-0.50 per disc.  I would definitely pay up to $5 per disc for 50GB.

[f0dder]

The only thing I deem reliable for backups is (hard)disk based solutions - or the big enterprise tape solutions... I'm not going to keep anything important only on optical media, as those wear down with time...

[superboyac]

I agree.  I have a good hard drive backup system in place.  But I'm also a pack rat, and I don't like to just delete anything, so just in case, I'll burn medium-level important stuff onto dvd's.  If they go bad, no big deal.

[Lashiec]

They will take off, sooner or later, and maybe only Blu Ray, taking into account the recent events with HD DVD support. For a second set of backups, they would be invaluable. With 2 or 3 I would had my entire data backed up, and considering that they're more robust than older optical media, they can last 10 years easily (proper manufactured DVDs and CDs can do the same, but they're harder to find). If they go bad after some time, hey pick up two or three more, and burn the data to them, some people do that with DVDs storing critical data, if they found they're starting to fail, they burn a fresh replacement. Remember when buying DVDs was prohibitive (not that long ago)? Now we're buying them in packs containing 50 or 100

[CWuestefeld]

Remember when buying DVDs was prohibitive

Are you kidding? I remember scrounging for 5.25" floppies, and cutting a notch on the opposite side so I could flip them over as double-sided.

[Carol Haynes]

Remember when buying DVDs was prohibitive

Are you kidding? I remember scrounging for 5.25" floppies, and cutting a notch on the opposite side so I could flip them over as double-sided.

Story I remember when 3.5" floppies were introduced was someone folding a 5.25" floppy to get it to fit

[CWuestefeld]

Since I'll be turning thirty-eleven tomorrow, let's count the obsolete computer media I've worked with.

• Paper tape - the first program I ever wrote I stored onto a punched paper tape that spewed out the side of the teletype machine.
• Punched card - the first project I had to hand in was on a deck of punched cards
• Cassette tape - on the school TRS-80, and later on my Atari 800, I stored programs on cassette tape. Finding the right spot on a 60-minute tape was the fun part 
• Magnetic tape reels - a simulation of a filter in the air-to-ground radar of the A6 Intruder was stored on a big tape reel
• Floppies:
  
  • 8" - how many of you knew of, or have ever seen, an 8" floppy?
  • 5.25" - notching them so you can use the flipside. I once dropped a whole box of these into a puddle.
  • 3.5" - we hacked the formatting on the Atari ST. You could fit 1-2 extra sectors on the outer tracks, and you could fit a couple of extra tracks on the inside. And if you staggered the index marks to match the speed of the drive, you could get it to stream successive tracks without waiting for extra rotations. I was hardcore back then.
    I also remember installing OS/2 1.3EE from a stack of 30-something floppy discs.
• QIC-60 backup tapes
• Magneto-optical WORM drives, also for backup

[Carol Haynes]

Sad to say I have used all of those!

I also worked with someone who used to have to 'bootstrap' their computer by hand entering binary code via a set of switches each time they started up or it crashed!

[wreckedcarzz]

I just bought a dual layer compatabile DVD/CD/Lightscribe drive, and am planning on buying dual layer DVDs to burn my movies/backups onto. I found a pack of like 15 of them (don't remember the exact amount) at NewEgg for like $24.99 a few days ago.

[Deozaan]

I'd use DVD-DLs if the price would just drop!

Also, I think it's a bit of a misnomer to say that you can do on a DVD you can do on half as many DVD-DLs since standard DVD size is 4.7GB and DVD-DLs are 8.5GB -- that's almost an entire 1Gb missing! (4.7x2 = 9.4). That's something that disappointed me as I originally bought a few DVD-DLs  (3 for $15!) to backup my MP3s and I had about 9GB of them and couldn't fit them all on one DVD-DL.

[Darwin]

Since I'll be turning thirty-eleven tomorrow...

Sorry I missed your thirty-eleventh birthday on the 19th, cwuesterfield. Hope you had a great day!